Fraudster who used £200,000 Covid loans to invest in stocks is jailed

A businesswoman who fraudulently claimed about £200,000 in Covid loans because of a "messy divorce" has been jailed.

Rupali Wagh, 51, from Cardiff, fraudulently claimed the money from the UK government-backed scheme designed to support businesses through the pandemic between May and September 2020.

She inflated the value of her businesses and used the money to invest in stocks and shares, as well as clearing credit card debts.

She pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud in November and was jailed for two years and three months at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Friday.

Judge David Wynn Morgan said "it was wholly dishonest for personal gain".

Wagh secured £216,250 - five Bounce Back Loans and also two other loans - for her companies, when businesses were only entitled to one.

Her first fraudulent application came in May 2020 when she applied for a £16,250 Bounce Back loan for One2Four Accounting Ltd - a bookkeeping services company she set up in June 2018.

She declared the company had a turnover of £65,000 and the funds would be used wholly for business purposes.

In reality, the company's turnover for the previous calendar year was £39,000.

Prosecutor Jenny Yeo, said Wagh moved the loan money to her personal account and "spent most of it paying off debts and purchasing stocks and shares".

The following month, Wagh applied for a £50,000 loan, the maximum allowed under the scheme, for Talensetu UK Ltd.

She claimed the business had a turnover of £218,000, when dormant accounts filed by the company for June 2019 - June 2020 showed it was not trading.

Within days of receiving the funds, Wagh transferred the entire £50,000 into her personal account and spent it on personal finance and stocks and shares.

She also transferred more than £25,000 to an account in India.

Wagh applied for a second £50,000 Bounce Back loan for Talensetu, a recruitment company, in July 2020, this time from a different bank.

She claimed a turnover of £225,000 despite having estimated its turnover for the next calendar year as £72,000 on the bank account application form she completed the same day.

Wagh also falsely declared this was the company's only Bounce Back loan application.

After receiving the funds in August, Wagh again transferred almost all of it into her personal account and spent it on stocks and shares, and paying off personal finance.

She followed this up with a fourth fraudulent application in August 2020, seeking £50,000 for White Coconut Ltd - which traded as an Indian street food outlet in Cardiff.

She claimed a turnover of £252,000, again contradicting the £72,000 estimate she provided on her bank account application.

Wagh again falsely declared this was the company's only Bounce Back loan application, despite having already secured £18,000 from Lloyds Bank for the same business four months earlier.

Her final fraudulent application came in September 2020, when she applied for a £50,000 loan for Indian Canteen Ltd - a street food business incorporated in January of that year.

Wagh claimed a turnover of £206,000, despite estimating on her bank account application that the company's turnover for the next year would be just £82,000.

She later transferred more than £25,000 of the loan funds to White Coconut Ltd.

In interviews with the Insolvency Service, Wagh admitted using the funds to pay off personal credit card debts and loans, saying she thought that by clearing her personal debts, she would be helping her businesses.

Jack Barry, defending, said: "My client was going through a divorce in 2016 and a difficult personal time and this was not for enrichment but to preserve her companies for her staff during the Covid pandemic."

He added Wagh had become "confused" on one application and thought she was applying for a "top up" loan from the initial £18,000.

David Snasdell, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said Wagh "systematically targeted a scheme designed to help genuine businesses survive the pandemic".