Civil servant convicted of fraud for holding five Government jobs simultaneously
Kashim Chowdhury, 56, earned nearly £350,000 from eight employers between 2020 and 2023 by concealing multiple full-time roles. A jury found him guilty of nine counts of fraud.
Whitechapel civil servant found guilty of nine fraud counts after holding up to five jobs at once
A civil servant has been convicted of nine counts of fraud after exploiting remote working arrangements to hold up to five full-time Government jobs simultaneously, the Evening Standard reports.
Kashim Chowdhury, 56, of Whitechapel, east London, deceived a string of Government departments and public bodies about his employment status to secure overlapping roles, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Between February 2020 and September 2023, Chowdhury collected almost £350,000 from eight employers. More than £280,000 of that came in gross pay during months when he was employed by more than one organisation at the same time.
At the peak of his scheme, in May 2023, he was being paid for five full-time positions concurrently. At one stage, his contracts required him to work 183 hours a week — more hours than exist in a seven-day period.
The jury returned guilty verdicts on all nine counts after deliberating for approximately seven hours. Chowdhury wore a large grey knitted jumper and stared straight ahead as the verdicts were read out on his birthday.
Employment timeline
Chowdhury began working for Tower Hamlets Council in February 2020. He took on a second role with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in April 2021, with the two positions overlapping for more than a year.
For four months in 2022, he also held a third post with East London NHS Trust. After leaving the council, he continued in his Defra role while adding further positions with the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office.
White make-up and sick notes
Prosecutors said Chowdhury "exploited" the work-from-home culture that took hold during the Covid-19 pandemic to conceal the extent of his employment. When his workload eventually became unmanageable, he took sick leave from some employers while continuing to work for others.
In one episode prosecutor Lucy Organ described as "laughable", Chowdhury allegedly wore white make-up during a video call with a manager in order to appear unwell.
Organ told the jury that Chowdhury had made false representations about his existing employment each time he applied for a new role. "Clearly, he would not have been employed by his employers if they had known he had multiple other full-time jobs," she said.
The court also heard that Chowdhury told employers he needed to work from home to care for his "unwell" mother. In his own evidence, he said his mother's health had "deteriorated" around May and June 2022 and that the situation had overwhelmed him. He described work as his "lifeline".
CPS to pursue proceeds of crime
Sarah Melo, specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service's serious economic organised crime and international directorate, said after the verdicts that Chowdhury had "deliberately concealed the true extent of his employment so that he could obtain and be paid for multiple full-time jobs at the same time".
"He repeatedly misrepresented the true nature of his employment status while continuing to receive full-time salaries from other public bodies," Melo said. "This was sustained and deliberate dishonesty. He knew he could not legitimately hold multiple full-time positions at the same time but continued to conceal what he was doing."
The CPS confirmed it will seek to reclaim Chowdhury's fraudulent earnings through a proceeds of crime hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Source: Evening Standard