Voice notes recovered by the National Crime Agency showed Kashid Rashid discussing the need to create false invoices to support fraudulent Bounce Back Loan applications that netted his family £150,000 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rashid, 53, from Ilford, his wife Noreen Malik, 46, nephew Rehaan Mohammed, 32, and brother Rizwan Haider, 61, were sentenced today at Southwark Crown Court after being convicted by a jury following a five-week trial on 28 November 2025.
The group used three businesses to successfully apply for three Bounce Back Loans totalling £150,000, submitting one further unsuccessful application that would have secured another £50,000. They cited adverse pandemic effects and claimed inflated annual turnovers to qualify for the maximum loan amounts.
Once received, the money was sent to other family members, businesses they controlled, or used to pay for house renovations, private school fees, vehicles and trailers. In each case, defendants falsely claimed pandemic hardship whilst inflating business revenues.
In July 2020, Rashid attempted to purchase a company for the sole purpose of applying for a further BBL, offering the owner £15,000 if they applied for the loan through their business account ahead of the sale. The owner declined to proceed. Mohammed’s final application was rejected because the company was dormant.
NCA officers discovered Rashid had legally changed his name nine times in ten years to frustrate financial institutes’ abilities to run proper credit checks. A second fraud was uncovered when documents found in Rashid’s hire car revealed Patric Ciwinski, 36, had attempted to fraudulently set up a false universal credit claim in the name of Robert Wright. No funds were received before discovery.
Rashid was separately found to be fraudulently claiming universal credit under an alias after failing to disclose he had a child and never having lived at the claimed address. He admitted one count of fraud by false representation relating to UC fraud but denied all other charges alongside his co-defendants.
Rashid was arrested by NCA officers in August 2020 and replied no comment to all questions. Mohammed was arrested in April 2021 and declined to answer questions. Malik attended a voluntary interview in June 2021, Haider in October 2022 and Ciwinski in December 2021. All declined to answer officers’ questions.
HHJ Hale stated the group had “deliberately exploited a government scheme which was set up to assist a national crisis,” describing their offending as “a systematic and repeated assault on the banks and the Bounce Back scheme.”
Rashid received six-and-a-half years in prison, Mohammed three years, whilst Malik and Haider received two year sentences suspended for two years each. Ciwinski was given a 12 month community order. Rashid, Mohammed, Malik and Haider were also disqualified from being company directors for set periods.
Rashid has previous fraud convictions in the United States and Romania. Once he serves his UK sentence, he will be extradited to Romania to serve a further four-year prison sentence for his fraud conviction in that country.
Alistair Reid from the NCA stated: “Bounce Back Loans were a vital tool for businesses to help them stay afloat and continue trading during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this family saw it as an opportunity to exploit the system at a time when the country was facing unprecedented challenges.”
