Charity fraudster used list broker data

Charity fraudster used list broker dataA charity boss, facing a jail term after being convicted of fraud, bought marketing data from a list broker to mastermind a £100,000 scam on the Government’s gift aid scheme.
The Old Bailey heard how Eyob Sellassie invented more than £415,000 of bogus donations to African Aids Action, a charity he set up in 2001, with the claimed intention of raising £330m to build a pharmaceutical plant in Africa to produce cheap Aids drugs.
He used details of more than 1,000 people bought from a list broker, but investigators found some of the supposed donors were dead, while others said they had not given money to the charity.
The Charity Commission launched an investigation into African Aids Action as far back as 2008, after accusations that Sellassie had used charitable funds to pay a string of personal expenses, including more than £800 on clothing and a trip on the London Eye.
At the time, he told Third Sector magazine the allegations were unjustified, adding: “They twist everything and pick on any typing error.”
Prosecutor William Hays said when arrested and interviewed in September last year, Sellassie blamed a lodger called Tesfai Teckle. But investigator Janet Callanan said she could find no trace of Teckle at Sellassie’s home in Rainham, or anyone of that name connected to the charity.
This week, he was convicted of making two fraudulent claims to the gift aid scheme on June 3 last year. The judge Miss Recorder Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC bailed Sellassie ahead of sentence and ordered reports. He will be sentenced on 10 October.She told him: “I am only just persuaded to order a pre-sentence report in your case because you are a man of previous good character and relatively mature years.”

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  1. Charity fraudster used list broker data – DecisionMarketing http://t.co/jCyGRN8Mvl

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