A property dealer used covid cash his companies weren't entitled to, to buy a house and pocket £100,000 when it sold.
Investigators discovered Brendan Gaughan took out £135,000 in Bounce Back Loans (BBL) funded by the UK Government to help businesses during the pandemic.
He used the cash to help buy a property in Knightswood for £160,000, which sold later for £140,000, the Sunday Mail reports. Gaughan put £100,000 of the proceeds into his own bank account.
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Now he's been banned from being a director for 12 years and could face a criminal prosecution.
Gaughan operated three property management businesses, Gaughan Group, Gaughan Property, and Rentl Property, set up in February 2020 with trading commencing in April the same year.
The 12-month government BBL scheme was also launched in April, and provided 100 per cent guarantees to banks if companies failed to repay the loans. The maximum loan available per company was £50,000.
However, the firms were not eligible for BBL funds, which were available only to firms that had been trading from March 1.
Two months later, Gaughan Group and Gaughan Property each received £50,000 of BBL money and Rentl Property Ltd £35,000.
Gaughan, 40, transferred all the funds into a single account and proceeded to use the money to buy the £160,000 house in August 2020.
He then sold the property in March 2021 for about £140,000 and on the same day transferred £100,000 of the proceeds to his personal account, the UK Government's Insolvency Service found.
All three Gaughan companies were put into liquidation in October last year, which triggered a probe. Gaughan then admitted his firms hadn't been eligible for BBL.
Yesterday, he declined to comment when the Sunday Mail contacted him at his £780,000 luxury home in Newton Mearns.
Scottish Labour's economy and finance brief Daniel Johnson MSP said: "Those who took advantage of this scheme for dishonest reasons must be punished.
"But more importantly, the Government must explain how such an obscene amount of money was given away freely to people who did not need it."
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