Hospital recruitment consultant jailed for fraud after making nearly £36,000 through criminal activity

A recruitment consultant responsible for filling vacancies required by hospitals, and finding healthcare staff to work in hospitals on temporary contracts, has been sentenced for fraud and money laundering.

Adam Ramthor, 24, of The Springs, Broxbourne, EN10 was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday 27 May 2021 at Inner London Crown Court for fraud by abuse of position and money laundering, after pleading guilty to all charges on Tuesday 23 March 2021.

Ramthor submitted false timesheets for temporary staff at private hospitals he was responsible for, without their knowledge, earning inflated commissions. Then when the staff members noticed their overpayments and contacted Ramthor to return the money, he provided his personal bank account details for them  to transfer funds into.

Ramthor’s fraudulent activity led to a financial gain of nearly £36,000, but a loss of over £240,000 to his employer.

Detective Constable James Wilkinson, from the City of London Police, said:

“This case highlights the need for businesses to maintain high levels of compliance and integrity checks to ensure they root out bad apples, intent on abusing their position of trust to carry out fraud, just as Ramthor did. Not only did he lie and deceive his employer, but also the hospital group he was recruiting for and the dedicated and honest temporary staff members, who noticed their overpayments and got in contact to return the money straightaway.”

Ramthor’s criminality was discovered when a small number of timesheets were found to be fraudulent after an internal investigation. Timesheets he had submitted had been signed in the names of ward managers, but the ward managers denied ever seeing the documents or signing them. In one case, one of the ward manager’s surnames was spelt incorrectly. Further investigation showed the workers named on the timesheets were not in the hospitals when the shifts were claimed - evidenced through fire records, signing in sheets and rotas. 

A more thorough investigation revealed 173 timesheets, covering 866 shifts, were fraudulently submitted by Ramthor, leading to staff members sending him £19,225 in overpayments, and a salary increase of £15,000 from bonuses and commission.