Meet the man running tax-avoiding snail farms in London

Burgundy snail (Ivan Marjanovic/shutterstock.com)

Terry Ball is 79 years old, runs a snail farm in Lancashire, England, and has spent years helping landlords cheat local councils out of millions in business rates. His method: breed snails in empty office buildings and claim the property qualifies as a farm, which is exempt from taxes.

According to The Guardian, Ball discovered a loophole in HMRC guidance while reading tax documents at 2am. A 1980s parliamentary ruling clarified that “molluscs of any description” qualify as fish farms for agricultural purposes. Snails are molluscs. Snails are easy to breed. Ball ran with it.

He sets up, er, shell companies for £35 each, signs leases on empty office blocks, and drops off boxes of hibernating snails that breed and eat through their body fat without human supervision. When councils liquidate the companies for unpaid debts, he registers new ones. Westminster council is currently trying to recover over £286,000 from his various enterprises. Ball’s response: “I’m turning 80 next month, and I haven’t got jack shit in my name. What are they going to do?”

Ball is quite a character. He openly admitted to journalist Jim Waterson that he spent years hiding members of the Naples mafia in Lancashire — including a convicted killer named Gennaro Panzuto, who later became a TikTok influencer. His current snail farm employee, Giuseppe, is also a former convicted drug trafficker.

Ball says he does it “for devilment,” revenge against authorities who bankrupted him years ago. “All my friends who have retired, you can’t have a conversation with them, they’re just waiting to die,” he told The Guardian. “I’ve had a laugh.”