PAYBACK TIME FOR ‘CHARITY’ RIP-OFF
The trustee of a dodgy charity I’ve previously written about has been forced to hand back £100,000.
Mohammed Ashfaq ran Helping Hands For The Needy which claimed to help those afflicted by wars and natural disasters.
But the Charity Commission discovered that Ashfaq was paid £85,000 by the charity, while his wife got £77,000, and conflicts of interest included payments to companies linked to Ashfaq and family members.
Helping Hands For The Needy was removed from the register of charities in 2017 and now a report reveals how the watchdog has recovered the six-figure sum from Ashfaq, 49.
It was, however, unable to sell land bought in Pakistan with charity money because it lay outside its jurisdiction.
Harvey Grenville, Head of Investigations and Enforcement at the Charity Commission, said the case “highlighted a cynical abuse of charity”.
In a separate case, unrelated charity Save The Needy Worldwide has been shut down by the Commission and one trustee has been banned from running charities.
The Commission began investigating in 2015 and the following year a trustee was stopped at Luton Airport with £3,260, which was seized by Bedfordshire Police under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Trustees could not account for how the money was spent and failed to comply with a legal direction to supply information to the Commission.