According to reports, Manish Manek (shown above) who since 2019 has been running an unauthorised SpudsToGo restaurant from the Eden Shopping Centre in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, as reported earlier this month, was convicted of serious fraud in 2015 after nearly three years on the run. The crooked London estate agent who pocketed tenants’ deposits for years before fleeing the country was eventually jailed for 20 months in 2015, at Kingston Crown Court after being convicted of 17 counts of theft.
Manish Manek stole £47,000 from his clients in southwest London after paying the deposits into his personal account for four years. The property consultant then disappeared in October 2012, leaving a trail of deceit behind him.
As well as the stolen deposits, he had run up debts of about £18,000 including wages owed to his employees.
After serving time in prison, Manek then started a jacket potato business in 2019, opening a restaurant at the Eden Shopping Centre in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. According to the Eden Shopping Centre website the owner of Eden Shopping Centre is Savills plc., a publicly traded estate agent and one of the largest real estate services companies in the UK, based in London.
The fraudster decided to call his restaurant 'Spud to Go', which is an obvious attempt to pass off his business as being associated with the long-established SpudsToGo brand.
Bill White, a director of SpudsToGo Limited and owner of the parent company said: "I was not surprised to learn that Manek has been convicted of fraud."
"What surprised me was that neither Eden Shopping Centre management nor Savills plc. had taken the time to investigate who they were leasing space to at Eden Shopping Centre," continued White.
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SpudsToGo Limited is owned by Mayside Partners Limited. For more information about SpudsToGo go to https://spudstogo.com.