The UK’s richest gypsy who commands a fortune of more than £700million says he will never move back to Britain for one reason.
Alfie Best, 52, left school at the age of 12 and went on to build a huge empire of mobile home sites up and down the country, known as Wyldecrest. He is now on the Sunday Times rich list with a fortune of £700million but has now upped sticks and moved to the millionaire's playground of Monaco.
As a result of his new lodgings in the south coast of France he does not pay UK income tax and says he will never come home as a result - because he can save millions of pounds every year. Alfie, who is on course to become the world's first 'gypsy billionaire', told MailOnline: “It's true I will not be paying personal income tax by living in Monaco but all my companies are still in the UK so they will be paying tax.
“I have always paid my fair share of tax and will continue to do so. The only difference being here in Monaco is I do not pay personal income tax. So when I get dividends from my companies there will be no income tax to pay. It is no longer Great Britain but Broken Britain. If you are a successful businessman, you are punished by the taxman and I have had enough of that. I have been chased for seven years and have had enough of that.”
Best had a humble start to life where he was born on the side of a road in Leicester to a poor Romany Gypsy family in April 1970. At the age of 10 years old, Alfie was going off with his dad to tarmac driveways, then he left school at 12 and started his first business buying and selling cars and vans two years later.
He got a job earning £70 a week in a phone shop, but three weeks later he started his own one and in just 18 months he had 13 stores in London. The self-proclaimed caravan king sold it all and invested in property, starting out with touring and static caravan parks before buying his first mobile home park in Romford, Essex.
Now he owns Europe's largest holiday and residential park home operator, The Wyldecrest Parks, with 91 parks in the UK alone and 16,000 residents. His company has benefitted from the staycation boom and his rapidly expanding empire has almost doubled in size in the last four years, but mass expansion has upset some customers and led to clashes with the local authorities.