A RECYCLING boss was still involved in deals worth more than £600,000 in the months before his firm went under.

But an investigation by the Insolvency Service failed to establish whether Recycling 4 U (Hyndburn) ever benefitted from clothing wholesaler Nadim Sarwar's wheel-dealing.

The director, of Willows Lane, Accrington, is now beginning a six-year company director ban, after he left the taxman with an alleged £125,000 bill.

An Insolvency Service official said: "(The firm's) bank statements show payments and withdrawals of £603,182 between April 2017 and June 2018.

"But, as a result of the failure to deliver up adequate trading records, it has not been possible to verify why payments totalling £347,289 were made to parties, with whom no evidence of a trading relationship has been provided."

An inquiry similarly failed to establish, for the same reasons, why £272,904 was received from other entities, which Recycling 4 U had no past dealings with.

The probe also uncovered £156,950 worth of unquantifiable receipts and stock records, detailing prices and transfers, were also absent.

Accounting records were also silent on whether any money owed to creditors could be collected by the company's liquidators, or whether any drawings or loans from the enterprise had been declared for tax purposes.

This resulted in question marks over whether the tax authorities were owed an estimated claim of £125.519 for VAT and other tax entitlements.

Administrators were called in at the company, which was based in the Oswaldtwistle Mills Business Centre, off Pickup Street, as long ago as September 2018.

The company was said to have just £413 in its bank account at the time.

The firm, whose affairs were wound up by Zafar Iqbal, of Essex-based insolvency practice Cooper Young, had only been incorporated by Sarwar in February 2017.

An earlier statement of affairs for Recycling 4 U showed that there were two creditors, other than HM Revenue and Customs.

The outfit owed £30,000 to Preston-based DHG Wholesale. which itself went under owing £400,000 in 2018. Sarwar himself was said to be owed the same amount.

The total deficiency recorded by Cooper Young at the time of their demise - the company was officially wound up on Christmas Eve - was £187,411.

Two of Sarwar's previous ventures, Magic Minutes Ltd and E-Talk Ltd, were both dissolved in 2016.