Two Crown Prosecution Service employees have admitted making more than £1 million worth of bogus claims for taxi fares.
Finance manager Lisa Burrows and officer worker Tahir Mahmood were warned to expect “inevitable” jail terms after pleading guilty to fraud by abuse of position at Birmingham Crown Court.
Burrows, 41, of Oldbury, West Midlands, and Mahmood, 50, from Hodge Hill, Birmingham, are believed to have used the proceeds of the five-year scam to pay off a mortgage and fund trips to Dubai.
The pair, who will be sentenced in July, showed no obvious sign of emotion as they admitted conning the CPS out of £1,021,475 by producing invoices for a fictitious cab firm purporting to cater for witnesses.
Prosecutor Brian Dean told the court that investigators were still attempting to trace the proceeds of the fraud.
Asking Judge Nicholas Webb for the case to be adjourned until July 4, the barrister said ongoing inquiries into international bank accounts were being made by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Mr Dean added: “There is not, at the moment, any explanation for where the money has gone. A financial analyst is considering all the information so that a sentencing judge can be given a very clear idea of precisely what has happened to the money.”
It was possible, Mr Dean said, that Mahmood had used £120,000 to clear a mortgage, while Burrows was thought to have visited Dubai on many occasions.
“These things need to be run to ground so that the sentencing judge has a full and accurate picture of the precise nature of the spending and the whereabouts of the money,” Mr Dean said.
Burrows, of Titford Road, and Mahmood, of Eastbourne Avenue, were charged last month after an investigation by police acting on a complaint from the CPS.
source: http://www.newmarketjournal.co.uk/
