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UK court sentences man for COVID loan fraud
Prashant Jobanputra said his company was badly affected by the pandemic and that he failed to read the loan agreement.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Sat, 31, Jan 2026
- 03:18 EST
- 29
Representative image / Pexels
A U.K. court convicted printing firm boss, Prashant Jobanputra, on charges of fraudulently obtaining multiple loans for his company under the U.K. government’s COVID-19 Bounce Back Loan scheme.
On Jan. 27, The Old Bailey court in London sentenced 41-year-old Jobanputra to 18 months in prison. Additionally, he was disqualified as a company director for three years and fined 5,000 pounds.
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Jobanputra applied for two £50,000 Bounce Back Loans for his printing business, Genesis Web Limited, within a five-day period in the summer of 2020, in spite of the legal limit for each company being one loan. The 41-year-old fraudulently declared on the second application that this was the only Bounce Back Loan for which he had applied.
The entrepreneur had repaid £15,371 ($21,045.97) of the fraudulent loan, weeks before he was initially due to be sentenced. The remaining £35,000 ($47,922) has not been paid back so far.
David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, remarked, "Prashant Jobanputra fraudulently applied for two Bounce Back Loans when the rules were clear - businesses were only allowed one."
Snasdell added, "We will be conducting further investigations to recover the remaining funds. Tackling Covid support scheme abuse remains a key priority for the Insolvency Service and we will continue to track down and prosecute fraudsters who stole from the public purse during a national emergency."
In interviews, Jobanputra said his company was badly affected by the pandemic and that he did not read the loan agreement which clearly stated that businesses were only entitled to a single Bounce Back Loan.
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