World Athletics 1.5M Euro Fraud: Governing Body Uncovers Systematic Theft By Staff And Consultant

World Athletics on Thursday revealed it uncovered "a systematic theft of money from the organisation" by "two employees and a contracted consultant," totaling just over €1.5 million over several years.

Following the discovery earlier this year, one of the three individuals had already left the organization, while the remaining employee and the consultant had their contracts terminated after an internal investigation.

Key Details And Investigation

According to a PTI report, one of the three under investigation is Vineesh Kochhar, who joined World Athletics as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in 2017. Kochhar came to World Athletics from Fidelity Information Services (FIS) based in New Delhi, where he was Asia Pacific CFO with responsibility across the region. He has worked in London, Moscow, and Boston.

The theft, which occurred over a period of several years, was discovered by World Athletics’ finance department "during the first annual auditing process under a new financial leadership team."

World Athletics instructed an independent forensic accounting review of the period to supplement its own internal investigation and no other fraudulent activity was found. A set of enhanced internal financial controls are now being introduced across the organization.

World Athletics confirmed that detailed cases have been prepared and handed over to the relevant judicial and legal authorities for criminal investigation.

World Athletics Official Statement And President Sebastian Coe's Comments

World Athletics provided a statement outlining the situation, "Earlier this year World Athletics uncovered the systematic theft of money from the organisation by two employees and a contracted consultant."

"While one of the employees left the organisation before their theft was discovered, another employee and a consultant had their contracts terminated following an internal investigation."

"The theft, which totalled just over €1.5m over a period of several years, was discovered by World Athletics’ finance department during the first annual auditing process under a new financial leadership team."

Commenting on the theft, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe made the following said, "Unfortunately, corporate theft happens in organisations around the world and across all industry sectors at different levels. The most important thing is to identify it, review how it was able to happen and then introduce new processes and enhanced controls to ensure it doesn’t happen again. This is what we have done."

He added, "We are also determined to recover whatever monies we are able using the full force of the law to do this. Too many organisations brush incidents like this under the carpet, terminating employment with limited information which allows perpetrators to continue their scams and thefts within new organisations. We are not that type of organisation."

"We have built a strong reputation for good governance, transparency and for defending what is right, even if it is sometimes a little uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable but it is important that we do the right thing."

With PTI Inputs