Three charged over Gatwick-based alleged loan fraud

Sussex detectives investigating a company offering low interest loans have charged three people with fraud.

Fahad Javiad, 23, Javaid Hussain, 50, both of Borrowdale Close,Crawley, and Imaad Khan, 23, of Bedford Place,Brighton, have all been charged with two counts of fraudulent trading, contrary to the Companies Act 2006.

The charges allege that they were all involved in the operation of Swift Loans Finance between January and August last year, intending to obtain fees for the arrangement of loans that were never honoured, and also intending to defraud creditors. It is alleged that £35,000 was defrauded from loan applicants and a further £96,000 from creditors

The three men are due to appear, on police bail, at Mid Sussex Magistrates Court on Wednesday 8 February.

Officers from the force's Economic Crime Unit have been investigating reports that between April and July 2011 100 people had registered with a Gatwick-based company called Swift Loans Finance, offering very low interest loans for a fee, but received no such loans. On Wednesday 13 July, officers, working in partnership with West Sussex Trading Standards, executed a search warrant at the Swift Loans Finance office. Two men were arrested on suspicion of fraud by false representation and a third man agreed to be interviewed voluntarily.

Swift Loans Finance was based in a privately rented office in First Point, a multi-occupancy office block at Buckingham Gate near the Airport's South Terminal.  The office is only one in a multi-occupancy office block which is wholly rented to a private office management company. Gatwick Airport Ltd have no connection with its management or rentals.

Javaid Hussain and Fahad Javiad are father and son respectively.