A married couple who faked a £9.8 million NHS contract and forged documents to trick investors have been banned as company directors, the Insolvency Service has said.
The service said that Tanveer Khan had portrayed himself as the ‘mastermind’ behind a medical supply business fulfilling a large order of intensive care unit (ICU) beds on behalf of NHS Wales.
But the £9.8 million contract never existed, and Mr Khan, 55, used it to trick investors into believing his firm Matz Medical Limited was delivering hundreds of hospital beds to an NHS Shared Services facility in Pontypool, South Wales, the service added.
Mr Khan was disqualified as a company director for 13 years at a hearing of the High Court in Manchester on Thursday 12 February.
His wife Tasneem Khan, 51, was handed a 10-year disqualification at the same hearing for allowing Matz Medical Limited to provide false paperwork and signing a personal guarantee for one of the loans.
Both disqualifications came into effect on Thursday 5 March and ban the couple, both of Spareleaze Hill, in Loughton, Essex, from forming, managing or promoting companies without the permission of the court.
Matz Medical Limited went into administration in October 2022 leaving creditors facing a shortfall of more than £40 million, the Insolvency Service added.
Rob Clarke, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: ‘Tanveer Khan constructed an elaborate and calculated deception, fabricating an NHS contract, forging delivery notes and doctoring bank records to deceive investors out of millions of pounds.
‘This was not a moment of poor judgement but a sustained and deliberate campaign of dishonesty.
‘His wife played a significant role in allowing false paperwork to be presented to lenders and investors, and the court has rightly held her to account by disqualifying her for the next 10 years.
‘These disqualifications send a clear message that those who abuse the trust of investors and exploit the reputation of the NHS will face serious and lasting consequences.’
The Insolvency Service said that Matz Medical Limited had incorporated in November 2013, with Mr and Mrs Khan its only directors throughout its trading life.
The company initially held NHS Supply Chain framework agreements, which allowed it to supply medical equipment to NHS bodies, but NHS Supply Chain suspended all trading with Matz Medical Limited in December 2019 after an audit uncovered serious problems with the company’s stock management, storage and labelling, the service added.
But despite being barred from NHS Supply Chain frameworks, the company continued seeking external funding, the Insolvency Service said.
In March 2022, it received a £500,000 loan after providing documentation claiming the money was needed to support NHS bed orders, while two months later an investor paid £1.68 million to the company to purchase ICU beds for a major NHS contract Matz Medical Limited falsely claimed to hold, it added.
An Insolvency Service investigation found a range of documents supplied to support these funding requests were false, including the £9.8 million NHS purchase order, forged delivery notes claiming more than 1,000 ICU beds had already been delivered, fake emails from NHS officials confirming receipt of those beds, and doctored bank payment confirmations showing funds being sent to the manufacturer.
Both the lender and investor confirmed they received no return on their investments and said they would never have loaned the company money had they known the NHS contract did not exist, the service said.
The Insolvency Service added that a separate claim in the region of £16.5 million brought by the joint administrators against Mr Khan for breaching his duties as a company director and causing losses to creditors remains ongoing.
