Café owner sentenced over £150,000 Covid loan fraud

A café owner has received a suspended prison sentence after falsely claiming £150,000 in Covid support loans.

Mehmet Akyuz, 36, fraudulently obtained three Bounce Back Loans worth £50,000 each in 2020 for his Green and Hove Limited and Leathers Wear Limited companies.

Neither company was trading at the start of the pandemic, and the funds were transferred to his personal bank account, the Insolvency Service said.

Akyuz, of Conway Street, Brighton and Hove, was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, when he appeared at Hove Crown Court on Monday 14 April.

He was also disqualified as a company director for five years and ordered to complete 300 hours of unpaid work.

David Snasdell, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Mehmet Akyuz’s actions in fraudulently applying for three Bounce Back Loans he was not entitled to were completely unacceptable.

“This was taxpayers’ money designed to support small businesses through the pandemic and should not have been exploited in such a cynical manner.

“The Insolvency Service remains committed to investigating these cases and bringing fraudsters such as Akyuz to justice.”

Akyuz applied for a £50,000 loan for Greene and Hove by claiming it had a turnover of £270,000. He also applied to two separate banks for £50,000 Bounce Back Loans for Leathers Wear by falsely claiming the company turnover was £215,000 - £225,000.

Akyuz later tried to have Leathers Wear struck-off the Companies House register in June 2022 in an attempt to avoid repaying the loan.

The Insolvency Service is continuing to crackdown on Covid loan fraud post-pandemic. In January, a restaurant owner was jailed for almost three years and ordered to repay almost £40,000 after using Covid business loans to clear personal debts.

Last year a restaurant manager was handed a suspended sentence after using a £50,000 Bounce Back loan to buy £12,000 of jewellery.