UK Civil Servant Convicted of Fraud After Secretly Working Five Government Jobs Simultaneously

​LONDON — In what legal experts are calling an unprecedented breach of public sector trust, a 56-year-old British civil servant has been convicted of nine counts of fraud after secretly operating five full-time government jobs simultaneously.

​Kashim Chowdhury, a resident of east London, amassed more than £284,000 in illicit taxpayer funds while logging an impossible 183 contracted hours every single week—surpassing the total number of hours available in a standard seven-day calendar.

​Following a rigorous trial at a UK court, a unanimous jury returned guilty verdicts on eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by failure to disclose, following seven hours of deliberation.

​An Audacious Web of Deception

​Investigators revealed that Chowdhury’s scheme spanned between 2020 and 2023, during which time he accumulated eight distinct public sector positions, pocketing a total of £350,000. By the spring of 2023, he was actively holding five overlapping roles across multiple high-profile government bodies without the knowledge or consent of any employing department.

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​The affected agencies included:

• ​The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• ​The Department of Health and Social Care
• ​The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)
• ​The Department for Business and Trade
• ​The Food Standards Agency
• ​The Home Office

​Court documents showed that Chowdhury systematically bypassed standard verification protocols by providing inaccurate employment histories on application forms and deliberately withholding disclosure of his active civil service status from subsequent employers.

​Exploiting Remote Work and Family Circumstances

​The defendant’s ability to sustain the massive fraud relied heavily on remote work accommodations. Chowdhury successfully petitioned his employers to work entirely from home by citing personal caregiving duties for his mother, who suffered from dementia and was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2023.

​Rather than stepping back to manage family obligations, prosecutors stated that Chowdhury weaponized the remote arrangement to mask his staggering workload, exploiting the lack of physical oversight to collect multiple public salaries concurrently.

​Prosecution and Imminent Sentencing

​The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) characterized the offense as an act of sustained, calculated deceit.

​Sarah Melo, a specialist prosecutor at the CPS Serious Economic Organised Crime and International Directorate, condemned the actions during proceedings. “He knew he could not legitimately hold multiple full-time positions at the same time, but continued to conceal what he was doing,” Melo stated.

​Representatives for Defra echoed these sentiments, noting that Chowdhury had fundamentally abused the trust vested in him as a public servant and vowing to pursue all available legal avenues to claw back the embezzled funds.

​The presiding judge denied Chowdhury bail, citing the gravity of the crimes and considerations regarding his wellbeing, and warned that the defendant faces a “very significant custodial sentence” when formal sentencing is handed down.