Key Summary
- Matz Medical was incorporated in November 2013, with the couple as its sole directors.
- The company initially held NHS Supply Chain framework agreements, which allowed it to supply medical equipment to NHS bodies.
- NHS Supply Chain suspended all trading with Matz in 2019, after an audit uncovered serious lapses in stock management, storage and labelling.
A couple from Essex, who previously ran a medical equipment supply firm, have been banned from running companies for tricking investors out of more than £2 million by faking a multi‑million‑pound NHS contract.
The couple, Tanveer Khan, 55, and his wife Tasneem Khan, 51, used to run Matz Medical Limited, which went into administration in October 2022, leaving creditors with a shortfall of more than £40 million.
Tanveer Khan later projected himself as the director of Matz and fooled the investors by using forged documents to claim that his firm had secured a lucrative order of £9.8 million for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds on behalf of NHS Wales.
He told investors that his firm was delivering hundreds of high‑value hospital beds to an NHS Shared Services facility in Pontypool, South Wales.
In reality, no such order existed, and Matz was suspended from all NHS Supply Chain frameworks since 2019.
Tanveer Khan was disqualified as a company director for 13 years at a hearing of the High Court in Manchester on 12 February.
His wife was disqualified for 10 years at the same hearing for allowing Matz Medical to provide the false paperwork and signing a personal guarantee for one of the loans.
Both disqualifications came into effect on Thursday (5) and ban the pair from forming, managing or promoting companies without the permission of the court.
Tanveer Khan was also declared bankrupt in March 2023.
While bankruptcy restrictions are usually discharged after 12 months, Khan’s discharge was suspended indefinitely after he failed to cooperate with the court-appointed Official Receiver.
Trustees in his bankruptcy are continuing to pursue his assets, including his home, to return funds to creditors.
A separate claim of around £16.5 million brought by the joint administrators against Tanveer Khan for breaching his duties as a company director and causing losses to creditors remains ongoing.
Rob Clarke, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said, "Tanveer Khan constructed an elaborate and calculated deception, fabricating an NHS contract, forging delivery notes and doctoring bank records to deceive investors out of millions of pounds. This was not a moment of poor judgement but a sustained and deliberate campaign of dishonesty.
"His wife played a significant role in allowing false paperwork to be presented to lenders and investors, and the court has rightly held her to account by disqualifying her for the next 10 years."
Matz Medical was incorporated in November 2013, and the couple was its only directors throughout its trading life.
The company initially held NHS Supply Chain framework agreements, which allowed it to supply medical equipment to NHS bodies.
However, NHS Supply Chain suspended all trading with Matz in December 2019, after an audit uncovered serious lapses in the company’s stock management, storage and labelling.
Despite being barred from NHS Supply Chain frameworks, the company continued seeking external funding using forged documents.
In March 2022, it received £500,000 in loan funding from a lender after providing documentation claiming the money was needed to support NHS bed orders.
Two months later, an investor paid £1.68 million to the company to purchase ICU beds for a major NHS contract Matz falsely claimed to hold.
Insolvency Service investigations found a range of documents supplied to support these funding requests were false.
These included the £9.8 million NHS purchase order, forged delivery notes claiming more than 1,000 ICU beds had already been delivered, fake emails from NHS officials confirming receipt of those beds, and doctored bank payment confirmations showing funds being sent to the manufacturer.
Both the lender and investor confirmed they received no return on their investments.
