A man who spent more than two decades working at one of Antigua’s best known car dealerships has been sentenced to five years in prison after using his insider knowledge of the company’s systems to steal a vehicle worth $80,000 and cover his tracks with a trail of forged documents and fictitious transactions.

Dylan Simon, a former clerk and sales representative at Hadeed Motors, was sentenced today by Justice Stanley John on six counts — electronic forgery, forgery, uttering, larceny by a clerk, obtaining money by false pretences, and money laundering. The sentences, ranging from six months to five years, will all run concurrently.

The scheme was straightforward but brazen. Simon created a fictitious sale of a Suzuki Vitara by entering false information into the company’s computer system, fabricating a cheque payment from a female customer who had never actually purchased the vehicle. He filled out the necessary exit documentation, presented it to a security guard, and drove the car off the compound. He even collected commission for a sale that never happened.

He later sold the $80,000 vehicle to a used car dealer for $55,000 — taking $23,000 in cash and another vehicle worth $22,000 in exchange. The fraud only came to light when Hadeed Motors conducted an internal audit in May 2020 following the COVID-19 lockdown, revealing widespread discrepancies in transactions Simon had handled.

His defence — that other staff had access to his computer and that Hadeed Motors had set him up over unpaid back pay — unravelled completely when an auditor he himself called as a witness produced a report confirming Simon had committed the fraud.

It is the second time Simon has been convicted of the same type of offence at the same company. He was previously found guilty of electronic forgery involving a different vehicle and fined $100,000.