Suspended sentence for Bounce Back Loan fraudster
A COVID fraudster has been sentenced after illegally obtaining a second Bounce Back Loan for his company when businesses were only entitled to one.
Prashant 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.
The 41-year-old fraudulently declared on the second application that this was the only Bounce Back Loan he had applied for.
Jobanputra, of Knoll Crescent, Northwood, Middlesex, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 27 January.
He was also disqualified as a company director for three years and fined £5,000.
Jobanputra repaid £15,371 of the fraudulent Bounce Back Loan in November 2025, just weeks before he was initially due to be sentenced.
The remaining £35,000 has not been paid back.
David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
Genesis Web Limited was registered on Companies House in November 2004, with Jobanputra appointed as director on the same day. The company printed photos onto personalised items for both businesses and individual customers, producing them in large quantities.
Jobanputra was also the sole director of the company when he applied to a separate bank for the second £50,000 Bounce Back Loan in July 2020.
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.
Genesis Web Limited went into liquidation in October 2021 and was dissolved in March 2024.
The Insolvency Service is seeking to recover the remaining fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
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