A North London fraudster described as a ‘selfish, self-obsessed’ woman was arrested at Gatwick Airport after defrauding her employer out of £200,000.
Anita Mirmohammadi, 31, used her employer’s cash to fund trips to Mexico, Turkey and Dubai and to buy luxury goods at Harrods, Zara, Mercedes Benz, and pay her Thames Water bill.
Mirmohammadi, of Temple Close, Finchley, had started working at a Brentwood-based business as a manager in their finance team in 2018, which gave her access to a business credit card. Four years later, on April 21 2022, a number of unexplained transactions across the globe were found as part of unrelated fraud checks on the company accounts, and the authorities were alerted.
Essex Police discovered Mirmohammadi, of Temple Close in Finchley, had been using her personally-issued credit card to fund herself, as well as making fraudulent invoices to extract even more money from the company accounts. She nicked £184,675.89 from the company. The first £126,381.19 was taken by credit card and the other £63,294.70 from the business account via invoices.
Mirmohammadi was hit with five years and 10 months behind bars, following a trial at Basildon Crown Court last Friday (May 9). Police are working to understand the exact amount spent in order to claw the money back under the Proceeds of Crime Act (PoCA).
Judge Shane Collery said: “She was not dependant on stealing to survive and her claim that she does care is hard to accept as she gave no thought to the consequences at all. She is a selfish, self-obsessed woman who repeated regular dishonesty, which was systemic and sustained and she must have seen what she was doing.”
Detective Constable Karen Venables from Essex Police said: “This sentence shows the severity of Mirmohmmadi’s offending. This was a calculated, ongoing fraud that would have continued had she not been caught, and I am glad to see the judge recognise this in his sentencing.
“It was clear from the deception we found in these accounts that Mirmohammadi knew what she was doing was wrong and was trying to cover her tracks. Our Economic Crime Team has worked closely with the banks, businesses and Action Fraud to piece together the full extent of her offending – that work doesn’t stop at sentencing, and we now turn to confiscating any criminal gains under the Proceeds Of Crime Act.”
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