Four years prison, fine for man who diverted igaming client funds to his account

A 44-year-old man was jailed for four years after a court found him guilty of siphoning money meant for client accounts of his former employer into his own Revolut account.

Jonathan James Borg was arraigned in court in 2019, facing a raft of charges including obtaining money by false pretences, fraudulent gain, unlawful access to a computer, and money laundering.

He was further charged with breaching a freezing order imposed on him on March 2 of that year and a set of bail conditions.

Borg was employed by Raketech between December 11, 2017 and June 28, 2018. He was later kept on as a consultant. Raketech is an online affiliate and content marketing company, and Borg took care of customer reconciliations.

The police started investigating the case following a report on July 9, 2019, by the company’s head of accounts, after they discovered that payments from Panda Media originating from Video Slots were not being deposited into the client account held by Raketech.

It was eventually established that the payment details had been changed and were diverted to a BOV and a Revolut account belonging to Borg. The Revolut account was linked to a virtual Master Card and Visa Card.

Raketech had already reported Borg in February 2019, and he is facing separate criminal proceedings on fraud and misappropriation.

That internal investigation led the company to check all the accounts with the operators and confirmed that the correct bank details were listed. Raketech’s revenue controller checked the customer list.

It was during these checks that they found that the payment details on Video Slots’ client account belonged to Borg, and not to the company.

Different employees explained that they began changing passwords after figuring out that someone had been taking the money from the company by changing bank details.

When the police obtained Borg’s Revolut statements, they found that deposits from Video Slots amounted to over €13,000. Once the deposit was made on the Revolut account, the money would be withdrawn either on the same day or the following day.

Borg was eventually arrested on August 3, 2019, when he went to sign his bail book in Żebbuġ.

In his statement to the police, Borg said he knew about some transactions and not others. The police asked him to access his Revolut app and initially could not find the transactions originating from Video Slots.

It was only when they manually searched for them that they found that the transactions had been hidden. Borg claimed he never withdrew the money, and that he had neither filed a police report nor informed Revolut about these transactions.

The court held that there was enough circumstantial evidence to find Borg guilty of obtaining money by false pretences, noting that he was employed there and later hired as a consultant.

He also had access to the Excel file containing passwords and access to the company’s VPN system.

While there was no direct evidence showing that he had changed the bank details himself, there was enough evidence pointing in his direction.

The court found him guilty of obtaining €13,164.27 by false pretences and money laundering.

He was also found guilty of changing the bank details and making unauthorised use of passwords, as well as breaching a freezing order and a set of bail conditions.

The court jailed him for four years and ordered that the €10,000 deposit and €75,000 personal guarantee be forfeited in favour of the government.

It also ordered that he forfeit the sum of €13,164.27 and if not found in his assets, he is to be fined the same amount.

He was ordered to pay Video Slots €13,164.27 within one year.

The court also ordered Borg’s permanent exclusion from accessing public funding, including tender processes, grants and concessions; and his permanent exclusion from practising commercial activities. It banned him for five years from running for elected or public office, which will start to elapse after he serves his prison sentence.

He was also ordered to pay €545.74 in court expenses.

Magistrate Gabriella Vella presided.

Police inspector Joseph Xerri and Doriette Cuscheri prosecuted.

Lawyer Ezekiel Psaila was defence counsel.

Lawyers Stefano Filletti and Maurice Meli appeared for the companies.