A finance executive who stole nearly £3 million from his employer to fund a lavish lifestyle of sports cars, designer watches, and luxury holidays has been jailed for four and a half years. Simon Olver, 42, from Surrey, defrauded Credit Industriel et Commercial Bank by setting up two fake payments totalling £2.9 million, supposedly to settle corporation tax bills but diverted to his own account.
Olver, who worked as head of finance, accounting, reporting and tax, began the fraud less than a year into his role. He created a payment request for £479,044, substituting his own bank details for HMRC's and naming the account 'HMRC Cumbernauld' to appear legitimate. Two weeks later, he submitted a second request for £2,477,122 using the same method. The bank alerted authorities after noticing suspicious payments, and Olver was arrested the same day.
Police discovered Olver had already spent around £238,000 of the stolen funds on high-value goods, including watches from Harrods, jewellery, a £15,000 ring, a £19,000 diamond, and deposits on a McLaren and an Aston Martin worth about £400,000. He had also made an offer on a £2.6 million house in Kingswood, Surrey. Officers found a significant quantity of goods with labels still attached at his home, including clothes worth £10,000.
At Southwark Crown Court, Olver pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by abuse of position and one offence of creating articles for use in fraud. Judge Gregory Perrins described the crimes as 'significant dishonesty and gross breach of trust, motivated only by pure greed'. The judge noted that Olver had planned a third fraudulent payment of £1.55 million, which would have brought the total to around £4.5 million.
In mitigation, defence barrister George Payne said Olver wanted to publicly apologise and that his first management role had been stressful, leading to debt and marital strain. However, the judge rejected claims of financial difficulty, stating the evidence showed an 'extravagant spending spree'. Olver was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
