A man has been jailed for four years after fraudulently claiming over £710,000 in Covid-19 small business grants intended to support struggling companies during the height of the pandemic.
Aftab Baig, 47, from Glasgow, posed as a property manager from Greggs to defraud Leeds City Council, submitting dozens of fake grant applications for business rates relief in May 2020. He was convicted of three counts of fraud and sentenced at Leeds Crown Court.
Exploiting a National Crisis
Baig targeted the Small Business Grant Fund, a government scheme created to assist small firms through the financial strain of the Coronavirus lockdowns. He made fraudulent claims against 32 Leeds properties, all of which he falsely claimed were branches of Greggs.
Pretending to be a Group Property Manager at Greggs Head Office, Baig contacted Leeds Council requesting business rates reference numbers, claiming he was unable to access the information himself due to lockdown restrictions. Using the obtained details, he successfully applied for business rates relief, diverting more than £710,000 into a bank account linked to his catering business.
Baig had no official connection to Greggs and was acting entirely without their knowledge.
Fraud Discovered and Money Frozen
Leeds City Council became suspicious and launched an internal investigation, quickly identifying the fraudulent nature of the claims. The account receiving the funds was frozen in May 2020, with most of the stolen money recovered, although more than £90,000 remains outstanding.
An operation led by the National Investigation Service (NATIS) resulted in Baig’s arrest by Police Scotland at his Glasgow home in July 2020. Officers seized £16,000 in cash and forged remittance slips, which Baig was allegedly preparing to use in a bid to unfreeze the stolen funds.
CPS and NATIS Condemn “Brazen” Fraud
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.”
She confirmed that proceedings will now begin to recover any assets gained through criminal conduct.
A spokesperson for NATIS added that the case demonstrated the importance of safeguarding emergency public funding and praised the swift collaboration between law enforcement agencies and local authorities.
