Bradford Covid-19 fraudster ordered to repay £123,000 in loans
He's already serving a two year prison term after admitting five charges of Covid related fraud.
A BRADFORD fraudster who stole the identity of one of his father’s tenants to apply for a Covid-19 business loan has been ordered to repay £123,000.
Last year Shohid Ahmed was jailed for two years after admitting five charges of Covid related fraud.
At the time he was described by a judge as “callous” for the way he involved an innocent woman in his attempts to gain fraudulent loans near the start of the pandemic in 2020, stealing information, including passport details, she had given to his father in order to rent a property.
Last week at a Proceeds of Crime hearing Ahmed, of Bardsey Crescent, was ordered to pay £123,000, plus costs of £6,000.
He has three months to pay the confiscation order which takes into account the change in the value of money since 2020, or face an additional 15 months in prison.
During the Covid pandemic, Ahmed applied for three maximum-value Bounce Back Loans on behalf of Red Square Restaurants Limited, using his wife’s name because she had a better credit history.
The 41-year-old received £100,000 of the £150,000 he applied for in 2020.
In almost six years since the fraudulent applications, he has repaid just £15,000.
He attempted to conceal the fraud by filing false documents naming an innocent woman who simply rented a house from his father, as director of the company.
He also produced a fabricated invoice claiming £15,000 of the loan money had been spent on refurbishing the restaurant, which traded as Ruby’s Lounge on Huddersfield Road in Mirfield.
Ahmed has also been disqualified as a company director for 11 years in December 2021 for the same misconduct.
When he was sentenced in May 2025, the court was read a victim impact statement that said the woman involved in Ahmed’s fraud had suffered anxiety knowing her passport details had been used without her knowledge.
When first interviewed about the suspect loans, Ahmed argued that the woman was director of the company, and he was just a waiter at the restaurant, earning around £12,000 a year.
Judge Sophie McKone said: “You took advantage of a scheme designed to help businesses like yours and you cynically told lies to get money. For your greed, you took money from the public purse at a time when the public purse could least afford it.
“You involved other people in this sophisticated enterprise. You used your wife’s details and, in a particularly callous move, used the details of a tenant of your father’s. You stole her ID and used her details to facilitate your fraud.”
After last week’s Proceeds of Crime hearing Alexander Grierson, Head of Asset Recovery at the Insolvency Service, said: “Bounce Back Loans were designed to help legitimate businesses survive one of the most difficult periods in recent memory. Shohid Ahmed abused that scheme through harmful and deceptive behaviour, which is why he was jailed last year.
“This confiscation order sends a clear message that a prison sentence is not the end of the matter.
“Those who steal from the public purse should be in no doubt that we will come for the fraudulently-obtained money.”
What Ahmed did to warrant the prosecution
Red Square Restaurants Limited was incorporated in May 2018 with Ahmed’s wife as sole director. Ahmed was officially director for just one day, resigning on 10 February 2020.
Despite this, he made three Bounce Back Loan applications in his wife’s name in May and June 2020, claiming the restaurant was actively trading.
This directly contradicted his own application to have the company struck off the Companies House register in April 2020, in which he stated it had not traded for three months.
The Bounce Back Loans were not used for the benefit of the business as required under the scheme.
Ahmed produced an invoice claiming £15,000 had been paid to an interior design firm in Stockton-on-Tees, but Insolvency Service investigators found the address was occupied by a cafe that had traded there for 37 years.
Neither the cafe nor the building’s landlord had ever heard of the design company.
Shortly before a liquidator was appointed to wind up Red Square Restaurants in July 2020, Ahmed filed documents with Companies House falsely claiming a new director had been appointed on New Year’s Day 2020.
The woman named had no connection to the business and confirmed she had simply rented a house from Ahmed’s father. Ahmed nevertheless claimed she managed the restaurant, had taken out the loans, and controlled the bank accounts, while describing himself as a waiter on a £12,000 salary.
A restaurant now operates from the same address under a different name. Shohid Ahmed is not a director of that company.