A man has been found guilty of defrauding Leeds City Council out of more than £710,000 which was meant to support small businesses during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Aftab Baig, 47 from Glasgow, made fraudulent grant claims against thirty-two properties, which were branches of Greggs, arranging for the money to go into his business account. He did this at the height of the pandemic while the country was locked down and small businesses struggled to stay afloat.
The money came from the Small Business Grant Fund, one of several schemes set up by the Government to help small businesses with business rates relief.
In May 2020, Baig contacted Leeds Council pretending to be a Group Property Manager at Greggs Head Office asking for business rates numbers for Leeds branches, details which he claimed he could not access himself due to lockdown.
Baig, who had no links to Greggs and was not employed by them, used the details to apply for rates relief to the tune of £710,000 which was paid into a bank account associated with his catering business.
In May 2020, with the council having realised the claims were fraudulent, action was taken which resulted in the account being frozen. While most of the money was later returned to the council, more than £90,000 was left outstanding.
The investigation was led by the National Investigation Service (NATIS) and Baig was arrested in Glasgow in July 2020 by Police Scotland officers.
At Baig’s house, £16,000 in cash was found, as well as forged remittance slips which officers believed that he was planning to use to try and persuade the bank to return the frozen money.
Baig was found guilty of three counts of fraud on 12 February at Leeds Crown Court.
Kelly Ward from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Baig took advantage of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic in 2020 to defraud the council out of taxpayers money.
“Those who cheat the public purse are stealing funds which should rightly go towards services and the community, or in this case towards supporting small businesses through an extremely challenging time.
“We will not hesitate to work together with investigators such as NATIS to bring offenders like Baig to justice.
“We will also be starting proceedings to recover any assets resulting from this criminality.”
