A FRAUDSTER who pretended he labored for top road baker Greggs as he swindled greater than £710,000 in Covid grants is dealing with jail.
Aftab Baig, 47, made fraudulent claims to Leeds Metropolis Council in opposition to thirty-two properties and organized for the cash to enter his enterprise account.
3
3
The cash got here from the Small Enterprise Grant Fund, one in all a number of schemes arrange by the federal government to assist small companies with charges reduction through the pandemic.
In Could 2020, Baig contacted Leeds Council pretending to be a gaggle property supervisor at Greggs Head Workplace.
He requested for enterprise charges numbers for Leeds branches and claimed he couldn’t entry them as a result of lockdown.
Baig, who had no hyperlinks to Greggs and was not employed by them, used the small print to use for charges reduction to the tune of £710,000.
This was paid right into a checking account related together with his catering enterprise.
In Could 2020, the council realised the claims have been fraudulent and took motion which resulted within the account being frozen.
Whereas many of the cash was later returned to the council greater than £90,000 was left excellent.
The Nationwide Investigation Service (NATIS) launched a probe and Baig was arrested in Glasgow by Police Scotland in July 2020.
Officers raided his house and located £16,000 in money in addition to solid remittance slips which detectives believed he was planning to make use of to influence the financial institution to return the frozen cash.
Baig, of Paisley Street, Glasgow, was discovered responsible of three counts of fraud on February 12 at Leeds Crown Courtroom.
He is because of be sentenced subsequent month.
Kelly Ward from the Crown Prosecution Service mentioned: “Baig took benefit of the tough circumstances of the pandemic in 2020 to defraud the council out of taxpayers cash.
“Those that cheat the general public purse are stealing funds which ought to rightly go in direction of companies and the neighborhood, or on this case in direction of supporting small companies by a particularly difficult time.
“We is not going to hesitate to work along with investigators akin to NATIS to carry offenders like Baig to justice.
“We can even be beginning proceedings to get better any belongings ensuing from this criminality.”
3
