Factory manager conned bosses at East Lothian company out of £300,000
He conned bosses at agricultural firm East Lothian Produce
A factory manager has admitted defrauding his employers of £300,000 in an elaborate fake agency workers scam.
Kamil Mielczarek conned bosses at agricultural firm East Lothian Produce into believing the company was employing the agency workers by forging fake time sheets and invoices.
Mielczarek, 43, induced the company to pay out the massive amount of cash in wages for the bogus employees in a crooked scheme that lasted more than three years.
The Polish national, of Pilton, Edinburgh, siphoned all the money from the firm and had it paid into several of his own bank accounts.
Mielczarek pleaded guilty to obtaining £300,000 from the company by fraud when he appeared in the dock at the capital’s sheriff court on Tuesday July 21.
Sheriff Charles Walls was told prosecutors were preparing a written narration into the details of the offence that will be read out in open court at the next calling of the case.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Grant said the Crown were accepting the guilty plea after agreeing to amend the figure down from the original sum of £819,500.
Sheriff Walls told Mielczarek: “I am going to defer sentence for the preparation of a criminal justice social work report. The figure in the indictment has been amended and as a result of that I will continue your bail.
“But you must understand that this is a very significant offence and all sentencing options are available to me when you return to court.”
Mielczarek admitted to pretending various agency staff worked at East Lothian Produce in Haddington, East Lothian, and presented timesheets and invoices and induced the firm 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.
Co-accused Viktorija Lukjanova, a Latvian national, was jailed for her part in the fake worker scam when she appeared at the capital court earlier this year Lukjanova, 36, also forged time sheets and invoices to defraud her employers at East Lothian Produce Ltd out of £550,000 over a three year period.
Lukjanova, of Ormiston, East Lothian, used the names of family members to convince bosses of the existence of the fake employees before the “sophisticated” scheme was uncovered.
Sheriff Graeme Watson told the mother-of-two her offending had been aggravated by the “high level of planning” that had gone into the crime and jailed her for two years.
Sheriff Watson said: “By this fraud you obtained over half a million pounds from your employer. You were placed in a position of trust and you abused that trust.
“There is very little explanation as to why you committed this fraud or what you did with the proceeds.”
Defence advocate Jonathan Campbell told the court his client committed the offence due to “financial difficulties” and that “matters had spiralled” out of control before she could stop.
Mr Campbell said: “From the outset Ms Lukjanova realises this is a serious offence and recognises the impact this has had on the family company that employed her.
“Ms Lukjanova takes full responsibility for the offence and recognises the damage she has caused.”
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.