COPENHAGEN – On Tuesday, a former employee has been sentenced by a Danish court to 6-1/2 years in prison for charges of embezzlement of Danish government funds which was earmarked to service those vulnerable in society.
In November 2018, Britta Nielsen was arrested in Johannesburg charged for diverting 117 million Danish crowns and piles of cash from state funds to her own accounts intended for the poor. She has been doing this for almost 25-years until 2018.
65-year-old Britta Nielsen worked for the social affairs ministry for four decades up to the arrest and she admitted that embezzling the money became an addiction. They were spent on several things including horses and a South African mansion.
Her lawyer blamed the authorities for lax oversight of government funds of large volumes and said that the sentence would not be appealed.
The verdict comes not long after a tax scandal and a Danske Bank money-laundering case.
The three cases put public trust in leadership on to a slippery downhill slope, in a country that was so far believed to be one of the world’s least corrupt.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.