A takeaway owner has been banned from operating a company for two years after he was found to have misused covid relief funds.

Zaman Shaa, 53, of Woodside Road in Salisbury, fraudulently secured a £30,000 Covid Bounce Back Loan during the pandemic.

He applied for the loan in August 2020 when he was the director of Shaa Ventures Ltd, which used to manage Chutneys Indian takeaway on Estcourt Road in Salisbury.

Shaa no longer has any involvement with the takeaway.

Shaa broke company law before securing the loan by applying to dissolve his business, even though it had been trading in the previous three months.

He also failed to fulfil his legal requirement to inform creditors that he had applied to dissolve the company.

Insolvency Service analysis of Shaa’s transactions indicated he transferred the funds into his personal accounts, sent some of the money abroad using a remittance service, and withdrew significant amounts in cash.

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Shaa was handed a 36-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, after appearing at Winchester Crown Court on Friday, February 23. He was also ordered to pay £6,000 in costs at a rate of £250 per month.

The ban against Shaa prevents him from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court before February 2026.

Pete Fulham, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Zaman Shaa exploited a scheme intended to help businesses during a national emergency for his own personal gain.

“His actions cannot simply be dismissed as something he did in the spur of the moment. They required a degree of planning and sophistication over a number of weeks to execute.

“The sentence and disqualification order for Shaa demonstrate we will not hesitate to take action against directors who have abused covid financial support in such a manner.”