Woman charged after allegedly falsifying business records and defrauding a company $12.4 million over eight years
The former credit manager of one of the state’s largest companies has been charged with defrauding it of more than $12 million over eight years.
The former credit manager of one of Adelaide’s largest companies has been charged with defrauding it of $12.4 million.
Police on Thursday charged Hillbank woman Glenda Ivy Burgess, 61, with 230 offences over an eight-year period.
Serious and Organised Financial Crime Investigation Section detectives charged Burgess after a lengthy investigation, which was revealed by The Advertiser last September.
Burgess is facing 85 counts of dishonest manipulation of a machine, 144 aggravated counts of dishonest dealing with documents and one aggravated count of deception.
Police allege she falsified Adelaide Brighton Cement’s business records to the tune of $12.4 million while working for the company between 2009 and 2017.
The Advertiser last September revealed ABCL had launched a civil lawsuit against Burgess lodging a lengthy statement of claim in the Supreme Court.
The extensive statement of claim alleged a significant range of misconduct by Burgess that resulted in a loss of $12,477,879 in revenue.
The actions include allegedly misallocating payments made by two ABCL customers for the benefit of another company called Concrete Supply, making false entries in accounts to disguise the manipulation of Concrete Supply’s account, increasing customer credit limits by millions of dollars without authority and providing false information to the ABCL board and auditors.
It states her misconduct allowed Concrete Supply to obtain “$32,599,250 of cement from ABCL between 1 August 2009 and 25 October 2017 while only making payments totalling $20,938,639’’.
In July last year, Burgess requested a stay in those proceedings, stating she feared police were intending to charge her with offences arising from the same subject matters as the proceedings.
“If criminal charges are brought against me, I expect they will relate to the very same matters and circumstances which are alleged in the statement of claim in these proceedings,’’ she stated at the time.
“If I am now required to defend these proceedings … I will be required to address the matters alleged against me … in a manner that will interfere with my right to silence in a criminal prosecution.’’
Burgess has been given police bail and will appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court next month.