Man cons council out of £710k in 'Greggs' swindle

A man pretending to be a property manager for bakery chain Greggs conned a city council out of £710,000, a court has heard.

Aftab Baig, 47, made fraudulent small business grant claims from Leeds City Council against 32 properties which were branches of the firm during the Covid pandemic in May 2020.

Baig, who had no links to Greggs and was not employed by the company, was eventually caught out and all but £90,000 was later returned to the council.

At Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday, Baig, of Paisley Road West, Glasgow, was found guilty of three counts of fraud. Leeds City Council called his actions "brazen and calculated".

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Baig contacted Leeds City Council pretending to be a group property manager at the bakery chain's head office.

He asked for business rates numbers for the firm's Leeds branches, details of which he claimed he could not access himself due to the Covid lockdown.

Baig then used the details to apply to the Small Business Grant Fund, money from which was paid into a bank account associated with his catering business.

The grant was one of several government schemes aimed at helping small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic.

That same month, when the council realised the claims were fraudulent, the account was frozen and Baig was arrested in Glasgow two months later by Police Scotland officers.

A total of about £16,000 in cash was found at his house, as well as forged remittance slips which officers believed he was planning to use to try and persuade the bank to return the frozen money, the CPS said.

Following the guilty verdict, Kelly Ward, from the CPS, said: "Baig took advantage of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic in 2020 to defraud the council out of taxpayers' money.

"Those who cheat the public purse are stealing funds which should rightly go towards services and the community or, in this case, towards supporting small businesses through an extremely challenging time."

Ms Ward said proceedings would be started to recover any assets resulting from Baig's criminality, with the defendant due to be sentenced on 31 March.

A Leeds City Council spokesperson said: "This money was intended to support local businesses in Leeds at a time when they were facing unprecedented pressures and when the city and its communities were coming together to get through the pandemic.

"For someone to take advantage of such challenging circumstances and defraud the public purse is shocking and we would like to thank all those involved in this investigation for helping to ensure justice has been served."

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