We were contacted by a Blackburn based company who had suffered a large scale theft by an employee.
Said employee had been making account payments on fraudulent invoices to an account in her name.
At the trial the employee insisted the amounts stolen were smaller than claimed and had been used to pay off debt collectors. No award was made to the company under proceeds of crime.
The company actually believed the amount stolen was higher than could be proved and that the thief had hidden assets. Due to the figures the firm was happy to pay for a large private detective surveillance operation covering the Blackburn area around the work and home place.
At first the signs weren’t promising, the target lived in a rented house, the vehicles present could hardly be described as roadworthy, and the whole lifestyle appeared frugal. There was however a ray of hope. There was a trailer present with a registration that belong to a nearly new BMW.
It soon transpired that every few weeks, on a Friday at 5pm, the husband drove away in the old car and returned with the BMW. This was then loaded up and the family travelled South for a short holiday in a caravan they owned. It was noted on these holidays they were very cash rich. Eventually we identified they owned 3 caravans and earned extra money from renting them out.
As the husband was a benefits claimant we were confident the assets would be in the wife’s name and the client began civil action to recover their money.