English Man Gets Prison Time After Spending Covid Loan on Crypto and Gambling

The top of a nationwide English glass firm has been sentenced to nearly two years in jail after illegally utilizing a Covid-19-era authorities mortgage for playing and crypto.

Haralambos Ioannou, of Cow Lane, Edlesborough, was this week sentenced to 22 months in jail and 150 hours of unpaid work for illegally acquiring two Covid Bounce Again loans of £50,000 (about $66,500) from the UK authorities, after which utilizing the second mortgage for private bills.

Throughout Covid, companies have been solely allowed to obtain one such fee. Ioannou managed to get authorised for 2 Bounce Again loans in the summertime of 2020.

Whereas he appropriately used the primary £50,000 to fund his glass becoming enterprise, often known as a glazing firm, he then used the second fee for crypto investments, playing websites, money withdrawals and funds to his now ex-wife.

Ioannou was additionally ordered at the moment to pay £40,000 (about $53,200) in restitution.

The UK Insolvency Service, which handles monetary misconduct, didn’t instantly reply Declutter‘s request for remark asking whether or not Ioannou’s required unpaid work will encompass glazing or another type of labor.

It was additionally not made clear wherein crypto apps or particular tokens the 49-year-old glazier had invested his ill-gotten cash. About £8,000 ($10,650) of the borrowed cash was transferred to “funding and crypto funding corporations,” in line with the Insolvency Service.

One other £25,000 ($33,250) was despatched to playing corporations.

Through the heyday of the lockdown in 2020, the decentralized monetary ecosystem emerged explodedgrowing the worth of the funds locked within the ecosystem greater than twenty occasions. Bitcoin doubled in worth by the tip of the yr; Ethereum has greater than quadrupled.