Million Pound Bookkeeper From Hell
Published: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
MILLION POUND BOOKKEEPER FROM HELL
23 year old Brit bookkeeper steals GBP 1 million
Before a court in Dorchester, England this week was a 23 year old construction company accounts administrator who not only siphoned off GBP 1 million to pay online gambling obligations, but ran the company into the ground in the process.
In a series of transactions which suggest very little supervision of the young bookkeeper, he stole a tenth of the company's annual turnover that had been reserved to pay the taxman, causing the company to collapse with the loss of three other employee jobs.
The young man, who earned GBP 16 000 a year, was spending more than his annual salary every day on an addiction to online gambling at major UK companies like Ladbrokes. It was not until a tax inspector telephoned about an outstanding bill that it was discovered the money had gone.
In one month he spent GBP 187 000 betting on horse races and football matches and playing poker and other casino games. Over an 18-month period he burned through a total of GBP 1 047 550.
The managing director of the failed company and the bookkeeper's employer Mike Jones said: “I feel like I have been betrayed because I have known Benjafield since he was 17. He used to work as a part-time barman when I owned a pub and when I set up [the company] in 2002 I took him on as an accounts administrator.
“I had absolutely no idea he was doing this and it is quite ironic because at the end of the month he was the one always asking to borrow money.
“He used to tell me he was too busy to do stuff and he had a lot of work on, but in reality he was spending all his time on internet betting sites, gambling away our money.”
The errant bookkeeper did not get any sort of return on his "investment" with gambling companies - his biggest single win was GBP 75 000 which he gambled away again within days with another run of bad bets.
The bookkeeper admitted two counts of obtaining money transfer by deception, two counts of theft and one count of transfer of criminal property. He was granted bail and will return to court be sentenced at a later date.
