in hamburg, on thursday. eight others were wounded in the attack on a group of jehovah's witnesses. you are watching bbc news. now — the chef, the model & the missing millions. a global pandemic and a national emergency. from this evening, i must give the british people a very simple instruction. you must stay at home. an economy grinding to a halt. companies on the brink. well, today we announced a brand new loan scheme for the smaller businesses. rishi sunak, then chancellor to the rescue. rishi actually stood up and said, this is the bounce back loan scheme. there'll be no credit checks. it was like jackpot for a lot of people. a godsend for business. a gold mine for criminals. £100,000 holidays, eating in the best restaurants, the flashiest, fastest cars, yachts, everything that most people would desire in their lives when they win the lottery. these people, they won the lottery in an entirely different way. it was a colossal sum of money gone to some very, very bad people. - this is the inside story of fraud on a massive scale of gangs and glamour. i dug about in companies house. you see that? it's £10 million. we�* re really close. we just want to ask you where the money went. this is the chef, the model and the missing millions. the story starts here with two men, artem terzyan and deivis grochiatskij, one russian and one lithuanian. tell us a bit about artem terzyan. russian. previous bad character. came here, was really the controller of what was going on in relation to this group, a bad man. deivis? lithuanian, previous convictions in lithuania, again, afamily man. came to this country, was the mastermind around everything that went on and made a lot of money. this isjohn coles from the national crime agency. a copperfor decades, he knows a thing or two about fraud. i've never seen anything like it. so it is the biggest one i know of. it's the biggest one i've seen and it's probably going to be biggest one we will see for a long time. terzyan and grochiatskij were money launderers caught on police surveillance videos. that bag's stuffed with cash. and this is them delivering a safe. bundles and bundles of notes. ledgers and counting machines. they took dirty money from other gangs and put it through a whole load of fake companies — cleaning it, making it look legitimate. here they are, depositing cash at the bank, something they did almost every day. the prime minister announces the toughest restrictions on our way of life in living memory. you must stay at home. what was bad for the legitimate economy was also bad for criminals. the supply of dirty cash virtually dried up. so what do you do if you have a whole network of dodgy companies but with no money to launder? the bounce back loan scheme is designed to support uk smaller businesses that have been adversely affected by the coronavirus outbreak. well, as luck would have it, the government had just set up an emergency loan scheme. £50,000 on offer, almost no questions asked. from £2,000 to £50,000... well, obviously, they're criminals, so they take advantage of anything that's readily available. and fortunately for them, unfortunately for the united kingdom, covid came along. the government tried to do the best it could for businesses, for people to support them during that difficult period. and these people took advantage of it and made £10 million worth through £50,000 applications at a time. yep, you heard that right. £10 million. and as soon as the bounce back loans hit their bank accounts here in london, they were gone. sent around the world to the united arab emirates, to the usa, to hungary, to malaysia. but terzyan and grochiatskij got careless. they and some of the rest of the gang are now behind bars. here's deivis being interviewed by the national crime agency. so you were arrested this morning on suspicion of being involved in bounce back loan fraud. £10 million of criminal funds. i don't know who is doing this. when officers from the national crime agency went through the doors of flats seven and eight here, they found bundles of cash, high—end watches, a string of bank cards and evidence of holidays in the caribbean and reservations at some of london's top restaurants. and that leaves some important questions. where did the money go? who else was involved? and can they tell us where it went? it seems the gang made the docklands area of east london their home. they owned properties here, here, here and here, right next to city airport. so this is where we start looking. the gang lived well and liked to show it on social media. here's deivis�*s wife posing for the camera. we matched the view of the ship with the actual ship and — bingo. renata grochiatskij is the wife of one of the ringleaders of the scheme. she got a two year suspended sentence for her part in it. she's living just over there. do you think she knows where the money is? i try to persuade her to do an interview with us. well, look, thank you for talking to me. she said she was scared to talk to us, didn't want to talk to us, didn't feel she could talk to us. said maybe we should talk to her solicitor also suggested we might come back with a translator, but at the moment she's not able to tell us anything useful. so what next? what is it they say? follow the money. remember that network of companies the gang used? each one needed a real person to act as a director. so how much did they know about what their business was being used for? they do have some responsibility. they probably turned a blind eye to what was going on, but i've no doubt they knew what was going on. why do you think that? if somebody comes to me with something that seems too good to be true, then in the back of my mind, i'm going to be thinking there's something not quite right about this. say hello to yekaterina kobrina. yekaterina was the director of one of the key companies involved in the scheme. her name was on all sorts of documents. we don't know whether she ever lived in london, but looking through her facebook profile, we know she came here and that's just about 200 metres from where the gang was living. she looks like any other tourist smiling for the camera. but was she doing something more thanjust sightseeing? and this is povilas bartkevicius, a chef by trade and director of one of the main companies involved. we know that povilas was in london, too, standing on this exact spot, posing in front of that super yacht hotel. we really want to talk to them. they're not in london any more, but both have common links to a city more than 1,000 miles away. lithuania, home to several million people, but we're only looking for two — povilas and yekaterina. theyjust might be able to tell us what happened to that £10 million. first, though, let me introduce you to a couple of people. these two are local investigative journalists. they've agreed to help out. and as we're about to find out, they're really good. these are the people we're interested in. so we're starting with just two names and they're not in the phone book. this is yekaterina. so what do we know about yekaterina kobrina? yes. so it's yekaterina kobrina. so it's definitely her. yeah. there's the obvious. she's a model. and look, we found an online clothes outlet she works for. hello? we try to book her for a photo shoot. but the woman on the phone is suspicious. he's found something. a facebook post. so this is like a shopping street or talking about a shop. she's saying that last week she bought potatoes and it was in very bad conditions in the shops. and today she bought tomatoes. 0k, translate. so you can write. "last week we received rotten tomatoes, which looked tragic." so this is vilnius. so that is where the potatoes were bought? yes. well, we need to go there, don't we? continue on for 2km. £10 million of british taxpayers money in this neighbourhood seems hard to believe. that's the shop, the supermarket where yekaterina was buying her potato. so she was doing that, well, a couple of times over a couple of weeks. i mean, that must mean she lives here or close by. we must be close, but no luck. dead end — for now. so what are our chances of ever finding that money? criminals do not have borders. they don't care. this man runs a lithuanian anti—money laundering organisation in the uk. during covid, the government set up the schemes during covid, the government set up the schemes to help out businesses. they were handing out £50,000 with almost no checks at all. what do you think of that? uh... i would say it's a mistake. criminals are the first in the line who are trying to use new products, who are trying to use new services and etc. so, it's a mistake. with the economy imploding and businesses going to the wall at the height of covid, handing out loans as fast as possible seemed like the only option. well, right at the start i thought, well, all you need for a bounce back loan is an eligible company and a pulse. but, you know, it turns out you didn't need either. we've come to blackpool to meet mike, who tried to help legit company owners get their hands on a bounce back loan. the people who scam the system. they should be rounding them up. they should be looking for them, hunting them, that's taxpayers money. mike craig ran a one man campaign lifting the lid on all that he says was wrong with the scheme. how big a scandal is this? it's massive. we're talking billions of pounds. and when you hear that people could just press a couple of buttons, £50,000, ship it off abroad and leave — that's wrong. it'sjust wrong. for people who are the criminal element, there was no risk at all because they were... if they had the bank accounts in place, they were they could get the money the next day. however, a lot of people, genuine businesses, didn't have an accounts with the first initial few lenders, so some of them were waiting 6—12 months, even longer, before they actually secured bounce back loans. and they were the genuine ones and they missed out on getting the money, which was what the scheme was set up for. yet the criminals got the money on day one, day two, day three and off they trott. where does that leave the taxpayer? stuffed for billions of pounds. back in vilnius, we switch targets. remember this guy, povilas? well, here's the thing. he was director of one of the gangs dodgy companies. from social media, we know he's a chef — and a pretty good one, at that. he won awards at the restaurant where he used to work. but we also know the company in his name received loads of that bounce back loan money. £10 million came in and yup, you guessed it, £10 million went out, transferred abroad — rishi's millions gone, through the bank account of a company whose director was povilas. we call the restaurant, but he doesn't work there any more. 0k. feels like yet another dead end. time to get creative. most people probably won't know what it is, but if you're a cyclist or a runner, you will. and that's the app strava. see, strava records all of the journeys you make, whether you're running or cycling. and i wondered whether povilas might be, for example, a cyclist. so i put his name into strava and sure enough, up it came. and it turns out he's been making journeys first thing in the morning and last thing at night. and look where it takes us — to another restaurant on the other side of town. he peddled here again and again. just over there. nice litlle restaurant, smoke coming out of the chimneys. we know that povilas sometimes works there, so we'rejust going to go in, have a meal, and see if he's on shift today. wow. the menu is eye watering. it's so expensive. the only thing we could afford was the soup. we just don't know whether povilas is here, working in the kitchen. we can't see him in the kitchen. so we follow his strava route back the other way. too cold for a bike this time. looking at facebook, he's posted in a group for people who own bmws. and here's his car and the rear light apparently isn't working our man is on the case. and, miraculously, there it is. it's the right make. it's bmw. it's an e90. this is the car. yeah. so it's that one there, isn't it? we�* re really close. we must be very close here. he's living in this building or in this building. i mean, he could be watching us now. this man we're talking of, he works as a chef here. he doesn't have lots of money. his brother is in prison. he was the big guy. do you think there's any chance he might tell us where the money went? early the next morning, a surprise. hi, povilas. i'm angus from the bbc. we just want to ask you where the money went. what money? from the bounceback loans. i don't know. your name is on a company, bart solution. and that received £10 million in your name? your name. the police in britain say the directors of these companies, they must have known or they should have known. what do you say to them? i don't know anything. if i had some money or 10,000k. i didn't work two jobs here. ijust married two months ago. i worked without weekends to buy everything. for my wedding. povilas tells us he has no idea his name was being used in this way. i really don't know what to make of that. he seems very genuine. he seems very honest. i don't think he was lying to us. but as far as he's concerned, that is the first time he's ever heard that his name is connected to the theft of £10 million now he's off to work. he does two jobs, he says. he lives in this set of flats. those on the edge of this scheme may or may not have known what was going on. but the fact is, the british taxpayer got well and truly ripped off. but why? why wasn't the gang stopped? why was the scheme so flawed? politicians? police? who's to blame? well, london is the only place to find those answers. this storyjust gets more and more extraordinary. it turns out that when the gang were doing the bounce back loan fraud in 2020, they were already out on police bailfor the money laundering they'd been arrested for. that in 2018, the courts decided they couldn't keep them in prison. yes, it is frustrating. it's frustrating for hardworking officers that the individuals that they think are probably detained for a long time are back out there doing things. but that's the way things happen. and, you know, ourjob is to get out there and arrest them. how the rest of the criminaljustice system works is down to the rest of the criminaljustice system. but a difficult moment. yeah, difficult. difficult for people who work hard like my officers do. it sends a dreadful signal to society that bad people are enriching themselves on the back of decent taxpayers. if anyone�*s going to know what went wrong with the bounce back loan scheme, it's this man. lord agnew was the government's counterfraud minister. he resigned in sheerfrustration. i think there was a colossal naivety. the mood in the treasury was that they were desperate to get the money out as quickly as possible. what they didn't understand was that a fraud and a credit check could takes minutes. it would not have delayed the money going out. well, it wasjust maddeningly frustrating because these were own goals that could easily have been stopped. but because the events were moving so quickly, by the time we were able to tighten things up now, the horse had bolted. i'm worried that that there is still a reluctance to grip this with real vigour. so as we stand, do we think that those at the top of government have learnt the lessons of the bounce back loan scheme? i would like to hope so, but i'm not convinced. so what about yekaterina? she's out there somewhere. maybe she knows more about where the money went. we spend days trying to track her down. and then just as we're about to give up... nice to meet you. yeah. nice to meet you. i ask her about the company in her name, but i don't know anything and you should ask other people because i live in vilnius, lithuania. but you've lived in london too, haven't you? but i don't give comments. no comments. only with my lawyer. and with that, she's gone. we've been chasing around vilnius for the last couple of days, trying to find yekaterina, and then suddenly we just saw her walking down the street. we nearly missed her, actually. she says she does know povilas and deivis, but really only because she was at school with them. and as for the companies which have got her name on, she says she has no idea about them. so where does that leave us? we found two people whose names are on the companies which were used for the money laundering and the bounce back loan fraud. but we just don't know if they had any idea where the money came from and where it went to. are we going to find it? is the british taxpayer going to get it back? it looks highly unlikely. hello there. the remaining snow will be melting during sunday as we get some much milder air, just for a while, though, because there is more snow in the forecast over the week ahead. and that weather front has been bringing some snow to the hills of northern england snd scotland, should be out of the way, though, by sunday morning, and following on from that, this is where we see the milder air coming in as the winds change direction to more of a south—westerly. there's still some cold air, though, to start the day in the far north of scotland, but otherwise, temperatures are going to be 5—8 celsius as we start the second half of the weekend. and with that milder air, there could be quite a lot of cloud, but we should see some sunshine here and there, more especially across eastern parts of england. we could see more rain coming back into scotland and across northern ireland, and then later in the day, some rain pushes into southwest england and towards wales as those south—westerly winds pick up. and this is what it does to the temperatures, it's still chilly in the far north of scotland, but otherwise temperatures generally will be in double figures. we're likely to make 11; celsius in the south east of england. with that milder air coming in, we see the snow melting, turning misty and murky in the hills, continued melting as we head overnight because we've got rain falling in many areas, but it will be turning colder in scotland. that rain turning to snow in scotland, especially in the hills. the winds pick up in the northwest, bringing in the colder air. the rain clears away from northern ireland, continues in northern parts of england and wales and to the south, where we've got some sunshine and a few showers as well. but it will be windy pretty much everywhere. the winds could be touching gale force in southern parts of england and wales. and later we could have some gales in the north west of scotland. that will make it feel colder, temperatures are going to be dropping through the day. scotland and northern ireland, still making double figures across england and wales for one more day. but things will change overnight, that weather front sweeps rain south eastwards across the uk, and then the wind direction changes, and we all get this north westerly wind piling in on tuesday, making it feel much colder and bringing with it a mixture of sunshine, but also quite a few wintry showers. sleet and snow sweeping down across scotland, northern ireland into england and wales through the day as well. the temperatures in the south could reach 6—7 celsius. northern scotland was struggling to around 2—3 celsius, but it will be windy, strongest winds probably down north sea coasts. and when you factor in the strength of the wind, well, then those temperatures are going to feel more like closer to freezing. this is bbc news, i'm mark lobell. our top stories... the bbc�*s director general, tim davie, says he won't resign but apologises for widespread disruption to the corporation's sports output on saturday — after presenters and pundits walked out in support of the match of the day host, gary lineker. success for me is gary gets back on air, and together, we are giving to the audiences that world—class sports coverage, which as i say, i'm sorry we haven't been able to deliver today. the prime minsister rishi sunak hopes the controversy can be resolved and urges people to maintain perspective on his policies but the labour leader keir starmer says the bbc was not acting impartially in suspending gary lineker. and the british chancellor, jeremy hunt, has met the governor

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