Boss admits fraud scam; COURTS: Restaurateur escapes jail for pounds 300,000 plot.

Byline: By Mail Reporter

A TOP Birmingham restaurant boss and 'friend of the stars' has been spared jail for his part in a pounds 300,000 fraud scam.

Entrepreneur Rajeev Rana could have faced up to 10 years in prison after admitting a charge of conspiracy to defraud.

Instead, the millionaire who runs the city's Itihaas, was sentenced to 160 hours unpaid work in the community when he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court.

Judge David McCarthy said he had taken into account that Rana, 29, of Englestede Close, Handsworth Wood, had repaid the money which had been taken.

Rana first hit the headlines after Footballers' Wives star Laila Rouass attended the opening of the pounds 2 million Itihaas restaurant, just off Newhall Street in February 2005.

But he found himself making the headlines again when he was accused of being involved in a scam against computer components company, Realtime Distribution.

Kevin Hegarty, prosecuting, said in 2001, Realtime was contacted by a company calling itself West North, based in Leicestershire. On two occasions Realtime was involved in buying computer chips from West North.

But following a third transaction in which Realtime paid West North pounds 300,000, West North then failed to release the chips that had been paid for.

Mr Hegarty said the cash was then siphoned off from a Lloyds TSB account at a branch in Kings Heath which had been opened under a false name.

He said Rana had made phone calls to an employee at the bank and was "instrumental" in the disappearance of the money.

In the past, Rana has boasted how top footballers and celebrities flock to his restaurant, which scooped Newcomer of the Year in the Best of Britain Awards for being a top-class ethnic restaurant in the UK.

The upmarket eaterie, the first outside London to win the accolade, is filled with 18th and 19th century Indian artefacts such as carved stone elephants.

Rana enjoyed a modest upbringing in Handsworth Wood. He worked alongside his father in the family business, Suria Jewellers, from the age of 12.

In 2000 he took over a menswear import business, Santino, based in Burlington Arcade and then set up property developing firm Laneway Ltd in 2002 which is now said to be worth at least pounds 2.5 million.

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GUILTY...boss Rajeev Rana admitted conspiracy to defraud.