A group of fraudsters managed to steal a total of £195,000 in government grants by pretending to run a group of businesses, including a Greggs bakery.
Rochdale, St Helens, and Thurrock councils all provided money to Rais Kayani after a number of false applications were made for the Small Business Grant Fund.
The councils were defrauded out of £75,000, £35,000, and £85,000 respectively within the space of just five days, with those responsible later transferring a large proportion of the funds to America and Hong Kong.
Between the period of 4 May and 9 May 2020, fraudsters impersonated the popular high street bakery chain Greggs in order to secure cash from St Helens council.
A court heard that genuine business rate account numbers were used by the group in order to support the false applications, with thousands of pounds in funds then awarded to fraudsters by the local authority.
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Investigators were unable to discover exactly who submitted the applications. They were, however, able to track the payments to an account for a company based in Luton, Beds, called RAK Traders and Services Ltd.
Rais Kayani, 31, was revealed as the sole director of the company, and bank statements from the business account showed that a total of £195,000 had been received from the three different local authorities in the corresponding period.
A few days after the money was paid into the account by the various councils, statements show £100,000 leaving on 12 May to an American account.
Shortly afterward, $47,500 was transferred from the American dollar account to another bank account, this time in Hong Kong.
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Appearing at trial at Southwark Crown Court, Kayani plead guilty to a single charge of entering into a money laundering arrangement and was given a 16 months jail term, suspended for 18 months.
A suspended sentence is served in the community rather than in prison and is designed to allow the offender probation and rehabilitation.
The Crown Prosecution Service has since recovered £155,000 of taxpayer’s money and is seeking a confiscation order to retrieve the rest.
Speaking after sentencing, Ben Reid of the CPS said: “At a time of national emergency during the COVID-19 crisis, vast government funds were released to support struggling businesses across the country.
“Kayani was the cynical beneficiary of a series of false applications to local authorities in different parts of the country from where his business operated.
“Having dishonestly benefitted from the fraudulent applications for the Small Business Grant Fund, he transferred the proceeds overseas.
“We have already recovered £155,000 of taxpayer’s money and will now seek a confiscation order for the remaining funds.”
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Georgina Pellant -
5th July 2023 
