Baig contacted Leeds City Council in May 2020 pretending to be a property manager at Greggs head office asking for business rates numbers for Leeds branches - details which he claimed he could not access himself due to lockdown - so he could apply for the fund.
The 47-year-old claimed relief from the small business grant fund, designed to keep small businesses afloat during the Covid lockdown, to be paid into his business account for his own catering business.
Aftab Baig, of Paisley Road West in Glasgow, pretended to work at the popular high street bakery to make fraudulent grant claims against 32 branches - despite having no links to the business whatsoever.
After the conviction, Kelly Ward from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Baig took advantage of the difficult circumstances of the pandemic in 2020 to defraud the council out of taxpayers money.
When the council realised the claims were fraudulent they froze his account and Baig was arrested in Glasgow two months later.
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