'I'm going to jail' | Fraudster stole £550k from employer by inventing fake workers & pocketing the wages

A manager has admitted siphoning more than half a million pounds from the business by creating “ghost” agency workers and routing their pay into a bank account she controlled.

Viktorija Lukjanova, 36, a senior manager at East Lothian Produce, pleaded guilty to fraud after the court heard she was able to submit and approve the paperwork used to pay temporary labour, before diverting wages linked to bogus names into her own account.

How the ‘ghost worker’ payroll fraud worked

The scheme ran for just over three years, between January 2021 and February 2024, prosecutors said. Over that period, Lukjanova pretended that agency staff worked at the family-run vegetable processing, packing and marketing business and produced time sheets and invoices that supported the false entries.

Two of the fake workers were recorded under the names of Lukjanova’s family members, the court heard, with her employers only spotting the fraud when a manager recognised the surnames. Lukjanova initially denied any wrongdoing, claiming the names were common in Latvia and that the workers were not related to her.