COURT TOLD FORENSIC EXPERT SUSPECTED $1.7M FOOD COMPANY FRAUD

Boss set up fake companies, took $1.7m: court told

A FORENSIC expert who examined records from a Cairns wholesale food company recommended it become subject of a major investigation.

Anthony Francis McEwan, 49, the branch manager of Simon George and Sons, is accused of setting up two fake companies and skimming about $1.7 million to them for more than a decade.

He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud in the Cairns District Court.

The court has heard concerns were raised by the company’s Brisbane-based finance manager Jackson George in June 2013 after he spotted a Cairns stocktake report which featured just six products and the wastage amount was unusual.

He said these reports normally ran into pages and wastage amounts would not normally be whole amounts.

Mr George told the court he checked which growers’ names were listed on the report and didn’t recognise two of them — Stinga Enterprises and G & M Fresh Produce — before calculating $1.7 million had been paid to them since 2003.

Forensic investigator Chris Watson gave evidence yesterday saying he analysed a onemonth snapshot of the branch’s records for May 2013.

He said he did a stock reconciliation for six products and found, with four of them, the payments to the two companies seemed superfluous.

“(It was my) recommendation that a fuller and more broader examination be conducted,” he said.

Investigating police officer Det Sgt Sheridan Heaton said she located two certificates of the registered business names after launching an investigation in July 2013.

She said the registered name linked to Stinga Enterprises was just the “director”, while for G& M was Mr McEwan. She told the court she identified multiple bank accounts belonging to the accused at three different financial institutions.

The trial continues today.