Gaming employee transferred over €13,000 in company funds to personal bank account

A former employee of an online casino operator, accused of making unauthorised access to his former employer’s computer system and rerouting payments to his personal bank account had taken over €13,000 when he was found out, a court has heard.

Inspector Doriette Cuschieri testified before Magistrate Gabriella Vella in the compilation of evidence against Jonathan James Borg, who stands charged with aggravated theft and fraud. She told the court that after an investigation into the missing payments, it had been noted that on one invoice for €22,184.36, only €14,500 were received by the company and on another invoice for €22,555.78, only €16,916.46 were received. This left a total of €13,323.68 unaccounted for.

It was also found that just over €13,000 had been paid into a Revolut account belonging to Borg, before being withdrawn from an ATM.

Under interrogation, the accused had said he recognised some of the transactions, but not all of them. Only Borg had access to his Revolut account, she said, and no reports of it being hacked or stolen had been made.

The head of accounting at the man’s ex-employer had testified that in June, it was noted that only part of the payments due from one client had been received. This had never happened before with the client in question and so she had investigated further. Further digging had revealed that the same bank account number used in another fraud case allegedly perpetrated by the accused were present in the slot machine website’s backend.

The court heard how the accused had been employed with the company from December 2017 till February 2019 as a financing and reconciliations consultant. As part of his role, he had access to accounts and information belonging to clients. 

But after his employment was terminated, it appears to have taken until July for passwords to be changed, giving the man continued access to sensitive data and allowing him to perpetrate the alleged fraud.

In cross-examination, the defence suggested that it was possible that the payee account details could have been changed by the company and asked whether it was possible to have a timestamp of when these account details had been changed. This information would have to come from the slot machine operators replied the prosecution.

At the request of the prosecution, an expert was appointed to analyse the Revolut app installed on the accused’s mobile phone, which was exhibited in the acts of the case.

The case continues next week.

Inspector Joseph Xerri and Doriette Cuschieri prosecuted. Lawyer Ezekiel Psaila was defence counsel. Lawyers Stefano Filletti and Maurice Meli appeared for the defrauded company.