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Oxfam counter-fraud expert pleads guilty to £65,000 fraud (7 March 2014)

Date: 07/03/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors,  Oxfam counter-fraud expert pleads guilty to £65,000 fraud

A fraud expert pleaded guilty to defrauding the charity he worked for of £65,000 at the Old Bailey on Thursday (06/03/14).

Edward MacKenzie-Green, 34, of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire was charged with making payments from Oxfam’s accounts to companies which did not exist.

His father was also charged with allegedly helping him to launder £35,000 of the money – but the charge was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Mr MacKenzie-Green set up the companies he made payments to from Oxfam’s accounts after being appointed head of counter-fraud at Oxfam.

He also faced one charge of allegedly stealing a laptop from Oxfam in December 2011, but this charge was dropped.

Mr MacKenzie-Green pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining £64,612.58 in payments Between February and December 2011. He set up fake companies and then submitted false invoices to Oxfam, paying the monies into the account of his father or a friend, before transferring the funds to his own account. Even after the fraud had been detected, Mr MacKenzie-Green attempted to cover up what he had been doing, the court was told.

The court also heard that at the time he committed the offences his marriage was falling apart and he was addicted to prescription drugs, causing him to have a “breakdown”. He was admitted to psychiatric hospital last year after displaying erratic behaviour.

Judge Timothy Pontius indicated that Mr MacKenzie-Green may receive a jail term when he is sentenced on 16 May.

Oxfam said it would try and recover the money taken.

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