A Cardiff businesswoman who raided a pandemic lifeline five times has been jailed after fraudulently pulling £216,250 from the Bounce Back Loan Scheme across four companies. The case, built by the Insolvency Service, is a stark reminder of how emergency public money could be misused while genuine small firms were fighting to stay open in 2020. Rupali Wagh, 50, of Harrison Way, Cardiff, admitted five counts of fraud at Cardiff Crown Court in November 2025. On Friday 17 July 2026, Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court sentenced her to two years and three months in prison.

For readers who remember how hard independents had to scrap through the pandemic, the detail here is hard to shrug off. Bounce Back Loans were meant to get cash moving quickly to businesses that needed breathing space, not to clear personal debts or fund share purchases. The Insolvency Service said Wagh had 'systematically targeted' a scheme built to support genuine businesses. Chief Investigator David Snasdell said she inflated turnover, took duplicate loans and diverted money into personal spending and investments.

The first false claim came in early May 2020. Wagh applied for a £16,250 Bounce Back Loan for One2Four Accounting Ltd, a bookkeeping company she had set up in June 2018, telling the bank the firm had turnover of £65,000. According to the Insolvency Service, the true figure for the previous calendar year was £39,000. Within weeks of the money landing, investigators said it was transferred into Wagh's personal account. Most of it was then spent paying debts and buying stocks and shares, despite the application stating the funds would be used wholly for business purposes.

A month later she went bigger. Wagh applied for the maximum £50,000 loan for Talensetu UK Ltd, claiming the company had turnover of £218,000, even though dormant accounts filed for the period from June 2019 to June 2020 showed it was not trading. The pattern did not stop there. The Insolvency Service said the full £50,000 was quickly moved into her personal account and spent on personal finance and stocks and shares, with more than £25,000 also transferred to an account in India.

In July 2020, Wagh applied for a second £50,000 Bounce Back Loan for Talensetu UK Ltd through a different bank, even though businesses were only entitled to one loan under the scheme. She claimed turnover of £225,000, despite putting Talensetu's expected turnover for the next calendar year at just £72,000 on a bank account form completed the same day. After the money arrived in August, investigators said almost all of it was again shifted into her personal account and used on stocks and shares and personal finance. The duplicate borrowing was a major part of the fraud case placed before the court.

Wagh followed that with another false application in August 2020 for White Coconut Ltd, which traded as an Indian street food outlet in Cardiff. She sought £50,000 by claiming turnover of £252,000, even though the figure jarred with a £72,000 estimate given on her bank paperwork. She also declared it was the firm's only Bounce Back Loan application, despite an earlier £18,000 loan already being in place. Her final application came in late September 2020 for Indian Canteen Ltd, a street food business incorporated in January 2020. On that form she claimed turnover of £206,000, while her banking estimate for the following year was £82,000. More than £25,000 from that loan was later transferred to White Coconut Ltd, according to investigators.

When interviewed, Wagh initially tried to blame somebody else for one of the applications, saying another person who shared her computer had submitted it without her knowledge. She later withdrew that account and accepted she had acted alone. She also admitted using the loans to clear personal credit card debts and other borrowing, saying she believed that by reducing her own debts she would be helping her businesses. Snasdell said these were serious crimes, and the Insolvency Service is now seeking to recover the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. That matters well beyond Cardiff: honest firms across the regions were relying on the same scheme to keep staff paid and doors open.