Army sergeant swindles $1 million in online mission.

 

A former British Sergeant Quartermaster who fraudulently used his Ministry of Defence laptop to buy nearly $1 million worth of printer cartridges for resale online has been sentenced to prison.

 

Jed Charlot, 45, made the purchases through his personal eBay account to fund a lavish lifestyle and impress his mistress. 

 

Charlot, originally from Mauritius, joined the Army in 2007 and served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. 

 

He exploited his position to make 677 orders for cartridges totalling almost $1 million from a company called XMA Limited in Nottinghamshire. He then resold the cartridges online, to customers in the UK and the United States.

 

Charlot’s scheme was discovered by an army colleague who noticed the unusually high spending on printer hardware. When confronted, he initially denied the fraud, claiming his account had been hacked. 

 

Charlot will serve a minimum of 14 months in prison before being considered for release.