Disqualified director jailed for £3 million fraud which helped bankroll lavish way of life with chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce

• Tariq Sarwar fraudulently transferred greater than £3 million from the sale of a Salford business property
• Christopher Francis laundered the cash via a community of accounts and firms, returning funds to Sarwar with collectors shedding out
• Both males have been sentenced following investigations by the Insolvency Service

Two males who carried out a £3 million insolvency fraud and cash laundering scheme have been sentenced.

Disqualified director Tariq Sarwar, 59, knew his firm was in monetary problem and prone to be wound-up when he bought business property in Salford – his firm’s solely substantial asset – for greater than £5 million.

Sarwar fraudulently transferred greater than £3 million from the proceeds of that sale with out paying off his firm’s money owed to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and different collectors.

The cash went to a meals and drinks firm managed by Christopher Francis, 40, who laundered the funds via a community of accounts and different corporations again to Sarwar.

While collectors had been left owed greater than £500,000, Sarwar and his household loved a lavish way of life within the Cheshire countryside, together with a six-bedroom dwelling full of designer merchandise from Versace and Louis Vuitton.

His son even appeared on actuality tv programme Rich Kids Go Skint, filmed in the summertime of 2019, the place he admitted he had by no means been on a bus earlier than and was chauffeured round in a Rolls-Royce.

Sarwar, of Gore Lane, Alderley Edge, admitted expenses of fraudulently eradicating property in anticipation of winding-up and performing as an organization director whereas disqualified in April this 12 months.

He was jailed for 4 years and banned as an organization director for 10 years when he appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Friday 12 June.

Francis, of Letchworth Road, Luton, pleaded responsible in the midst of his trial final month to at least one depend of cash laundering underneath the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

He was sentenced to 2 years and one month in jail, suspended for 2 years, on the identical listening to.

Francis was additionally ordered to hold out 250 hours of unpaid work.

The Insolvency Service has already began investigations to confiscate the funds.

David Snasdell, Chief Investigator on the Insolvency Service, stated:

Tariq Sarwar and Christopher Francis went to appreciable lengths to cover their felony actions, shifting hundreds of thousands of kilos via an online of corporations to cowl their tracks.

Property corporations don’t hand greater than £3 million to an unconnected meals and drinks enterprise out of generosity. This was fraud, plain and easy.

The Insolvency Service will proceed to pursue confiscation proceedings to make sure Sarwar and Francis don’t get to maintain what was by no means rightfully theirs.

Daniel Hart, Senior Criminal Lawyer on the Insolvency Service, stated:

Tariq Sarwar diverted hundreds of thousands of kilos past the attain of collectors to keep up a luxurious way of life, regardless of being disqualified as an organization director.

Together with Christopher Francis, he sought to disguise the proceeds via a community of corporations to evade detection. That try failed. The Insolvency Service traced the fraud and introduced each males to justice.

The Insolvency Service is dedicated to concentrating on those that search to cover criminality behind company buildings and can take sturdy motion towards those that abuse the insolvency regime or interact in company abuse. Offenders can count on to be prosecuted and to face severe penalties.

Sarwar was disqualified as an organization director for 11 years in November 2013. At the time, his firm owed at the least £1.6 million to collectors but he organized for greater than 1 / 4 of one million kilos to be paid to his private profit from an insurance coverage declare.

The firm went into administration lower than eight weeks after this fee.

Sarwar’s disqualification prevented him by legislation from forming, managing or selling an organization with out the permission of the court docket, which he didn’t have.

Despite this, he acted as director of A Property Management Limited between November 2014 and July 2018, and of Willowloch Limited for nearly 10 years from April 2015 till his disqualification resulted in November 2024.

In each cases, though different people had been formally appointed as administrators, Sarwar retained precise management of the businesses.

A Property Management Limited’s buying and selling actions had been buying Langley Mill Business Park on Langley Road in Salford, renovating it and letting particular person models to different companies.

Willowloch Limited’s major buying and selling exercise was the acquisition and conversion of the previous Stockport Police Station on Lee Street into flats.

The two corporations had been financially intertwined. Money was moved between them with out clear justification, and funds from A Property Management Limited had been used to service a mortgage that benefited Willowloch Limited.

HMRC utilized to have A Property Management Limited wound-up in March 2018 after the corporate did not pay £130,000 in tax.

Sarwar due to this fact knew that there was a practical prospect his firm could be shut down.

Just three months later, Langley Mill Business Park was bought for just below £5.1 million.

After mortgages and authorized charges had been paid off, Sarwar instructed A Property Management Limited’s solicitors to switch the remaining quantity to KYCA Trading Limited, an organization directed by Francis.

Almost £3.1 million was moved inside 9 days of the sale.

By early July 2018, your complete sum had been paid into accounts belonging to 6 different corporations.

Insolvency Service investigations traced £645,000 which had been subsequently transferred to an organization whose administrators had been members of Sarwar’s instant household.

An additional £748,980 handed via a collection of different corporations earlier than finally discovering its means again to Sarwar’s circle of relatives enterprise and into his private enterprise account.

When the Insolvency Service contacted Sarwar about his function within the sale of Langley Mill Business Park, he denied any involvement.

Francis claimed that greater than £700,000 had been transferred as a deposit on 5 penthouses.

This was a transaction he couldn’t title, doc, or credibly clarify.

Francis was disqualified as an organization director for six years in March 2021 after failing to offer satisfactory accounting information for KYCA Trading Limited.

He claimed his automotive, containing his laptop computer and all enterprise information, had been stolen and burnt out in a single day.

HMRC had been later repaid in full and different collectors finally acquired a restricted return on what they had been owed.

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