A former Save the Children UK accountant has been jailed for 10 years for his part in a £1.5m Gift Aid fraud carried out through a network of churches.
Kwabena Duodu was a finance business partner at the charity, which said it was confident there was no financial misconduct relating to it, from September 2014 until he was dismissed in March 2024.
He was this week sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of 10 counts of cheating the public revenue and seven counts of furnishing false information.
HM Revenue & Customs said Duodu, 51, conspired with Moses Asare, head pastor of Praise Harvest Community Church in London, and used the details of other churches, including his own, as part of the Gift Aid scam.
Asare, 57, and who Duodu sent money to, has been jailed for seven years after being found guilty of five counts of cheating the public revenue, three counts of furnishing false information and one count of money laundering.
HMRC said Duodu used the details of 10 evangelical churches across the north and east of London to submit the false claims, using his share of the stolen funds to help pay for the purchase of a £550,000 home.
Asare used his position to convince other churches into trusting him to make claims on their behalf, said HMRC.
He received £320,000 from Duodu and used some of the money to act as a loan shark to members of his congregation, charging them 120 per cent interest, according to HMRC.
A third man, John Quansah, 43, head pastor of Heaven Light Ministry International, was found guilty of furnishing false information. He received a suspended 15-month sentence.
A Save the Children spokesperson said: “When HMRC notified Save the Children of its investigation we took immediate action in line with our processes, which resulted in Duodu’s suspension and subsequent dismissal. We conducted a thorough review into his time with the organisation and are confident there was no financial misconduct relating to Save the Children.”
Eleanor Handslip, assistant director in HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “These men presented themselves as upstanding, honest and charitable men of God. In reality, they were just criminals cynically abusing their positions to steal.”