Employee used position to inflate payments to bank accounts
A payroll officer recently landed in court after swindling more than $1 million from her employer, fungus producer Merbein Mushrooms, for over six years.
Allison Simmons used the company's payroll system to make unauthorised inflated payments to her bank accounts starting in 2013, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reported.
Simmons accrued $279,496 by 2019 just from the money she transferred to her bank accounts. The payroll officer also secretly changed the bank account details of different employees in the company to accounts that she operated.
She made 435 transactions to those bank accounts before transferring them to her own, which totalled $1,163,919 by 2019, the AAP reported.
Simmons also made multiple withdrawals with a total of $203,000, which was used on various occasions, including about $181,000 on Facebook games such as Candy Crush, $86,000 on retail expenses, and $151,000 paid to family members.
Discovery of employee theft
Simmons' scheme was uncovered after an audit of the payroll system led to her, according to the AAP report.
The audit was launched after different employees began complaining that they weren't getting paid, which led to the discovery of their money getting transferred to unknown bank accounts.
Geoffrey Izard, the company's director, feared that they had been hacked and hired an IT expert to investigate, which uncovered Simmons' scheme.
Guilty plea for workplace theft
In court, Simmons pleaded guilty to seven charges of theft.
Prosecutor Peter Pickering told the County Court on Monday that Simmons attempted to cover up her actions with lies. He also conceded that jail time is an appropriate punishment for a crime.
"She made the mistake of being greedy by using the account of an existing employee," Pickering said as quoted by AAP.
Judge David Sexton revoked her bail amid her lack of remorse. She will be sentenced at a later date.
