Fraudster used fake CV to nab bank CEO job

A conman who posed as an Oxford and Harvard graduate to win a job as the deputy CEO of Ahli United Bank has been given a 50-week prison sentence.

Peter Gwinnell, 49, who was convicted for similar offences in the 1990s, posted a fake CV online claiming he had worked for J.P. Morgan for 20 years.

City headhunters Connaught put Gwinnell in touch with the investment bank which later hired him to the £165,000 p.a. post, the Daily Mail reports.

Gwinnell worked at Ahli United for a month, earning £14,500 and taking several business trips to the Middle East, before the bank discovered he had neither been to Harvard or Oxford, nor ever worked for JP Morgan.

His fraud cost the bank £27,000, including his salary, a £10,350 non-refundable payment to Connaught, and £2,576 on flights.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC gave Gwinnell a 50-week suspended prison sentence, plus 100 hours of unpaid work, 18 months of supervision with a probation officer, and an order not to upload a CV to the internet without the court's permission.

Sentencing, Judge Rivlin said: "This offence was deliberately planned, and it has to be said that it caused loss, but also no doubt much trouble and aggravation and quite obviously embarrassment to the bank who determined that you were suitable for employment."