A hotel owner has been jailed for fraudulently claiming thousands of pounds from Government schemes to help businesses survive the Covid crisis.
Shahid Naseeb Ahmed, 42, tried to falsely claim around 138,840 from the Government’s Eat Out To Help Out Scheme (EOTHO) and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS).
His claims were for the Merchants Hotel in Back Piccadilly in Manchester, between April 2020 and August 2021. He was the sole director of the hotel at the time of the claims.
Under the EOTHO scheme he falsely claimed 61,165 and from the CJRS he falsely claimed 51,708. Further false claims were stopped when HMRC became suspicious.
The EOTHO scheme incentivised people to eat in restaurants and cafes by giving them a discount which the restaurateur could then claim back from the Government. It was designed to revitalise the catering industry which had been hit by the Covid lockdown.
The CJRS was created to support UK employers and employees who could not maintain their current workforce because their operations were affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.
Operation Egon was an investigation by HMRC into fraudulent claims made from the schemes.
Investigators discovered that Ahmed did not serve food in his hotel at all. The only “catering” was tea and coffee-making facilities in the hotel bedrooms. Yet he claimed for thousands of diners in the investigation period.
Ahmed also “doubled up” his claims by claiming for two separate hotels - Merchants Hotel Ltd and Merchants...
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