Thirty-nine and 51 months in prison for having stolen 10 million from the multinational thanks to accounting tricks
A Swiss man and his French accomplice, who had defrauded the pharmaceutical company Roche out of 10 million francs (editor's note: €9,240,000), were sentenced by the Basel criminal court to 39 and 51 months in prison respectively. At the end of the trial, celebrated with the abbreviated procedure, the Court accepted the requests of the prosecution. The two defendants, who pleaded guilty, were convicted of professional fraud, repeated forgery of documents and professional money laundering.
Between January and August 2017 they had defrauded the pharmaceutical giant by transferring 8.35 million euros to an account in Singapore, thanks to forged invoices. The money had then been spread across many other accounts around the world. The fraud had come to light in the autumn of the same year.
The Swiss citizen, a former Roche employee, said he had discovered a flaw in the company's accounting system and exploited it together with his accomplice, driven by greed and job dissatisfaction. He has already served his sentence and was released in February, while the businessman tried with him has only been in prison since April, having previously been held in Spain with a view to extradition.
The subtracted sum will have to be reimbursed to the pharmaceutical giant, increased by interest of 5%.
