A WARMINSTER woman who conned her employer out of £210,000 to fund a new Mercedez, designer handbags and several holidays has been jailed for three years.

Cerian Devroe, 37, of Chapel Street, Horningsham, who works as a credits controller at RACS group in Warminster, was sentenced at Salisbury Crown Court on Friday (May 11) after pleading guilty to fraud and illegally concealing profits.

She was sentenced to three years for the fraud and 18 months, to run concurrently, for money laundering.

Between April 2016 and July 2017 Devroe sent numerous fraudulent emails to the company’s Payroll Director, where she would fabricate details about outstanding owed money which needed to be paid to their clients, but in fact included her own bank details so the payment would go directly to her.

The total amount of fraud committed was £210,612.85. Some of these transactions were queried and halted, but £187,321.25 was stolen.

Her crimes were only detected when colleagues became suspicious about her lavish lifestyle, which included numerous exotic holidays, a Mercedes Benz car, a personalised number plate, and items of designer clothing and handbags.

DC Chris Tollervey, from Wiltshire Police’s fraud team, said: “This case is a classic example of someone committing an opportunistic theft when they realised they could play the system to benefit themselves.

“It appears that initially she committed the crimes because she felt she needed the money but quite quickly her greed took over and she continued to steal large amounts of money to fund her increasingly lavish lifestyle.

“In total she used this method more than 60 times, and I have no doubt that she would have continued to steal for as long as she could have got away with it.

“She was only discovered when a co-worker became suspicious of her spending and flagged the matter with the company’s owners.”