Organisers of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival have said that a sophisticated fraud campaign meant that a single former employee of the event had managed to swindle £220,000 over the course of eight years, but went on to say that not only is the individual being investigated by police after they discovered the fraud, but that all of the money was recovered over a two month period.
Few details of the fraud have emerged as yet, due to the fact that there is still an ongoing police investigation into the matter. However, it is known that £220,000 was taken, that the fraudster used a series of complex methods to embezzle funds, and that all of the money has been recovered by the event organisers, who said that they are confident that they could not have done much more.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is held every year and attracts millions of visitors from all around the world to various venues and to see shows, exhibitions, and acts that take part on the streets of Edinburgh. It is attended by celebrities, boasts some of the biggest names in entertainment among its performers, and it is renowned around the world for highlighting up and coming talent before they have made it big. As such, it also attracts a lot of money on an annual basis.
One former employee of the event, who has yet to be named until after the police investigation is completed, took advantage of this huge flow of money, and took an average of £26,000 a year from the fund coffers. This equates to less than 1% of the total annual purse, showing that the swindler was willing to be patient in a bid to try and ensure that they were not discovered.
While it took eight years to raise suspicions, Fringe organisers have said that their systems did alert them to a potential problem and they contacted police in January as a result of the information that they had gathered. It took two months, but they have apparently recovered all of the money, and the person responsible no longer works for the group.