"She is a selfish, self-obsessed woman"
A finance manager who stole nearly £185,000 from her employer to fund a lavish lifestyle has been jailed for more than five years.
Anita Mirmohammadi, aged 31, of Finchley, North London, was sentenced to five years and 10 months at Basildon Crown Court.
She began working in 2018 as a finance manager at a Brentwood-based company and was given access to a business credit card.
By 2022, the firm noticed suspicious activity during unrelated fraud checks and contacted banks, Action Fraud and police.
Investigators uncovered a pattern of global transactions and fake invoices linked to Mirmohammadi. A total of £184,675.89 was stolen.
Of that, £126,381.19 was spent on the credit card and £63,294.70 was siphoned from the business account via invoices.
She spent the stolen funds on luxury items from Harrods, Selfridges and Mercedes Benz, as well as holidays to Dubai, Mexico and Turkey.
When Harrods conducted their own investigation, they found CCTV footage showing Mirmohammadi using the company card just one month before her arrest.
The finance manager also made frequent payments to Apple, Amazon, eBay, Uber, Zara, Thames Water and Harley Street Dental.
Mirmohammadi was arrested at Gatwick Airport on May 22, 2022, returning from Dubai. She gave no comment in her police interview.
She was charged with fraud by false representation on February 10, 2023. After a seven-day trial, she was found guilty on March 14, 2025.
Judge Shane Collery said: “She was not dependant on stealing to survive and her claim that she does care is hard to accept as she gave no thought to the consequences at all.
“She is a selfish, self-obsessed woman who repeated regular dishonesty, which was systemic and sustained and she must have seen what she was doing.”
Following the sentencing, Detective Constable Karen Venables said:
“This sentence shows the severity of Mirmohammadi’s offending.”
“This was a calculated, ongoing fraud that would have continued had she not been caught, and I am glad to see the judge recognise this in his sentencing.
“It was clear from the deception we found in these accounts that Mirmohammadi knew what she was doing was wrong and was trying to cover her tracks.
“Our Economic Crime Team has worked closely with the banks, businesses and Action Fraud to piece together the full extent of her offending – that work doesn’t stop at sentencing, and we now turn to confiscating any criminal gains under the Proceeds Of Crime Act.”
A confiscation hearing is scheduled to begin in early November 2025 at Basildon Crown Court.
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