A director who deliberately filed false accounts and defrauded suppliers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds has been jailed.
Mohammed Ikram was sentenced to 27 months in prison when he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday 22 March. He was also banned as a company director for seven years.
Ikram, of Leominster Road, Birmingham, had denied charges of fraudulent trading and filing false accounts but was found guilty by a jury following a one-week trial in January this year.
The 41-year-old purchased more than £200,000 worth of goods ranging from specialist tools to kitchen products, mattresses, and timber on credit shortly after being appointed director of Maxxmed UK Ltd.
No repayments were ever made and Maxxmed conducted no legitimate trading during the time Ikram was director.
Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Mohammed Ikram used his company as a vehicle to cynically commit short-term commercial fraud against creditors.
“Ikram deliberately submitted over-inflated accounts to Companies House with the intention of defrauding the company’s suppliers by purchasing various goods which he never had any intention of ever paying for.
“The Insolvency Service will not tolerate such deception and unscrupulous conduct and we will use all the powers at our disposal to tackle financial wrongdoing.”
Ikram was appointed director of Maxxmed UK Ltd in December 2016. The company had been trading since 2009 as a general commercial company prior to Ikram’s appointment but was used entirely for fraud under his directorship.
In February 2017, Ikram filed accounts to Companies House claiming to show assets totalling £335,006 and shareholders’ funds of £202,333.
Both figures were falsely inflated and used by Ikram as the basis for his subsequent fraudulent credit applications.
Ikram purchased goods from suppliers through trade accounts totalling £201,390.74 between December 2016 and August 2017.
He obtained over £200,000 in goods on credit during this period following successful credit reference checks on Maxxmed’s fraudulent accounts he had previously submitted.
The goods were delivered to Maxxmed’s address on Abbey Street, Derby.
Ikram resigned as director of Maxxmed in August 2017 and the company moved to another address in Derby.
Investigations by the Insolvency Service resulted in Ikram’s arrest at his home address in March 2021.
He claimed he had no knowledge of Maxxmed but was found guilty in January 2024 of fraudulent trading and breaking company law by filing false inflated accounts. Maxxmed was eventually dissolved in November 2019.
