Directors at two Lancashire firms have been hit with bans after submitting massively inflated accounting figures to falsely claim from a Covid-19 support scheme.
Mohammed Sultan Khan and Shakil Moulvi were hit with the sanctions after the Insolvency Service found they’d abused a Government-backed loan scheme to borrow money their firms were never entitled to. Both companies then entered liquidation having not repaid a penny of a combined £97,500 of borrowing.
The two companies – Cannel Works Trading Limited and DAJ Group Ltd – are entirely unrelated to each other but Khan and Moulvi are the latest in long series of directors to face punishment for false claims from the Bounce Back Loan (BBL) scheme. The loans were set up to support businesses affected by Covid-19 but came with specific eligibility requirements.
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Khan, 28, was responsible for wholesale trader Cannel Works and claimed to have a turnover of £190,000 in order to receive an initial loan of £47,500 and then a top up of £2,500. However, the firm’s accounts for 2018-19 showed a turnover of £4,700 or just 2.47% of what had been claimed. VAT returns for the calendar year of 2019 showed sales of £11,639. On March 30, 2021, Cannel Works entered liquidation with total liabilities of £74,500 of which £47,500 is in respect of the BBL.
In a separate investigation, Moulvi’s financial services business DAJ Group Ltd was found to have falsely…
