A Cardiff Bounce Back Loan fraud case has ended with a custodial sentence, with the Insolvency Service setting out how the scheme was abused across four companies. At Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Friday 17 July 2026, Rupali Wagh, 50, was sentenced to two years and three months' imprisonment after admitting five fraud offences. The prosecution concerned £216,250 in lending obtained between May and September 2020. Wagh had pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court in November 2025, and the government account presents the case as a straightforward example of repeated false declarations made against a pandemic business support scheme.
According to the Insolvency Service, the offending sat against a small number of clear Bounce Back Loan rules. Businesses were entitled to one loan each, borrowing was linked to turnover and capped at £50,000, and the money was to be used for business purposes. That meant the enforcement case turned on three practical questions. Investigators examined whether turnover declarations matched the underlying position of each company, whether any business had already received a Bounce Back Loan, and whether public money was then diverted away from business use once it reached the borrower.
The first application identified by the Insolvency Service was made in early May 2020 for One2Four Accounting Ltd, a bookkeeping company incorporated in June 2018. Wagh obtained £16,250 after declaring turnover of £65,000, although the agency said the company's actual turnover for the previous calendar year was £39,000. The government statement says much of that money was transferred into Wagh's personal bank account within weeks and used to repay debts and purchase stocks and shares. The same pattern then appeared in relation to Talensetu UK Ltd, where she secured £50,000 after claiming turnover of £218,000 even though dormant accounts filed for June 2019 to June 2020 showed the company was not trading.
For Talensetu UK Ltd, the conduct did not stop with a single payment. The Insolvency Service said Wagh applied again in July 2020 to a different bank for a second £50,000 Bounce Back Loan, claiming turnover of £225,000 and declaring that this was the company's only application. Investigators contrasted that statement with a bank account form completed on the same day, where turnover for the next calendar year was estimated at only £72,000. The agency said almost all of the second Talensetu loan was then moved into Wagh's personal account and used on personal finance and stocks and shares, while more than £25,000 from the earlier Talensetu funds was transferred to an account in India.
The later applications followed the same structure. For White Coconut Ltd, which traded as an Indian street food outlet in Cardiff, Wagh sought £50,000 in August 2020 on the basis of a claimed turnover of £252,000, while separately giving a £72,000 estimate on the related bank application. The Insolvency Service said she also declared that this was the company's only Bounce Back Loan application, even though the bank had already advanced £18,000 for the same business three months earlier. Her final application came in late September 2020 for Indian Canteen Ltd, incorporated in January 2020, where she claimed turnover of £206,000 despite estimating next-year turnover at £82,000 on the bank account paperwork. The government statement says more than £25,000 of those funds was later transferred to White Coconut Ltd.
In interview, the Insolvency Service said Wagh initially attempted to attribute one of the applications to another person who had access to her computer. She later withdrew that account and accepted that she had acted alone. The agency also said Wagh admitted using loan funds to clear personal credit card balances and other borrowing, arguing that reducing her own debts would help her businesses. David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, described the conduct as a systematic abuse of a scheme intended to support genuine businesses during the pandemic. The agency is now seeking recovery of the fraudulently obtained funds under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
From an enforcement standpoint, the case shows the types of evidence now being used to pursue Covid support fraud several years after the event. The prosecution account relied on contradictions between loan applications and bank forms, turnover figures that did not fit filed accounts, duplicate borrowing, swift transfers into a personal account, spending on stocks and shares, and payments made towards private liabilities. For directors and company officers, the compliance message is plain. Bounce Back Loans were public money distributed at speed, but the passage of time has not removed scrutiny. The government position, as reflected in this case, is that misuse can still lead to criminal conviction, imprisonment and asset recovery where investigators can show that the borrowing was obtained dishonestly or diverted away from business purposes.