Ex-Cambridge Don Faces £1.3m Payback or 8½ Years Behind Bars
Fraudster Ordered to Return Huge Government Cash
Ehsan Abdi-Jalebi, 40, a former Cambridge University academic, has been hit with a £1,334,929.78 confiscation order after ripping off the Government. He now faces eight and a half years in prison if he fails to cough up the cash within three months.
Forged Invoices and Fake Grants
Back in December 2018, Abdi-Jalebi admitted to thirteen counts of forgery and was jailed for four years. The ex-don conned Innovate UK and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) out of £2.5 million by submitting forged invoices to secure grant money.
He ran four companies, including Wind Technologies Ltd. While Wind Technologies was entitled to partial grants, Abdi-Jalebi cunningly doctored invoices to inflate costs and claim the full amount. The Government wouldn’t have paid a penny if they’d known the truth.
CPS Slams ‘Jet-Set Lifestyle’ Fraud
Helen Hughes from the CPS said: “Abdi-Jalebi abused his position as a respected academic at Cambridge to exploit Government schemes designed to boost renewable energy entrepreneurship. He submitted forged invoices to make it seem like he was running legitimate businesses and used taxpayers’ money to fund his jet-set lifestyle.”
She added: “The confiscation order reflects his assets, but if he doesn’t pay up, we will push for more jail time.”
