Congolese man jailed for ‘classic white-collar crime’

A Congolese national involved in classic white-collar crime in Cork, stealing over €324,000 from his employer and trying to steal €300,000 more, was jailed for five years yesterday.

Dadibaku Ngkupumu, 47, was sentenced by Judge David Riordan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court where he admitted all counts against him.

Ngkupumu pleaded guilty to 17 counts related to the crimes he committed while working at Avery Dennison at the Cork Airport business park.

Judge David Riordan said: “He was an accounts clerk using the IT system where one could divert funds at one click of a button, or click of a mouse. The employee is at a very high level of trust and the breach of trust was to a very high degree in this case. This is classic white-collar crime and the money was not retrieved.”

Detective Garda Aonghus Cotter said the loss to Avery Dennison was €336,000, and if he had succeeded in other attempted fraud there would have been a further loss of €304,000. Accounts were set up in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to divert funds from Cork.

The matter came to light when suppliers complained of not being paid, at a time when the company’s records indicated they had been paid. On investigating, it became clear it arose out of the defendant’s fraud.

Alice Fawsitt, defence senior counsel, said Dadibaku told gardaí that he was sitting at his desk one day when a man called Mark phoned him and encouraged him to get involved in the offences in order to make some money. Ms Fawsitt said the defendant was unable to extricate himself from the situation, as threats were made to keep him involved in the scam.

The defence counsel said Dadibaku had no previous convictions.

The accused, who has an address at McWilliam Green, Fortunestown, Tallaght, Dublin, has been in custody since his arrest in May.