East Lothian factory manager who stole £300,000 from employers and spent cash on lavish holidays jailed
Edinburgh man jailed for fraud
An East Lothian factory manager from Edinburgh who stole £300,000 from his employers and splashed the cash on expensive foreign holidays, has been jailed for more than two years.
Kamil Mielczarek defrauded bosses at agricultural firm East Lothian Produce in an elaborate “ghost workers” scam by forging time sheets and invoices for bogus agency employees.
Mielczarek, 43, used the names of relatives to con the family-owned firm into paying out the huge sum in fake wages in the crooked scheme that lasted over three years.
The pack house manager used the stolen cash to fly business class on lavish trips to destinations including Miami in Florida, and also claimed he sent money back to his family in Poland.
Mielczarek had previously pleaded guilty, and appeared for sentencing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday, August 21, where prosecutor Corey Laouadi read out a written narration detailing the fraud.
Mr Laouadi said Mielczarek was first employed by the company based in Haddington, East Lothian in 2005, and was subsequently promoted to the position of pack house manager in 2019.
The management role involved filling out and signing off time sheets for temporary workers who were supplied to work at the agricultural firm by three external employment agencies.
The court heard concerns were raised about the fake wage payments after bosses spotted the names being used were family members of Mielczarek and his accomplice Viktorija Lukjanova in March 2024.
An internal investigation was launched into the matter and the court was told Mielczarek had blamed his colleague for organising the operation.
The fiscal depute said the two managers had access to the bank accounts the wages of the “ghost workers” were being paid into and they had split the proceeds “50/50”.
Both employees were subsequently suspended and sacked for gross misconduct and the police were called in to investigate the fraud.
The fiscal said: “When questioned about the money the accused stated he had spent all the money on holidays and sent money to his sister to help pay for his mother. The total loss to East Lothian Produce from the fraud was £300,000.”
Solicitor Gerry Bann, defending, said Mielczarek, of Pilton, Edinburgh, had shown “remorse and insight” and wanted to apologise for his offending.
Mr Bann said: “He is described in the social work report as being very sorry for his conduct. He fully appreciates there will be only one outcome to the sentence today and that will be a period of custody.”
Sheriff Charles Walls said there had been “significant harm caused to the victims” and a serious aggravation included him being “in a position of trust”.
The sheriff said: “You gave some money to family but the rest it seems was spent on holidays and you became accustomed to the extra income. You betrayed the trust placed in you for no obvious reason but opportunistic greed.”
Sheriff Walls sentenced Mielczarek to a custodial term of 27 months. Mielczarek admitted to presenting timesheets and invoices for various agency staff and inducing the East Lothian Produce to pay wages of £300,000 into bank accounts he had control over and obtained the money by fraud between January 2, 2021 and February 25, 2024.
Viktorija Lukjanova, a 36-year-old Latvian national, was jailed for 24 months for her part in the fake worker scam when she appeared at the capital court earlier this year.
Lukjanova, of Ormiston, East Lothian, also forged time sheets and used the names of family members to defraud East Lothian Produce Ltd out of £550,000 over a three year period.
East Lothian Produce is a family-owned vegetable processing, packing and marketing business that supplies customers throughout Europe and is based on the outskirts of Haddington, East Lothian.