Birmingham Gang jailed for £2.4m Covid-19 Fraud

A Birmingham gang has been jailed for nearly 50 years in total after they fraudulently claimed more than £2 million worth of Covid-19 funding.

They made bogus applications for small business grants, bounce back loans, self-assessment payments and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme following the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020.

Qirat Deeas and Ummer Yousaf led the scheme.

Yousaf was described as the group’s “forger” and the “brains” behind the money laundering operation.

The other members had varying degrees of involvement including recruiting and directing, making fraudulent applications and laundering the illegal proceeds.

Every member apart from Al-Harris Hussain played a part in the fraud. He was only convicted of money laundering.

The group used more than 50 companies to apply for funding and over 100 bank and cryptocurrency accounts to hide the money.

They operated from a Digbeth office.

Some of the illegal cash was used to take out lease agreements for Volkswagen and Audis for the gang to drive around in.

Most of the men made enough out of the Covid-19 scam to live in Dubai, where the money was transferred to. They also travelled to Istanbul.

The fraud was worth between £2.3 million and £3 million.

The gang made 50 successful applications for small business grants netting £500,000 in total. They also obtained £1.3 million worth of bounce back loans and secured £559,491.03 worth of self-assessment and Eat Out to Help Out payments.

Twelve men were convicted for their involvement in the Covid-19 scam, 10 of whom were sentenced.

Mark Jackson, prosecuting on behalf of Birmingham City Council trading standards, said:

“This was public money and the defendants set out to dishonestly take as much as they possibly could then to launder it outside the UK jurisdiction and outside the reach of UK authorities.”

Judge Roderick Henderson said: “This was a persistent and sophisticated fraud involving stealing large amounts of money from the community at the time of national emergency.

“The urgency of the situation meant money was paid out with very few checks. These defendants saw this and cashed in.”

Those sentenced were:

• Qirat Deeas admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and two counts of money laundering. He was jailed for seven years and seven months.
• Ummer Yousaf was found guilty of two counts each of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering as well as a charge of failing to comply with a RIPA notice. He was sentenced to eight years.
• Sajid Hussain admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was jailed for five years.
• Sameer Mohammed admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was sentenced to four years and nine months.
• Noah Deen pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was jailed for five years and three months.
• Usaamah Bin Taariq admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was sentenced to four years.
• Tassadaq Hussain admitted one count each of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. He was sentenced to four years and nine months.
• Imaan Hussain admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was sentenced to four years and nine months.
• Naqeeb Shakurt admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. He was sentenced to four years and nine months.
• Al-Harris Hussain was found guilty of one offence of money laundering. He was sentenced to two years suspended for two years.

Zishan Ahmed and Harun Shehzad both admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of money laundering. They will be sentenced at a later date.

Judge Henderson commended the council for the “impressive, diligent and far-reaching” investigation.