A London HR manager who stole more than £100,000 from her company through fake invoices has been jailed for three years.
Farah Ahmed, 48, of Slough, falsified invoices and transferred money from her employers to her own bank account, a debt recovery, and a solicitors’ firm.
She carried out her crimes while working in human resources at two different City firms - an American consultancy and a property and construction company.
During her two roles, Ahmed was responsibly for managing the hiring of new employees and internships, and the career progression of employees, acting as their main point of contact for HR-related issues.
In November 2019, Ahmed was fired from her job after a formal complaint by the office manager was investigated, and false invoices for more than £100,000 were found on her computer, which had been paid to her personal bank account.
The complaint had come after other colleagues had raised issues about Ahmed’s work ethic and approachability as a HR manager.
After Ahmed was let go, four more invoices were found in her office that had not yet been processed and were dated after her dismissal.
“If she had not been dismissed and her fraudulent activity had not been uncovered, this was likely to have resulted in further losses,” said a City of London Police spokesperson.
“It is believed that Ahmed used the stolen money to pay off an outstanding debt she had with a debt recovery company for a vehicle loan that she had failed to make repayments on.”
On top of falsifying invoices, Ahmed had tried hacking the email of the managing director of the company she worked at between 2015 to 2017, using an email hacking tool.
The managing director received emails to say that an email had failed to send. It read: “Hello Ahmed. I have performed the hack and I now have access to the account that is why I am able to message you from here.
Please reply me on my mail and let me know if you see this message.”
On further investigation, it was revealed that the email it was trying to reach belonged to Farah Ahmed.
Ahmed was charged with 11 crimes. On November 5, the second day of her trial, she pleaded guilty to seven of the charges.
These were six counts of fraud and a single count of doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of justice.
On Friday (November 29), she was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court to three years in prison.
Detective Inspector Nichola Meghji, from the Fraud Operations team, at the City of London Police said: “In any organisation, employees depend on their human resources department to be upstanding with a strong moral compass, to have great judgement and to be impartial and honest in their decision making.
“Sadly, in the case of Farah Ahmed, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Ahmed abused the privileges of her managerial position to pay off her personal debts.
“Often, people think that fraud being committed against an organisation is victimless, however the reality is that it can have a direct effect on the employees as businesses rely on profitability to pay their employees’ salaries, health benefits, and health insurance.”
