£40m furlough cash for 4 obscure firms

UP to £40million of furlough cash was paid in a single month to four companies that appear to have no staff.

The firms each claimed between £5million and £10million in May.

They were founded by elusive Indian entrepreneur Rajanish Garibe, 44, whose firms’ ‘Europe corporate headquarters’ turned out to be a virtual mailbox in east London.

The Treasury paid out the sums from its Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to his companies despite their shoddy or non-existent websites and no evidence of any actual staff.

The website of Domain Corporation Ltd – supposedly a tech consultancy – is so amateur that it contains dummy text. The three other firms – Domain Foundation, Domain International School and Domain Research Hospital – do not even seem to have websites. Yet between them, they claimed enough furlough money in May to have covered the wages of 10,000 staff earning £50,000 salaries. The Treasury says the furlough scheme has been abused and there are 23,000 ongoing inquiries into ‘incorrect’ payments.

When reporters from the Financial Times tried to contact Garibe, there was a flurry of filings at Companies House ‘updating’ the records to suggest he was no longer a director of the firms. The Mail sent emails to the companies asking about the £40million and last night received a reply from Maria James, managing director, who stated Garibe had resigned from the companies in early March before the pandemic. She declined to answer any questions.

Last night, HMRC said it could not comment on ongoing cases, but vowed to clamp down on fraud.