Fraudsters jailed for £279,000 medical supplies con
BBCA former NHS worker who stole medical supplies from a hospital and sold them back to the same trust in a £279,000 con has been jailed for eight years.
Emmanuel Nbanga, 46, from Smith's Wood, Solihull, had been found guilty of fraud by abuse of position and fraudulent trading.
He had stolen supplies from Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, for Ultimate Medical (UK) Ltd to sell back - in some cases repeatedly - to Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
During a Worcester Crown Court hearing on Friday, company owner Solomon Adeyemi, 57, from Birmingham, was also jailed for seven years for fraudulent trading.
Remilekun Olusesi, 40, from Solihull, was given a 30-month prison sentence, suspended for 36 months, for money laundering.
Nbanga took supplies from the hospital's operating theatre stock rooms between October 2016 and September 2019, the NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) said. The trust then spent almost £233,000 buying back its own stolen stock.
Adeyemi's company also supplied substandard warm-up jackets, needle containers and drug labels sourced from China. The trust could not be assured of their quality and safety for use on patients so existing stock was destroyed and replaced.
The trust first became suspicious after noticing unusually low prices for the medical supplies. Hospital staff then found that identification numbers on some deliveries matched those of its previous orders.
An investigation found that money paid into Ultimate Medical's business account was redirected to Lawyis Medical UK Ltd, a shell company set up by Olusesi - who the NHSCFA said was a healthcare assistant at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust - and to personal accounts in the defendants' names.
More than £16,000 worth of stolen NHS stock was recovered during searches, the NHSCFA said.
Ben Harrison, head of operations and engagement at the NHSCFA, said Nbanga "abused his trusted position to systematically steal vital medical stock and arrange for it to be sold back to the very trust he was employed by".
"The involvement of multiple individuals and two shell companies shows the calculated and organised nature of this fraud," he said, adding that "substandard and unsanitary goods entering hospital theatres could have had serious consequences" for patients' health and safety.
Stephen Collman, managing director of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, previously described the fraud as an "extensive and sustained programme" that cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds.
He also said it was "made all the worse by the fact that it was carried out by NHS staff members abusing their positions of trust".
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