A former banker, who splurged some of the $3.75 million he defrauded from the Commonwealth Bank on cocaine, a lavish lifestyle and a home, has been spared immediate jail because of the delay between his offending and sentence, The Age reports.
In 2008 and 2009, George Vrettakos abused his trusted position as a mobile lender to falsify documents and create three lines of credit using false names, and made 130 fraudulent transactions to personally gain $1.48 million.
The Commonwealth Bank discovered Vrettakos’ scam in 2010 but chose not to report him to police even though he made admissions and said he was prepared to implicate other bank staff in the racket.
According to The Age, he told the bank’s investigators at the time: “We had beautiful lunches. We had beautiful wines. We snorted coke – a lot of it. We met a lot of girls. That’s what I got out of it. Stupid.”
The bank only filed a police report in 2018 when The Age raised questions about the case.
Vrettakos told police he defrauded his employer because he was under pressure at work, needed to repay a $150,000 debt over a failed business venture and that his offending came after his wife suffered a serious health problem.
By the time Vrettakos was charged and faced court for the first time last year, more than a decade had elapsed since his offending.
County Court judge, Gavan Meredith, on June 24 cited delay as a strong mitigating factor in Vrettakos’ favour and spared the 41-year-old an immediate stint in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
“It is apparent that the delay in your case has been inordinate,” Judge Meredith said, according to The Age.
Vrettakos’ three-year jail term was wholly suspended for three years, meaning the only way he will go into custody is by breaching the court order and offending again.
Source: The Age.
