Kashim Chowdhury Convicted on 9 Fraud Counts for Holding 5 Government Jobs

3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Nov 9

A jury unanimously found 56-year-old Kashim Chowdhury guilty of nine fraud counts after he secretly held five overlapping full-time public sector jobs in spring 2023.
£284,000 in taxpayers' money was fraudulently earned through false job applications and nondisclosure, while eight overlapping public roles between 2020 and 2023 brought him £350,000 in total.
183 contracted hours a week across Defra, DHSC, UKHSA, the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office helped prosecutors argue the workload was impossible and deliberately concealed.
Managers described poor performance and deception, including months of sick leave from four employers while he kept working elsewhere; a UKHSA manager said he appeared on a video call wearing make-up to look ill.
2024 checks by the government's National Fraud Initiative eventually exposed the scheme, which prosecutors said exploited remote work and weak cross-department oversight until he left the civil service in September 2023.