Finance worker stole £75,000 from dead customers to fund ‘lavish lifestyle’

A fraudulent finance worker who stole tens of thousands of pounds from the estates of dead customers was rumbled after his girlfriend posted pictures of their ‘lavish lifestyle’ on social media.

Corey Casagrande took £75,000 to fund his gambling addiction as well as paying for luxury holidays and designer shoes.

Casagrande worked as a team leader at Target Financial Services in Newport, Wales, providing services to big names including the BBC, Barclays, and Credit Suisse.

Managers at Target discovered irregularities in 2020 and determined Casagrande was the culprit.

After he was dismissed from his job he then turned his hand to transporting Class A drugs for an organised crime group – but he was caught transporting a kilo of cocaine from Merseyside to South Wales and jailed.

Casagrande wasn’t charged with the financial fraud until after he’d been sent to prison and subsequently released for the drugs charges.

Hashim Salmman, prosecuting, said the fraud revolved around Target’s role in dealing with the estates of deceased Credit Suisse customers.

It involved tracing the executors to the funds in the accounts and sending them what are known as a ‘small estates form’ in order for them to access the money. The forms have to be signed by a solicitor who confirms the person claiming the estate is genuine.

But in August 2020 Target found £75,000 had been taken from three different accounts belonging to deceased customers.

In each of the cases the money had been paid to third parties who had submitted claim forms accompanied by solicitor’s letter,s but checks with the solicitors involved showed they had no knowledge of the documents bearing their names.

During the investigation the Facebook account of Casagrande’s partner Jemma Connor, who also worked for Target, was checked and ‘entries that suggested that she had been spending large amounts of money and living a lavish lifestyle’ were found including pictures of holidays and of Christian Louboutin designer shoes.

Casagrande was initially interviewed during the investigation, but he failed to turn up for a disciplinary hearing and was subsequently dismissed.

The police were alerted and in November 2022 Casagrande was interviewed under caution. He gave a prepared statement in which he admitted being involved in the fraudulent transfer of monies to third-party accounts and said the ‘bulk’ of the money was then sent on to him.

He said his partner Miss Connor received some of the monies but she was ‘unaware of the source and also deceived by myself as to the source’.

Following the Target internal investigation, Miss Connor and another female employee were also dismissed.

The prosecutor told the court Casagrande’s offending showed a level of sophistication and an understanding of the internal systems of the company he worked for and also involved the use of fake documents from real solicitors.

Corey Casagrande, aged 37, of of Partridge Way, Duffryn, Newport, had previously previously pleaded guilty a single count of fraud when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.

Amelia Pike, defending, said it was not until the defendant was released from prison in 2022 that he was interviewed about the fraud matter and said the case ‘could and should have been dealt with sooner’.

She said the fraud was committed ‘at the peak of addiction’ to gambling while he was ‘living the lifestyle that accompanies it’ and she said the defendant was deeply ashamed of his actions.

She added her client was a dad-of-three and his partner was in the early stages of a pregnancy and that following his release from his last custodial sentence he had ‘started afresh’ and established his own construction business which now had three employees.

Recorder Carl Harrison said the defendant had used his in-depth knowledge of the systems Target were using and used false documents purporting to be from genuine solicitors in order to funnel money into third party bank accounts.

Casagrande was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years, and was ordered to complete 80 hours of unpaid work.

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