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Taxi driver Murat Dogantekin secured two £50,000 Bounce Back Loans in 2020 which he was not entitled to
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Dogantekin overstated his turnover by hundreds of thousands of pounds, fraudulently applied for two loans when businesses were only allowed one, used the funds for personal expenses and failed to make any repayments
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The 50-year-old was jailed for two years and seven months
A Devon taxi driver who fraudulently claimed two maximum-value Covid loans by overstating his annual turnover by more than £350,000 has been jailed.
Murat Dogantekin secured the Bounce Back Loans worth a combined £100,000 from two separate banks just months into the pandemic, when he was only actually entitled to just over £4,000 under the scheme.
He then transferred the funds to a close family member and offshore bank account.
The 50-year-old, of Mulligan Drive, Exeter, was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison when he appeared at Exeter Crown Court on Thursday 27 February.
Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
Bounce Back Loans were created to support small and medium-sized businesses through the pandemic. They were not designed to be accessed by fraudsters and used as additional personal income paid for at the expense of taxpayers.
Murat Dogantekin completely disregarded almost all the rules of the scheme. He significantly overstated his turnover, subsequently receiving far more support than he should have done. He fraudulently obtained two loans when businesses were only entitled to a single loan.
To make matters worse, Dogantekin failed to use the money for the benefit of his business, concealing the true nature of his bank transactions with false references. He also did not pay a single penny back before he was declared bankrupt and failed to engage with our investigations.
Such a blatant and deliberate misuse of public funds will not be tolerated by the Insolvency Service and we will continue to take action against those who stole from the taxpayer during a national emergency.
Dogantekin secured two Bounce Back Loans worth £50,000 each from separate banks in May and June 2020.
In his applications, Dogantekin stated that his annual turnover was £200,000 and £205,000 for two separate self-employed taxi businesses, both in his own name, although he said the second traded as Ola Taxis.
He provided no evidence to support these claims and Insolvency Service investigators discovered that the second business was actually named after one of his clients. This was done in an attempt to distinguish it from his first business and make it appear that he was eligible for a second loan when he was not.
Dogantekin had declared earnings of just £16,500 for the tax year ending in April 2020, meaning he overstated his turnover by £388,500 in the combined applications.
Had he been honest about his income, he may have been entitled to one loan of just £4,125.
His dishonesty meant he received an additional £95,875 he did not deserve.
Within four days of receiving the first loan, Dogantekin transferred £49,500 of the £50,000 to a separate bank account. The transactions were marked as “shop purchase”.
The following day, £48,000 of that money was moved to an offshore bank account.
Dogantekin’s second loan remained in his business account for more than a month before the funds were paid out to a family member and his own personal account within a six-day period.
No repayments to the loans were made before Dogantekin was declared bankrupt in November 2021.
Dogantekin was interviewed by the Official Receiver Services at the Insolvency Service later that month and provided some limited documentation.
He then ignored 11 attempts to contact him and secure specific records during a six-month period.
Dogantekin also failed to attend an interview under caution.
The Insolvency Service is seeking to recover the fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
