At accountingcpd, we like to create courses about how accountants can be a force for good in the world. A good accountant can bring clarity to chaos, peace to a frazzled client.
But with great power (being quite good at Excel, knowing your times tables all the way up to nine) comes great responsibility. And power, as we know, can corrupt.
So, here are five cases where accountants used their considerable powers for evil, and what we can learn from their terrible misdeeds.
🔒 1. Kenneth Scott – Defrauding the employees
The crime:
Kenneth Scott, a chartered accountant and senior partner of a financial services group in the North East of England, used his position to carry out a long-running tax fraud – not just against HMRC, but against his own staff.
In 2025, Scott was convicted for deducting income tax and national insurance from his employees’ wages, but never passing it on. At least part of his fraud went all the way back to 2007, but documentation only survived from 2014. Instead, he used the money to pay for luxury cruises and an Aston Martin, which isn’t what you’re meant to do with that money.
More than 50 employees were affected. Some received letters from HMRC telling them their National Insurance contributions were incomplete, others couldn’t access benefits, claim child support, or repay student loans. When the pandemic hit, many were ineligible for furlough support, because they had no tax footprint on record.
The sentence:
Four years in prison, plus a 10-year ban from serving as a company director.
The lesson:
Stealing from the tax office is one thing, stealing from your own staff is something else entirely. We’ve all nicked a pen from the office, but you’d probably take something a bit heftier if you knew your boss was stealing your paypacket. As HMRC put it after sentencing, "Scott was in a position of enormous trust... He stole from taxpayers and damaged the tax records of his employees. As an accountant, he should have known better.” As an accountant!
🎤 2. Damien Luscombe – Know when to fold them
The crime:
As a partner at respected Melbourne accounting firm White Sky, Damien Luscombe had the trust of some of Australia’s best-known musicians and business owners. His clients included the likes of Peking Duk, Angus and Julia Stone, and Gotye, and he used all three to steal over $2.1 million.
Over the course of 11 years, Luscombe created 337 forged documents and carried out 239 fake transactions. Some of these invoices were doctored, but others were invented out of thin air, and all of them redirected to his personal account. He even impersonated clients, all to fund a ravenous addiction to gambling.
And it all boiled down to one man. As a senior partner, his signature was all that was needed.
The sentence:
Six years in prison, with parole possible after three years and nine months.
The lesson:
Trust is the most valuable currency an accountant holds – apart from money, of course – but Luscombe squandered both. There were real victims, too – some clients were forced to sell homes and businesses. As the judge put it, "you were defrauding them of their money while purporting to be their friend.” Now he’s just somebody that they used to know.
🛒 3. Jonathan Blow – Blown it
The crime:
A trusted chartered accountant, Jonathan Blow stole over R52 million (about £2.2 million) from two family-run SuperSpar supermarkets in South Africa, and he didn’t even wear a balaclava. In fact, the owners considered him "like a brother”.
Through his firm, PE Accounting Solutions (PEAS), Blow had full access to the companies’ bank accounts. Instead of just processing payroll and handling the books, he quietly siphoned off millions over two years, transferring funds from both Despatch SuperSpar and Sunridge Park SuperSpar into his own accounts under the guise of service payments. He even made partial repayments to delay suspicion, so he could keep the fraud running on the backburner.
Like our previous entry, Blow also suffered from a gambling addiction, which not only destroyed him, but left the businesses and their owners financially devastated.
The sentence:
22 years in prison – the longest on this list.
The lesson:
Sometimes, the most local frauds are the most devastating. Blow dealt personally with his victims and, even knowing how little money they had, decided to steal from them. It is with this in mind that we solemnly rename Mr. Blow, Jon Con Blowvee.
🚗 4. Alan Doig – Barking up the wrong tree
The Crime:
Alan Doig was the very picture of a trusted public servant. Starting in 1985 as a clerical assistant at Gedling Borough Council, he rose through the ranks to become a senior assistant accountant. It’s hard to imagine a more respected member of the community, someone so deserving of responsibility for the council’s payroll, creditor payments and, crucially, its car loan scheme.
However, Doig wasn’t squeaky clean. From 2003 to 2022, Doig stole nearly £1 million of taxpayer money by manipulating internal systems. And he would’ve gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for a member of his team noticing irregularities in the car loan scheme.
In the end, it turned out to be another sad case of gambling addiction. This gambling lark is starting to sound pretty addictive!
The sentence:
Two five-year jail sentences to be served concurrently.
The lesson:
As our readers in local authorities will know, public finance roles come with unique responsibility. Doig was siphoning money away from vital services, at a time where accountants are under constant pressure to perform cuts.
Also, another important lesson we learned while researching – don’t mix up Alan Doig, convicted for fraud, with Alan Doig, writer of numerous academic articles and books on corruption, financial crime and public ethics – they’re not the same guy! In fact, they’re kind of opposites.
🧾 5. David G. Friehling – Audidn’tor
The crime:
David G. Friehling was the auditor for Bernard Madoff’s investment firm, one of the largest Ponzi schemes in financial history. But, a lot of the time, David G. Friehling didn’t really feel like it.
Instead of asking questions or performing actual audits, Friehling rubber-stamped fraudulent financial statements for years. He effectively signed off on tens of billions in fictitious assets, contributing to a scheme that caused $17.5 billion in real losses (which is a lot).
Friehling wasn’t accused of knowing the full extent of Madoff’s scheme, he was accused of not bothering to scrutinise it. As prosecutors put it, "his crime came down to his failure to do his job”.
The sentence:
Friehling pleaded guilty to securities fraud and tax crimes but, in exchange for testifying against five other Madoff employees, he skipped prison charges. Instead, he was basically grounded – sentenced to a year of home detention and one year of supervised release. Snitches actually get some nice things, it turns out.
The lesson:
Auditors often get blamed for things beyond their control, but Friehling simply didn’t turn up to work. And, even with a lot of blame being left at the foot of auditors, sloppy work can let serious fraud slip by.
🤷♂️ What about the other guys?
You might be wondering why the names Tesco, Wirecard, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, or Satyam didn’t make this list. Surely there were accountants involved?
Yes, but very few were actually sentenced.
Despite billions in losses, many of the central figures walked free. In some cases, prosecutions failed due to lack of evidence but, in others, complexity and corporate opacity meant individuals couldn’t be directly pinned. So, if you’re going to commit fraud, do it with a bunch of coconspirators. Oh, and stay away from casinos while you’re at it.
🧠 Final thoughts
It might not seem like it when you’re getting stick for leaving the used teabag by the sink, but accountants have a lot of power. You have the power to ruin a business – remember that!
So, the next time someone intimates that your job is boring, tell them how easily you could start siphoning money from your company or clients. You shouldn’t actually do that, but it’s fun to think about, isn’t it?
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