News, West Midlands
An accountant has been jailed for fraudulently claiming more than £268,000 through Covid loans and support schemes, using the funds like a “personal piggy bank” to pay for his lifestyle.
Zeeshan Ashraf, 44, from Birmingham, cheated the business bounce back loan scheme, Covid job retention scheme, and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme “at a time of national crisis”, prosecutors said.
He was jailed for three years and eight months at Birmingham Crown Court after previously admitting five counts of fraud.
“A small amount of the money Ashraf received has been repaid but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will seek to recover the remainder and return it to the public purse,” a CPS spokesperson said.
During his spree of crimes, Ashraf, from Glaisdale Road in Hall Green, used his company AZ Certified Accounting Limited to claim bounce back loans from Barclays, Starling, and NatWest banks in 2020, according to prosecutors.
The financial support was launched in May that year to help small and medium sized businesses to borrow up to £50,000 through bank loans covered by the government.
Ashraf claimed the money would help his business during the pandemic, but spent the £50,000 from each bank on his personal lifestyle, the CPS said.
He inflated the turnover of his company to claim the maximum amount available and did not disclose to two banks that he had already submitted an application to Barclays.
‘Unscrupulous’
In another fraud, the CPS said, Ashraf made multiple false or unauthorised applications to HM Revenue and Customs on behalf of his business clients under the job retention scheme – where workers were furloughed and paid or partly paid by the government – and received £91,174 .
A claim for a further £38,082 did not succeed, prosecutors said.
Ashraf also swindled the Eat Out to Help Out scheme out of £26,928 by making numerous applications on behalf of hospitality companies which did not exist, or did not operate in the restaurant trade, the CPS said.
He unsuccessfully tried to claim a further £14,651 under the scheme.
Prosecutors said he carried out his fraud between April 2020 and April 2021.
Kate Hurst from the CPS said: “At a time of national crisis, organisations relied on people to make honest claims for support, but this allowed unscrupulous individuals to take advantage.
“This crucial lifeline to help businesses was seen by Zeeshan Ashraf as his personal piggy bank.”
In total, he fraudulently secured a sum of £268,102.07.
