A man who worked at Espoo’s Biltema was convicted of aggravated embezzlement.
Espoo A man who worked at Biltema embezzled tens of thousands of euros from his employer by inventing non-existent returns to the store.
He deposited part of the money into his wife’s account. On the eve, the Court of Appeal sentenced the man for aggravated embezzlement and the wife for aggravated money laundering.
In circulation started in 2015 to investigate numerous strange return events. Returns and refunds for them had been recorded in the system, even though no customer had been seen there and no original receipt or returned goods could be found anywhere.
In Biltema, these unclear refunds were calculated for a total of 100,000 euros. At first, it was thought that there were several perpetrators, but then a man who had worked at the shop since the previous year was suspected of taking the entire amount.
The man was suspected of faking refunds and then converting the refund receipts he received into money and gift cards.
The district court dealt with the case in 2021. The wife was accused of money laundering because the husband had deposited tens of thousands of euros into her account.
Both denied the charges. The court convicted the man of gross embezzlement and the woman of negligent money laundering.
Both appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeal.
Man gave several explanations based on which he claimed the returns were correct.
He also said, for example, that the money transferred to the wife’s account would have been betting winnings, but he would have said that to the wife, who hates gambling, they were wages received from illegal work. The wife denied knowing that the money was obtained through crime.
The court did not find the explanations credible.
During the last two weeks of the man’s work, there was a video of the strange returns, and during them it was considered that he must have taken around 6,000 euros in this way.
There was no such precise evidence from earlier times. Both courts considered embezzlement of the money to have taken place. Biltema’s representatives also considered it possible that there could also be some individual genuine returns in which the receipt was really just lost. Courts estimate how much in different ways.
The Court of Appeal’s estimate of the amount embezzled was higher than the district court’s: more than 74,000 euros. It also made it clear that the wife had to know where the money came from.
Man received a total of one and a half years in prison for aggravated embezzlement and a few minor financial crimes.
The wife’s money laundering sentence was changed from negligent to gross in the Court of Appeal and she received an eight-month suspended prison sentence.
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