Council employee steals 17 million kroner from Copenhageners

Fraud has been going on since 1997

An employee of the City Council has defrauded his employer of 17 million kroner, according to documents obtained by DR Nyheder from the council’s internal audit department.

The fraudulent conduct is reported to have begun in 1997. The employee was dismissed on September 2 this year when the case came to light. Three other employees have been suspended while police investigate the case.

Breach of trust
According to DR, it is not clear exactly how the fraud was committed, but it is speculated that funds were transferred internally between council accounts before being pilfered.

Kasper Schmidt, the head of the council’s Koncernservice, which performs various economic functions in the organisation, emphasised that the case constituted a serious breach of trust. “It’s a serious fraud we’ve been subjected to,” he told DR.

“The police’s investigations are not yet finished, but everything suggests that a single employee for years on end has abused his central position and his knowledge to pull money out of various accounts in Koncernservice."

Gaps in security
Schmidt went on to say that efforts were being made to avoid similar cases in the future. "We’re making a comprehensive effort to shed light on all of the details of the fraud and to close potential gaps in our security," he said.

"We need to find out how this type of thing can have been going on since 1997, and we need to ensure that it can never happen again.”

The dismissed employee will face criminal prosecution, although details of the charges have not been decided. The council has already given two written warnings and a verbal warning to the suspended employees.

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