A new contender for the title of biggest Bounce Back Loan blagger

20 July 2023 , 07:18

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Milking the system: Khalid Bhatti

I asked recently if Davina Prasad was Britain’s most brazen Bounce Back Loan blagger.

This government scheme was meant to help small firms survive the coronavirus lockdown with a single loan of up to £50,000, but Prasad lied to get four of them.

When her London online clothes company folded almost all the £200,000 was left unpaid.

Now I’ve found someone who got 12 Bounce Back Loans, each for the maximum £50,000, spread across 12 of his companies, and hasn’t repaid a penny.

According to the Insolvency Service, none of the companies met the criteria for claiming the loans, which were “improperly obtained”.

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All 12 companies are now in liquidation, leaving the taxpayer £600,000 out of pocket.

The director was 41-year-old Khalid Iqbal Bhatti of Waltham Cross, Herts, and blagging taxpayer cash is not all he was up to.

He ran a series of property investment companies including Daniel Johns Manchester Limited, which plugged a luxury canalside flat complex that would include a swimming pool, sauna, gym, cinema and rooftop gardens.

Investors were promised 7% returns for the first five years, followed by a 125% return on their capital at the end of year five.

Leases for 107 units were sold but the Insolvency Service says the development was abandoned, “leaving the property a derelict shell”.

The investors lost around £5.5million.

"It has not been possible to trace where these monies have been used," the Insolvency Service report adds.

Companies that were part of Bhatti’s Daniel Johns Group also marketed property investments in London, Liverpool, Leeds and Leicester.

In Hull, a former six-storey hotel that was supposedly going to be converted into high-end flats has been branded a “rotting eyesore”.

Bhatti has now been banned for being a director of UK companies for 13 years.

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I’m not sure how much that will bother him, given the reports that he’s returned to his native Pakistan to start property investment businesses there.

I wrote about other directors who fleeced the lockdown loans then disappeared overseas here.

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Andrew Penman