Duo swindled struggling company out of £900,000

TWO men coordinated a fraud that caused a struggling company to lose around £900,000.

- LUCY JOHN

The duo - Matthew Hill, 38, and Richard Walker, 64 - conned Ebbw Vale-based food manufacturer Zorba out of the sum over a six-year period between 2018 and 2024.

A sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court heard how Hill was a trusted warehouse manager at Zorba and he acquired responsibility for the company’s purchasing from 2018.

Prosecutor Martha Smith-Higgins told the court that Walker was the director and sole trader of Zorba's trusted supplier Zebra Print Design Logistics, which provided Zorba with labels.

Together the pair orchestrated the “sophisticated” fraud by drawing up fake documentation including goods received notes and false invoices.

This happened “across a number of different departments in each company’, Ms Smith-Higgins said.

The court heard Zorba employed 450 people and had been struggling financially during that period.