Vasant Jethanand Advani, 67, was sentenced after admitting to the fraud, including 10 counts of false accounting, at the Croydon Crown Court last week. He has also been disqualified from acting as a company director.
Advani, a British and Nigerian passport holder, who left the UK in late 1986, was one of a number of suspects in a wide ranging investigation which followed the collapse of Johnson Mathey Bank.
The fraud involved claims made in the process of buying vehicles to transport Indian food.
One strand of the investigation looked into Advani's business operations, officials said.
According to Britain's Serious Fraud Office, Advani's companies included the Grovebell Group and the Staxford Group, administered from his office at Boston House in the City of London.
In 1980, the Grovebell Group had acquired a Manchester firm, Hills Garages Ltd, whose business included the sale, modification and conversion of commercial vehicles.
The offences relate to finance applications for such work. By 1986, the group of companies had got into difficulties and Lloyds Bank withdrew its banking arrangements and the business was placed into voluntary liquidation.
The liquidator reported some concerns about the probity of the activities of Advani's companies and a criminal investigation ensued.
The fraud arose out of the obtaining of finance from the financing division of General Motors and from the United Finance Group Ltd.
The money was for two of Advani's companies, Rotex Ltd (part of Staxstead Group) and Grovebell Trading, supposedly to buy 18