When gamekeeper turns poacher

 

A former head of Oxfam's counter-fraud unit has been jailed for defrauding the charity out of nearly £65,000.

Edward McKenzie-Green, 34, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, was handed two years and five months imprisonment for making payments to fictitious firms.

The Old Bailey heard McKenzie-Green had made £64,612.58 in payments from Oxfam to fictitious firms between February and December 2011.

One of the lessons of the recent economic downturn was the need for all businesses and organisations to remain alert to the potential for fraud.

Entrepreneurial owners of SME’s are a prime target for fraud as overseeing finances doesn’t always come naturally to them. If a founder is focusing mainly on the product or service being sold, and only minimally on administration, it leaves a business vulnerable to fraud.

In smaller organisations fraud can take many forms e.g. invoice scams, to suppliers providing kickbacks for inflated purchases, theft of stock, fictitious expenses etc.

For larger organisations the potential for various fraud activities exists but the numbers involved are far greater.

It is vital that all organisations have systems in place to monitor all of the company’s finances and commitments in a clear and concise format.

Simple but effective systems of checks and balances can go a long way to limiting if not removing the risks.

It is all but impossible to ensure that any organisation is “fraud proof” but by establishing robust and efficient systems some measures of comfort can be introduced.