16 Jun Former QBE Insurance, IT Executive, Consultant Charged with $2.6M Crime
A former QBE Insurance Group Ltd. executive and an accomplice embezzled $2.6 million by submitting phony invoices in which the name of the chief financial officer was forged, according to U.S. prosecutors.
James J. Shea, a former QBE vice president who was responsible for integrating the Australian insurer’s information technology systems, and Eugene Fallon, an outside consultant, defrauded QBE over two years, beginning in January 2012, the U.S. said. QBE isn’t named in the criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
“We can confirm that QBE is the company in question, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement in this matter,” said Amanda Taylor, a spokeswoman for QBE North America.
QBE paid Shea about $1.9 million in salary and bonuses over six years ending in 2013, according to the complaint. He almost doubled that amount, collecting more than $1.8 million from the fraud proceeds, the U.S. said.
Shea’s accused of forging QBE’s chief financial officer’s signature on contracts authorizing payments for sham consulting work to two companies controlled by Fallon.
Of the $2.6 million paid to bank accounts of the Fallon companies, more than $1.8 million was routed back to Shea through his wife’s bank accounts, the U.S. said.
QBE’s chief financial officer, who had to authorize the consulting work, never heard of the companies involved and doesn’t remember any such work being done by them, the U.S. said.