Dream job in sun Briton faces jail for £1.7m rip-off
A CROOKED British accountant faces jail for stealing £1.7million from the Bermuda government to go on spending and gambling sprees.
Jeffrey Bevan, 50, fiddled the fortune after landing a paymaster’s job with the North Atlantic island state.
Bevan, who moved to Bermuda from Wales with his headmistress wife and two children, made 52 bogus payments to his account.
The gambling addict frittered £500,000 and blew the rest paying off a £140,000 mortgage, acquiring a string of other properties and buying Mercedes cars.
Rumbled
He quit his £80,000 job after two years, citing his mother’s health and his children’s schooling as reasons.
But Cardiff Crown Court heard he really left because he knew he was about to be “rumbled”.
Prosecutor Tim Evans said Bevan had been involved in the fraudulent transfer of $2.4 million belonging to Bermuda taxpayers.
Soon after he left the island in 2013, ex-colleagues spotted payments which led back to his HSBC bank account.
Mr Evans said: “Bevan had gone by then. He knew that he was about to be rumbled for a massive fraud. Alarm bells obviously rang.
“They thought they better contact Bevan, they had trusted.”
A probe in Bermuda then uncovered a series of bogus transactions.
The court heard Bevan had spent nearly £300,000 on the island and sent more than £1.3million home.
He claimed the money had been paid to him by the government tax-free for working 50 hours overtime a week.
But Mr Evans said he was addicted to gambling and fascinated by risk-taking and “trying to win big”.
Bookie Paddy Power found he had made 18,853 online bets in fewer than six years.
Bevan, of Cwmbran, South Wales, admitted three counts of transferring criminal property and 10 counts of converting criminal property.
He will be sentenced on February 16.
Financial adviser Paul Charity, 52, was convicted of perverting the course of justice and will be sentenced later. Charity and Joel Ismail, 42, were cleared of involvement in Bevan’s laundering. had who