at the end of their shift, they stole the cash from the till.
Two KFC managers received suspended sentences after they exploited an IT glitch and swindled more than £53,000.
Tanraj Basrar and Kallum Ghai both said “it is what it is” after their sophisticated six-month racket was finally rumbled.
Wolverhampton heard that both men worked for Splendid Restaurants – which traded as KFC, near Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge.
Basrar was the manager while Ghai was the assistant manager.
In January 2023, the firm’s managing director became aware that tens of thousands of pounds had gone missing at the branch.
Lynette McClement said an investigation initially found there had been issues with drive-thru transactions.
Some of the payments were not being recorded, with a “substantial discrepancy” of £53,643.56.
It was later revealed that Basrar and Ghai were using a ‘recall button’ for drive-thru orders to be paid by cash, which would cause an ‘error message’ to appear on the store’s system.
It allowed them to ‘bypass’ payments so the system wrongly believed transactions had been pre-paid online.
The pair then used the manager’s key to open the till, place cash from customers inside it and give any change needed.
But at the end of their shift, they stole the cash from the till.
CCTV footage showed the pair stealing the order money from the till.
When approached by an employee investigating the scam, Ghai said:
“It is what it is. You have clearly done your homework and I have seen this coming.”
Basrar added:
“You are clearly here because you have figured it out. It is what it is.”
Once the theft was exposed, both men quit their jobs.
Ms McClement said a “high degree of trust” had been placed in both men at work.
Basrar and Ghai admitted theft by an employee between Aug 8, 2022, and February 19, 2023.
Thomas Griffiths, defending, said Basrar “accepts that he acted entirely foolishly”.
He said “remorseful” Ghai feels “ashamed”, describing how the defendant’s “ego got the better of him”.
Mr Griffiths added: “Part of the reason why he found it an easy way into offending is his gambling habit.”
Ghai had been gambling “on a regular basis” since the age of 16 and had racked up a debt of about £40,000.
Despite stealing over £53,000, prosecutors will not be recovering the lost cash because “neither defendant holds assets of any great degree”.
Both men received 12-month sentences, suspended for two years.
Basrar was also made subject to a five-month curfew, while Ghai was handed a 10-day rehabilitation activity requirement and 100 hours unpaid work.
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