A London council worker embezzled nearly half a million pounds of public money which was meant to pay for the care of vulnerable adults.
Greedy finance officer Ceyda Elkatme, 35, siphoned off more than £466,000 over more than two years working at cash-strapped Haringey Council in north London.
Eight people were involved in the “despicable” scam as the unscrupulous council worker colluded with her husband and six other accomplices, making dodgy payments out of Haringey’s adult social care budget into their accounts.
She made 66 bogus payments for adult care services which were never delivered between June 2010 and October 2012.
The recipients, four men and two women, then sent the money back to her or her husband – after taking a slice for their trouble.
The web of deceit unravelled after an internal audit by the council before Elkatme and her seven accomplices were arrested in summer 2013.
Elkatme has now been jailed for three years and six months for fraud at Southwark Crown Court.
Her husband Jihad Elkatme, 34, of Sterling Avenue, Waltham Cross, was locked up for 21 months for money laundering.
Supt Amanda Dellar said: “This was a despicable crime. They set out to launder hundreds of thousands of pounds between them - money which should have been paid to people providing essential care services for vulnerable adults in the borough.”
Supt Dellar said financial investigators will be taking up the case as she vowed to recover as much of the money as possible.
Six others were convicted of money laundering. Two of them – Abid Fostok, 33, of Streamside Close, Edmonton and Tijen Kacakoglu, 35, of Kimberley Road, Edmonton – received jail sentences of between 10 months and a year.
The others were handed suspended sentences.
They were Ajda Saykin-Bezci, 36, of Dunheved Road South, Thornton Heath; Nicos Kolas, 34, of Albany Park Avenue, Enfield; Iqbal Bablu, 27, of Landseer Road, Enfield; and Mazar Khan, 35, previously of Millicent Grove, Palmers Green.
A third woman, Fadumo Ali, 48, of Chauncey Close, Edmonton, was a genuine contractor with Haringey Council and was found not guilty of acquiring criminal property.
