Kebab shop owner must pay back £30k Covid loan

A kebab restaurant owner who was jailed for fraudulently claiming a Covid Bounce Back Loan has been ordered to pay it back in full.

Ilhan Kekec, 36, from Waltham Abbey, Essex, claimed £30,000 by overstating his company's income, the government's Insolvency Service said.

He then used the loan, which was intended to help struggling businesses during the pandemic, to pay off personal debts.

Kekec was jailed for 30 months at the Old Bailey in March 2024, but at a confiscation hearing in December, was ordered to pay back £37,426 within three months.

If Kekec fails to repay the money, his prison term will be extended by 18 months.

The Insolvency Service said he set up a company, Hizirali, to operate the Derwish Kebab Restaurant in the East Shopping Centre in Green Street, Forest Gate, London.

Three weeks after opening, lockdown began and Kekec could no longer trade.

He claimed the turnover at the kebab shop was £125,000 in May 2020, which investigators said he had overstated.

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

He ran another premises, Derwish Restaurant on St Albans Road, Watford, for three years before opening the Forest Gate site.

Alexander Grierson, head of asset recovery at the Insolvency Service, said: "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."

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