Jailed Covid fraudster ordered to repay Bounce Back Loan in full
Source: gov.uk (2025-01-06)

The £30,000 loan was used to pay-off personal debts

Restaurant owner Ilhan Kekec was jailed last year for fraudulently securing a Covid Bounce Back Loan and applying to dissolve his business without informing creditors

The 36-year-old overstated his company’s turnover to obtain the £30,000 loan just months into the pandemic

Kekec will now have to pay the funds back in full or have his prison sentence extended by 18 months

A fraudster jailed for illegally obtaining a Covid Bounce Back Loan has been ordered to pay the funds back in full with interest.

Restaurant owner Ilhan Kekec overstated his company’s turnover to secure a £30,000 loan in May 2020.

The 36-year-old was jailed for two-and-a-half years in March 2024 following a trial at Isleworth Crown Court.

Kekec, of Abbotts Drive, Waltham Abbey, Essex, was ordered to repay a total of £37,426 within three months at a confiscation hearing at the same court on Friday 20 December or face an additional 18 months in prison.

He will still have to repay the loan should his prison sentence be extended.

Kekec was also ordered to pay £15,900 in costs.

Alexander Grierson, Head of Asset Recovery at the Insolvency Service, said:

Ilhan Kekec not only supplied false information to fraudulently acquire £30,000 in taxpayer funds at the start of the pandemic but then proceeded to use the loan to pay off personal debts.

This was not how the loans were supposed to be used and Kekec himself declared in his application that he would use the money for the economic benefit of his business.

Securing this confiscation order is important as it means Kekec must pay this money back in full or spend even longer in prison.

Kekec falsely claimed the turnover of his Hizirali Ltd business was £125,000 when making the application for a Bounce Back Loan in May 2020.

Hizirali was set up by Kekec to run the Derwish Kebab Restaurant inside the food court of the East Shopping Centre on Green Street in Forest Gate, London.

Kekec had traded for three years through another company, Helosh Limited, as the Derwish Restaurant on St Albans Road, Watford, before opening this second restaurant.

However, his new venture only traded for three weeks before the Covid lockdown, and he was unable to open during that period.

Kekec withdrew the Bounce Back Loan money in cash and later admitted to Insolvency Service investigators that he spent the funds on clearing personal debts.

He applied to dissolve his company in June 2020, claiming it was no longer economically viable for him to run the restaurant.

However, he deliberately failed in his statutory duty to inform his creditors within seven days of his voluntary strike-off application with Companies House.

Kekec was also banned as a company director for three years when he was sentenced for his offences earlier in the year.

Further information

Ilhan Kekec is of Abbotts Drive, Waltham Abbey, Essex. His date of birth is 30 March 1988

Sentenced for: Two counts of fraud by false representation, contrary to section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 and two counts of failure of notification of a voluntary strike-off application to creditors, within the seven-day statutory period contrary to section 1006(1) of the Companies Act 2006

Hizirali Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12288297) (company number 12288297)

Helosh Limited (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10988012) (company number 10988012)

Read more about the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and the action the Insolvency Service can take if it finds misconduct (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fact-sheet-bounce-back-loans/fact-sheet-bounce-back-loans#if-we-find-misconduct)

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service).