{"id":636857,"date":"2026-06-13T15:47:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636857\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T15:47:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:47:22","slug":"swarovski-bentleys-and-bodyguards-the-lavish-cheshire-lifestyle-that-masked-a-web-of-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636857\/","title":{"rendered":"Swarovski, Bentleys and bodyguards: The lavish Cheshire lifestyle that masked a web of fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘He is a shadow of what he was…it is difficult to imagine a further fall from grace’\"men\"<\/p>\n

21:31, 12 Jun 2026Updated 07:28, 13 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

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Stills from Channel 5 documentary ‘Rich Kids Go Skint’ filmed in 2019. (Image: Channel 5)<\/p>\n

Versace furniture; a fleet of Bentleys, Mercedes and Rolls Royces; a Swarovski-studded Allah written in Arabic script. This is a tour around the Cheshire home of 19-year-old Adil, filmed for Channel 5 series Rich Kids Go Skint in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis rich kid going skint is the son of a self-made millionaire,\u201d beams the voiceover as shots pan around the lavishly furnished living room, gold Versace medusa heads grinning from every corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdil couldn\u2019t wait to leave school and join his dad\u2019s property empire. He was instantly made a director.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to hear the latest from Manchester’s courts in our newsletter<\/p>\n

The producers couldn\u2019t have known, then, that this fact would come up in a Crown court sentencing hearing, seven years later.<\/p>\n

For this decision wasn\u2019t a ringing endorsement of Adil\u2019s business acumen, but rather a move by his father to \u2018persistently, deliberately and cynically\u2019 use members of his family as a cover for the fact that he was still managing his businesses – despite having been banned from doing so seven years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou made use of two people who trusted you, whom you used,\u201d Judge Peter Horgan told Tariq Sarwar as he jailed him for four years on Friday (June 12). \u201cYour wife, who suffers health issues, and your son, who was a young man at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tariq Sarwar(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Sarwar, 59, of Gore Lane in Alderley Edge, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud anticipating winding up, and two counts of acting in contravention of a disqualification order. He had been banned from acting as director of a company in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, his company owed at least \u00a31.6 million to creditors,\u201d a spokesperson for the Insolvency Service said on Friday, who led the investigation. \u201cYet he arranged for more than a quarter of a million pounds to be paid to his personal benefit from an insurance claim. The company went into administration less than eight weeks after this payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But shortly after receiving the ban, Sarwar set up two more property management companies in his wife Zarka\u2019s name – and made his son Adil a director of one of these in 2018, shortly after he turned 18.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Sarwar family living room pictured in Channel 5 documentary ‘Rich Kids Go Skint’ filmed in 2019. (Image: Channel 5)<\/p>\n

\u201cHis wife was unwell and his son lacked experience,\u201d prosecutor Laura Kenyon told the court. \u201cHe took out loans in their names. There was substantial financial risk to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

These activities included the purchase of Langley Mill Business Park in Salford<\/a> for \u00a31.5 million in 2014, financed with a loan, and the old police station on Lee Street in Stockport<\/a>, purchased for \u00a3630,000 and mortgaged with a \u00a3600k loan.<\/p>\n

More ‘large-scale refinancing’ followed, including a \u00a3945k loan in January 2019 secured against the assets of TNS Properties, another company of which Zarka and Adil were listed directors.<\/p>\n

Throughout, the family led a lavish lifestyle in the Cheshire countryside, in a six-bedroom house with a fleet of cars worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and a gardener, housekeeper and chauffeur, according to the documentary.<\/p>\n

But by 2018, Sarwar\u2019s companies owed \u2018substantial debts\u2019 to creditors, including \u00a3134,000 to HMRC, who began a winding-up petition – where the business is shut down and assets liquidated – in March 2018. Just three months later, Langley Mill Business Park was sold for \u00a35.1 million.<\/p>\n

Most creditors were paid off, apart from HMRC and one of Mr Sarwar’s business partners, who were still owed around \u00a3500k, the court heard.<\/p>\n

But within nine days of the sale, he instructed his solicitors to transfer over \u00a33 million to a food and drink wholesaler, KYCA, so that ‘there were no assets left’ by the time winding-up was complete in July.<\/p>\n

Its sole director Christopher Francis, 40, of Peacock Lane, Aylesbury, was handed a suspended sentence on Friday after pleading guilty to money laundering.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Christopher Francis(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Under Sarwar\u2019s instruction, Francis transferred hundreds of thousands of pounds to a total of six other companies, including around \u00a3645k to companies ‘clearly linked’ to the Sarwar family.<\/p>\n

The total \u00a33 million was later declared void by HMRC, whose liquidators formally sued Zarka Sarwar and settled for a \u00a3280k payment.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarwar was also sued by a creditor and forced to pay back \u00a3200k, the court heard. The Insolvency Service said HMRC were eventually fully repaid and other creditors received a limited return on what they owed, with investigations underway to confiscate remaining funds.<\/p>\n

During his sentencing hearing, Mr Sarwar\u2019s barrister Andrew Horsell said he had \u2018dragged himself up by his boot straps\u2019 and \u2018supported his wife and sons in their lifestyle\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is in somewhat of a precarious position, he has debts and could lose his family home.\u201d Addressing Judge Peter Morgan, he continued: \u201cYou have a photo of him at the time this was committed\u2026look to the dock.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancially and physically he is a shadow of what he was. It is difficult to imagine a further fall from grace and such a loss of face.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was respected\u2026all that is gone. For him to do unpaid work, scrubbing graffiti or picking litter, makes that fall from grace all but complete. I submit that public humiliation would be sufficient punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But presiding judge Peter Horgan rejected this assertion, jailing Sarwar for a total of four years for both offences, of which he is expected to serve 40 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou suggest that you knew about the disqualification order but did not take it seriously; and that you were simply supporting your wife and son,\u201d he told Sarwar, who was casually dressed in a black hoodie as his family watched on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tariq Sarwar(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

“You were a very experienced and successful businessman and knew exactly what you should not be doing. These were sophisticated arrangements which you then took active steps to distance yourself from.<\/p>\n

“You demonstrated a real arrogance, believing you could do whatever you wanted and choosing to ignore the order, not following rules or listening to advice but doing what you wanted to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour wife has long standing health difficulties which you provide some assistance for. She said she had no idea about the disqualification order and blamed it on a former employee claiming they were blackmailing her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe may have been duped by you. You are described as intelligent and successful, managing the mortgage of yourself and other family members. You have a large and tight-knit family support network, but you put your wife and son at risk of reputational harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarwar gave no reaction as he was jailed, and made no remarks to the half-dozen family and associates in the public gallery as he went with the dock officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘He is a shadow of what he was…it is difficult to imagine a further fall from grace’ 21:31,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19047,84,2323,1343,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-636857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alderley-edge","tag-business","tag-cheshire","tag-courts","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}