Accountant jailed for Covid loan fraud

An accountant who helped himself to £27,000 from the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme as part of a bigger Covid loans fraud has been jailed for three years and eight months.

Zeeshan Ashraf claimed a total of £268,102.07 and tried to claim £52,732.66 that he was not entitled to from support schemes set up to help struggling businesses during the pandemic

Prosecutors revealed that Ashraf treated the funds as a ‘personal piggy bank’ using them to fund his lifestyle rather than supporting his business. He falsely inflated his company’s turnover to secure maximum loans from Barclays, Starling, and NatWest, and made multiple fraudulent applications under the Covid job retention scheme, receiving £91,174.

Additionally, he exploited the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, claiming £26,928 for non-existent hospitality businesses. The Crown Prosecution Service aims to recover the misappropriated funds for the public purse.

Ashraf used his company, AZ Certified Accounting Limited,to claim bounce back loans from Barclays, Starling, and NatWest banks in 2020. In each application he said the money would help his business during the pandemic but spent the £50,000 he secured from each bank on his personal lifestyle. In his applications he inflated the turnover of the company to claim the maximum amount and did not disclose to the last two banks that he had already made an application to Barclays. Only one application was permitted.

Kate Hurst from the Crown Prosecution Service 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. A small amount of the money Ashraf received has been repaid but the CPS will seek to recover the remainder and return it to the public purse.

“The CPS and investigative agencies will continue to pursue fraudsters who dishonestly enrich themselves from government support grants and loans.”