Tariq Sarwar

Pleaded guilty and sentenced to four years in prison; 10-year directorship ban. A twice-disqualified Cheshire director secretly sold his company’s last major asset for more than £5 million, funnelled £3 million of the proceeds through a laundering network while creditors lost out, and funded a Versace-filled lifestyle that once put his son on reality television.

Introduction

Tariq Sarwar, 59, of Gore Lane, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, is a disqualified company director who was jailed for four years at Manchester Crown Court on June 12, 2026 after admitting fraudulently removing assets in anticipation of winding-up and acting as a company director while disqualified . Knowing his company was in financial difficulty and likely to be wound up, Sarwar sold its only substantial asset — a commercial property in Salford — for more than £5 million and fraudulently transferred more than £3 million of the proceeds without paying the company’s debts to HM Revenue and Customs and other creditors . He was also banned as a company director for ten years . The case is adjudicated: guilty pleas were entered and the sentence imposed.

Background Information

Sarwar’s disqualification history stretches back over a decade: he was disqualified as a company director for eleven years in November 2013, at a time when his company owed at least £1.6 million to creditors but he arranged for more than a quarter of a million pounds to be paid to his personal benefit from an insurance claim . The ban legally prevented him from forming, managing or promoting a company without court permission — permission he never sought . Despite this, he acted as director of A Property Management Limited between November 2014 and July 2018, and of Willowloch Limited for almost ten years from April 2015 until his disqualification ended in November 2024; in both instances other individuals were formally appointed as directors while Sarwar retained actual control .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

When Willowloch’s financial position made a winding-up realistic, the Salford property — the company’s only substantial asset — was sold for more than £5 million . After mortgages and legal fees were paid off, Sarwar instructed A Property Management Limited’s solicitors to transfer the remaining amount to KYCA Trading Limited, a company directed by Christopher Francis, 40, who laundered the funds through a network of accounts and other companies back to Sarwar . Insolvency Service investigations traced £645,000 to a company whose directors were members of Sarwar’s immediate family, and a further £748,980 passed through a series of companies before reaching his family business and personal business account, while creditors were left owed more than £500,000 . When the Insolvency Service contacted Sarwar about his role in the sale of Langley Mill Business Park, he denied any involvement in a transaction he “could not name, document, or credibly explain,” claiming his car — containing his laptop and all business records — had been stolen and burnt out overnight . While creditors lost out, Sarwar and his family enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in the Cheshire countryside, including a six-bedroom home filled with Versace and Louis Vuitton designer products; his son appeared on the reality programme Rich Kids Go Skint, filmed in summer 2019, where he admitted he had never been on a bus and was chauffeured in a Rolls-Royce .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Sarwar admitted the charges in April 2026 and was jailed for four years with a ten-year directorship ban when he appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Friday June 12 . Francis, of Letchworth Road, Luton, pleaded guilty in the middle of his trial the month before to one count of money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and received two years and one month in prison, suspended for two years, with 250 hours of unpaid work . David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said the pair went “to considerable lengths to hide their criminal actions, moving millions of pounds through a web of companies to cover their tracks,” adding: “This was fraud, plain and simple” . The Insolvency Service has already started confiscation investigations, with proceedings intended to ensure Sarwar and Francis “do not get to keep what was never rightfully theirs” .

Current Status

Sarwar is serving his four-year sentence and is banned from managing companies for ten years; the confiscation proceedings against the hidden funds are underway . Francis is serving his suspended sentence and unpaid-work order . The Insolvency Service has publicly invited reports of disqualified directors breaching bans .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Sarwar’s second banning — this time a ten-year term imposed alongside a prison sentence — closes off company directorship into the late 2030s, and the confiscation investigations target the millions he moved out of creditors’ reach . The case became the Insolvency Service’s public example of shadow-direction: formal directors on paper, real control in the hands of a disqualified man, sustained across two companies and nearly a decade . The burned-out car story, the denied involvement and the reality-television wealth display now form the documented record of how the £3 million was moved and spent .

Sources

• GOV.UK / Insolvency Service, “Disqualified director jailed for £3 million fraud which helped bankroll lavish lifestyle with chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce,” June 12, 2026 — source