Ilhan Kekec must repay a £30,000 loan he fraudulently secured during the pandemic or face more prison time
Waltham Abbey: So, there’s this restaurant owner, Ilhan Kekec, who got himself into a real pickle. He was jailed for lying to get a £30,000 bounce back loan during the pandemic. Now, he’s been told he has to pay it all back, plus interest.
He got two and a half years in prison last March after a trial. The judge said he has three months to cough up £37,426 or he’ll be looking at another 18 months behind bars. Ouch!
Kekec, who lives on Abbotts Drive, is still on the hook for that loan even if his time in prison gets extended. On top of that, he’s also got to pay £15,900 in costs. That’s a hefty bill!
According to Alexander Grierson from the Insolvency Service, Kekec used the loan money to pay off his personal debts instead of helping his business. He had claimed he’d use it to benefit his restaurant, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
When he applied for the loan, he falsely claimed his business was making £125,000 a year. But his restaurant, the Derwish Kebab, had only been open for three weeks before the lockdown hit. Talk about bad timing!
He took the loan money out in cash and later admitted to investigators that he spent it on personal stuff. In June 2020, he even tried to dissolve his company, saying it wasn’t viable anymore.
But here’s the kicker: he didn’t tell his creditors about his plans within the required time. Now, he’s banned from being a company director for three years. Lesson learned, I guess!
