Shahnawaz Fiaz funded a luxury lifestyle through a “Ponzi scheme” at his luxury car garage in Warrington
Shahnawaz Fiaz resentenced at the Court of Appeal over a luxury car fraud scheme
A fraudster who stole hundreds of thousands of pounds from luxury car owners before fleeing to Europe told a woman: “I don’t give a f*** you’re pregnant…you’re not my priority.” Shahnawaz Fiaz ran a fraudulent luxury garage in Warrington which scammed customers hoping to sell their super cars out of at least £720,000.
Fiaz, who had already served a prison sentence for a similar plot in Bolton, ignored and led customers on or instead used “a group of heavies” to threaten and intimidate them into silence. When investigators closed in on Fiaz he fled to Denmark, where he remained before he was extradited back to the UK in September 2024.
He was sentenced to six years and nine months’ imprisonment for a single count of conspiracy to defraud at Liverpool Crown Court in February 2025 following his earlier guilty plea. But following Fiaz’s sentence, his lawyers argued that the uplift on his sentence before his guilty plea was taken into account was “manifestly excessive” and that it should have been reduced for totality after the defendant was previously handed an immediate sentence in February 2018 for similar offending. Totality refers to the legal principle that people being sentenced for multiple crimes should receive a proportionate sentence based on their overall criminality.
The Court of Appeal heard last month: “The appellant ran fraudulent used car sales brokerage businesses. His dishonest method was to agree 30-day sale or return terms with sellers, under which his business would take possession of cars for sale. The cars would be professionally valeted, photographed and marketed, with a view in each case to sale above a fixed price agreed with the seller, that should then have gone to the seller, leaving the balance, net of costs of sale, as profit for the appellant’s business.
“The essence of the fraud was that, on a large scale, sale proceeds that should have gone to clients were used instead to fund the appellant’s lifestyle, which was expensive beyond his honest means. There was also a Ponzi scheme element to the method since payments to some clients, after persistence or threat of legal proceedings, would be generated only by selling the cars of other clients who would then not be paid.”
The court heard Fiaz first traded dishonestly as SK Performance Cars, which led to a sentence handed down at Bolton Crown Court of four years and eight months. The conspiracy period dated for around 18 months and investigators found 21 victims had lost around half a million pounds between them.
When SK Performance Cars came under investigation, Fiaz continued his scam through a new company, called Mansouri Cars (BG) Ltd, which operated from a converted warehouse in Birchwood Park in Warrington. That indictment period lasted between April 2016 and February 2018 and included 41 victims who ultimately lost around £720,000.
The scheme saw the buying and selling of cars where customers were offered “fixed contracts” where they could advertise and aim to sell their car within 30 days. If the car was not sold within the frame specified the owners would in theory have their cars returned.
Many customers had their expensive cars sold, but only found out when the DVLA informed them about the change of ownership. Most did not see any of the profits of the sale. Those who did only got their money after putting pressure on Fiaz and the other employees to pay up.
Fiaz used methods to distance himself from the company, including bringing in another man to be the business’s name and face and using non-personal email addresses. He was the main beneficiary of the fraud, enjoying foreign holidays, high-end motor cars and lavish spending.
He repeatedly fobbed off clients, promising to meet them but not showing, and refusing to make full payments. The High Court heard he was also sometimes hostile, most strikingly to a heavily pregnant client on the phone. He shouted at her: “I do not give a blind f*** that you are pregnant. It’s not my problem. You’re not my priority.” Victims also described his use of “stocky henchmen” and “a group of heavies”.
The thug was interviewed in November 2018 and again in March 2021 but he mostly refused to comment. He did maintain hopeless claims that Mansouri had nothing to do with him and at most there had been “just a civil breach of contract matter”.
Apart from his convictions over the SK Performance matter, Fiaz had little in the way of a previous record. In between his police interviews and charge, Fiaz fled to Europe and was extradited in September 2024. He was sentenced to an immediate prison term.
But following his sentence his lawyers successfully applied to challenge the length of sentence at the Court of Appeal. They argued that the sentencing judge in Liverpool did not take into account how recent the previous sentence had been imposed, the similarities of the offences and whether if the two different sentences had been passed together that the overall term of custody would have required downward adjustment.
Justice Baker, sitting with Baroness Carr, Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, and Justice Wall, said: “The fact that the Mansouri fraud was launched whilst on bail for the SK Performance fraud was an aggravating feature that had been taken into account, and it would have justified the use of consecutive sentences had the two frauds been dealt with together.
“It would not have justified a refusal then to make any downward adjustment at all for totality and the judge, with respect, but understandably we think, having not been taken to the totality guideline, in that regard erred in principle. We are obliged, therefore, to correct that error.
“In our view, the appellant’s failure to clean his slate in 2018 is a powerful factor and justifies the conclusion that any reduction in sentence should not be as large as it might have been as a downward adjustment for totality across the two sentences if both conspiracies had been sentenced together.
“But the strength of circumstances [of Fiaz’s lawyers argument], and stepping back and considering the facts as a whole, leads us to the view that the balance still comes down in favour of making some real allowance. For those reasons we have concluded that the judge erred in sentencing the appellant.”
Fiaz’s sentence of six years and nine months was quashed. Instead, the High Court judges resentenced him to a substitute sentence of six years.
