Kashim Chowdhury, a 56-year-old civil servant from east London, has been found guilty of nine counts of fraud after secretly holding eight overlapping full-time public-sector positions between 2020 and 2023, during which he fraudulently earned more than £284,000 of taxpayers' money. According to BBC News, the jury at Southwark Crown Court took seven hours to reach their verdict, concluding that Chowdhury was motivated by personal gain. After deliberating, the jury unanimously convicted him of eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by failing to disclose information.
The case reveals significant systemic failures within the Civil Service's hiring and monitoring procedures. Chowdhury held positions at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency, the Home Office, Tower Hamlets Council, and the East London NHS Trust. His overlapping roles included Tower Hamlets Council and East London NHS Trust; the council and Defra jobs overlapped for more than a year, and he held the NHS Trust role for four months in 2022. At one point in May 2023, he was contracted to work 183 hours a week—more than the number of hours in seven days.
The fraud remained undetected for nearly three years, despite warning signs that should have alerted his employers. In May 2023, Aleesha Adams, Chowdhury's line manager at UKHSA, conducted a video call with him while he was on sick leave. During the call, she noticed he appeared to be wearing white makeup to simulate illness, with white powder separating from his forehead and darker skin visible underneath and on his neck. When she challenged him about logging into the call using a Defra email address, he blamed a technical error. Adams told the jury:
"I believed he was lying."She escalated her concerns up the chain, but his fraudulent behaviour continued undetected.
Chowdhury was able to maintain his multiple positions by working entirely from his east London home, where he cared for his mother, who had dementia and terminal cancer. Rather than reducing his workload to focus on her care, he took on additional jobs. He concealed his impossible daily schedule by obtaining sick notes from his general practitioner. The prosecution said Chowdhury gave inaccurate employment information on application forms and did not tell departments about his other jobs after securing the roles. In April 2023, he was off sick with what he described as "mixed anxiety and depressive disorder" from Defra, UKHSA, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Food Standards Agency, yet he did not mention his illness or other employment to the Home Office when starting a job there.
The Civil Service's decentralised human resources system enabled the fraud to persist. Chowdhury did not declare on government application forms that he was already a civil servant, so the system failed to identify the duplication. Hannah Keenan, who works at the Institute for Government, explained the systemic problem:
"Government departments are taking hiring decisions independently of each other and without systems that join up. That the model and the culture surrounding it aren't working shouldn't be a surprise though - we've known for a long time about poor performers flying under the radar by shuffling between jobs."
Multiple line managers reported that Chowdhury performed poorly across his various roles. Dan McCartney, who managed him at Defra, told the jury he had to "effectively tell him what to do the whole time" and that Chowdhury kept his camera off during video calls for four months, claiming technical problems. Despite this poor performance, Chowdhury was given a permanent position at Defra and remained there for two years because he was not subject to formal performance measures.
The fraud was finally discovered in 2024 by the government's National Fraud Initiative, which conducts searches of Civil Service databases, including payroll records, every two years to identify anomalies. When arrested, Chowdhury had accumulated more than £40,000 in his bank accounts as well as significant investments, including £45,000 in premium bonds.
Why did the system fail to catch this fraud?
The Civil Service's failure to detect Chowdhury's fraud reflects broader institutional weaknesses. There are more than 550,000 people employed across the Civil Service, many in offices in Whitehall in central London, yet the organisation lacks integrated systems to prevent individuals from holding multiple positions simultaneously. The shift to remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem, allowing Chowdhury to conceal his multiple roles more easily.
A recent survey of 1,700 civil servants by the independent think tank Re:State found that 76% of respondents believed the Civil Service did not do a good job of tackling poor performers. An ex-senior civil servant told BBC News that much of the Civil Service is culturally averse to performance management.
"Whitehall's known for ages it has to be less risk averse. Shrinking the Civil Service and the adoption of artificial intelligence technology make that more vital. But don't underestimate the fear factor: fear of drawn-out grievances and fear of being accused of wasting taxpayers' money if the Civil Service was to do what big private sector firms do, which is cut to get rid of poor performers by offering some money and a settlement agreement."
What is 'polygamous working' and how widespread is it?
Chowdhury's case illustrates a wider phenomenon known as "polygamous working," in which individuals hold down several jobs simultaneously while keeping their employers in the dark. Websites have even been established offering advice on how to conceal multiple employment from employers. The rise of this practice has been attributed to the increased prevalence of remote working. The government's National Fraud Initiative has identified 23 cases of "polygamous working" across London in its most recent report, uncovering £500,000 of overpaid salaries over a period of just a few months.
What was Chowdhury's defence?
During his trial, Chowdhury claimed he had taken on multiple roles because he feared losing his livelihood after experiencing insecure employment. He said he had been forced out of a job at the Department for Education in 2013. He attributed his actions to his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, which he received in 2015, and said he had not been thinking clearly when applying for jobs.
"Because of my stress, distress and trauma and due to my panic at the time,"he told the court, he had not been able to make rational decisions.
However, the prosecution argued his behaviour was "deliberate" and constituted "intentional dishonesty" designed to exploit the system. The jury sided with the prosecution, determining that Chowdhury was motivated by personal gain rather than desperation or mental health difficulties. At times during the trial, Chowdhury appeared confused by what he was hearing and blamed trauma for the web of lies he had constructed.
What additional legal issues does Chowdhury face?
Beyond the criminal fraud conviction, Chowdhury is involved in a civil legal dispute with his three siblings, who accuse him of "bullying" their mother into signing over half of her £2.1 million home to him in the final days of her life. He denies these allegations.
What happens next?
Judge Mark Weekes remanded Chowdhury in custody; prosecutors suggested a five-year starting point, with a sentencing range of three to six years. Chowdhury is to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on a date yet to be fixed. A Defra spokesperson said:
"Kashim Chowdhury abused the trust placed in him as a public servant and defrauded taxpayers out of almost £285,000. He will now rightly face the consequences for his actions. This conviction is the result of a thorough and painstaking investigation led by the Defra Counter Fraud and Investigations team. It sends a clear message that fraud against the public purse will not be tolerated and those responsible will be held to account."The spokesperson added that Defra would use "all available avenues to recover the proceeds of Chowdhury's offending on behalf of taxpayers."
Key Facts
- Kashim Chowdhury held eight overlapping full-time public-sector jobs between 2020 and 2023, earning £350,000 in total, of which more than £284,000 was fraudulently obtained.
- The Civil Service's decentralised human resources system failed to identify that Chowdhury was employed by multiple departments simultaneously.
- Chowdhury was convicted of eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by failing to disclose information after a jury deliberated for seven hours.
- The government's National Fraud Initiative identified 23 cases of "polygamous working" across London, uncovering £500,000 of overpaid salaries in just a few months.
- Chowdhury faces a custodial sentence with prosecutors suggesting a five-year starting point and a sentencing range of three to six years.
