Businessman jailed for selling fake halal meat to restaurants

Two men have been sentenced for falsely selling chicken as halal meat to restaurants and takeaways across south Wales.

Universal Food Wholesale owner Helim Miah, was found guilty and sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for fraudulent trading and trading whilst bankrupt.

Noaf Rahman, admitted the fraudulent trading offences before the trial started and was given a 24-month suspended sentence.

The offences came to light following an investigation which led to almost 3000 kilos of frozen meat being seized from the pair’s warehouse in Cardiff.

Jurors at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court learned that customers of restaurants and takeaways “were in fact consuming non-halal products as a result of the criminality of these two defendants”, over a 5-year period.

An investigation was conducted by Cardiff and the Vale Shared Regulatory Services in January 2019.

It found meat was not properly traceable, sell-by dates were altered and the chicken was not properly chilled when it was transported in dirty vans across south and west Wales.

The court heard that the takeaways and restaurants believed they were dealing with a number of different companies and all believed they were buying Halal chicken.

Some of the chicken had been bought in as halal meat, but correct hygiene procedures had not been followed in the “cutting room” of the warehouse.

It was also used to process non-halal meat meaning that none of it could be accurately described as halal.

There were long periods of time when the warehouse did not receive halal meat from wholesalers, but continued to supply chicken to restaurants and takeaways who believed it was halal.

The prosecution said the pair set up a complex nework of companies to enabled them to hide “behind a corporate veil” which was deliberately created to provide a “confusing trail”

Judge Vanessa Francis said that the pair had a “cavalier attitude” and were equally culpable and that the “harm in my view is extensive” and that there were “flagrant breaches over a significant period of time”.

Miah, was also the landlord of Soul restaurant amd takeaway in Cardiff. The court case prevented its award-winning owner-chef, Stephen Gomes, from opening Soul as an eat-in venue since late 2025.

https://www.soultakeaway.co.uk