Man who stole $240,000 to lure international cricketers to suburban Melbourne given community service
Navishta Desilva claimed he felt trapped by “hype and expectation” after promising to fly in high-profile international cricketers to play in a suburban Melbourne competition, a court has heard.
When he could not find investors to pay for the players, who included West Indies’ veteran batter Chris Gayle, he turned to crime to raise funds for the Twilight T20 cricket series. Over 16 months, the Victorian county court was told, the part-time DJ stole more than $240,000 from Omnivision, his then employer, where he worked as a warehouse assistant.
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On Monday a judge found that Desilva was remorseful and handed him a community work order for the fraud.
“What comes through is that you are desperate to avoid a jail sentence,” said the judge, David Brookes.
After working in a number of jobs, Desilva developed a passion for events and took a job at Live Nation as a promoter.
He decided to set up his own cricket promotion business, Global Talent Entertainment, and planned to host an international Twilight T20 series at Dandenong in Melbourne’s south-east.
When he struggled to find enough investment, he started stealing from his employer by falsifying invoices to inflate prices and directing the funds to his own bank account, the court heard.
Between March 2021 and July last year, he stole $241,439.75, which equated to a loss of $189,125 to his employer after some of the purchase orders were not fulfilled.
He used the stolen money to pay cricket players – including Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan and Lahiru Thirimanne – more than $70,000.
The competition was cancelled on its second day, after Desilva was charged.
He pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining financial advantage and has since paid Omnivision back the money, after his family helped him. The 36year-old is now working two jobs to pay his relatives back.
Desilva told a psychologist he felt pressured to raise the money because “so many people were relying on me to make it happen”, the court heard. He said: “I was under a lot of pressure and I didn’t want to let anyone down.”
Brookes said Desilva “felt trapped by the promises you had made and the hype and expectation that publicity of these events had gathered”.
“Once you had failed to secure the sponsorship funding … you resorting to the offending to secure the required money,” he said.
Desilva also admitted spending some of the money on luxury holidays and designer clothing.
He walked free from court after being handed a three-year community corrections order with a requirement to perform 200 hours of unpaid work.