By Jamie Merrill
A Cambridge academic who stole £1m from a government green-energy project
has been jailed for four years.
Dr Ehsan Abdi-Jalebi, 37, was stopped by Border Force officers at Heathrow
with £100,000 in cash in a Thorntons Continental chocolate box as he
boarded a flight to Tehran in May 2016.
The discovery prompted an investigation by the National Crime Agency, which
found he had used fake documents to siphon off money into his own accounts
from funding allocated to the development of renewable energy projects.
He had used the funds to develop a property in Iran worth £900,000 and to
lease a Maserati sports car as well as a property in Cambridge.
Abdi-Jalebi had won international acclaim for his work on wind turbines and
set up his technology firm Wind Technologies Ltd in 2006.
But, he dishonestly received project funding to the value of £2.8m in grant
money from Innovate UK, the EU and The Department for Energy and Climate
Change (DECC).
Investigators discovered that the his firm had made a series of grant
applications to the government to fund research, but on a number of
occasions Abdi-Jalebi had falsified documents, including invoices, accounts
and bank statements to show what was happening to the money.
At the same time he had used the bank accounts of some of his PHD research
students to receive what were referenced as “studentship payments” from the
companies, with the money then being transferred into his own personal
accounts.
Judge Martin Beddoe told Abdi-Jalebi: “Of the funding dishonestly obtained
you trousered £1m yourself.”
Wind Technologies Ltd was entitled to grants for part of the costs incurred
but not for the total amount, the court heard.
Abdi-Jalebi altered the invoices, increasing Wind Technologies costs to
make up for the costs that were not covered by the partial grants.
The company would therefore receive de facto 100 per cent grants instead of
partial grants.
Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said the fraud was “a long-running course of
conduct.”
“The Department of Energy and Climate Change and Innovate UK were submitted
forged invoices which resulted in £2.5 million being handed over,” he said.
Following his arrest, Abdi-Jalebi lost his fellowship at Churchill College
in Cambridge as the National Crime Agency spent 18 months examining his
financial history.
NCA senior investigating officer Ian Truby said: “While the companies that
Dr Abdi-Jalebi was involved with were doing some legitimate work in the
field of renewable energy, he used them as a cash cow to siphon off money.
“This money had come in as government grants, so it was essentially stolen
from taxpayers.
“Through some great detective work and after analysing thousands of
documents NCA investigators were able to prove that he was a fraud.
“While we have identified a number of UK assets held by Abdi-Jalebi the
likelihood is that most of the money ended up in Iran, which will make it
far more difficult to recover.
“However, we will do everything in our power to recover as much of that UK
taxpayers’ money as possible.”
David Sonn, defending, said:”’He has been on bail for two years preventing
him from visiting his family in Iran and missing the one year anniversary
of his father’s death.
“He has asked me to express his regret and his apologies to his funders,
his co-directors, the scientific community and the universities.”
Judge Beddoe told Abdi-Jalebi: ‘For the best part of two years you used
forged invoices to obtain funds from DECC and Innovate UK.
“These forgeries would have continued had your taking of the money out of
the country not brought a cloud of suspicion around you.
“Some of the money obtained was spent on genuine projects.”
Abdi-Jalebi, of Cherry Building, Trumpington, Cambridge, admitted 13 counts
of fraud and was jailed for four years.
A further charge of perverting the course of justice, which he denied was
ordered to to lie on the court
0 Comments