A UK civil servant who secretly held 5 full-time government jobs simultaneously and earned hundreds of thousands of pounds has been found guilty of fraud, the BBC reported.The 56-year-old worked across 5 full-time positions at the same time. (Crown Prosecution Service)Kashim Chowdhury, from east London, was found guilty of nine counts of fraud after a jury at Southwark Crown Court deliberated for around 7 hours. The verdicts included eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by failing to disclose information, according to a report by the BBC.Prosecutors said Chowdhury exploited remote-working arrangements to conceal his multiple jobs, which overlapped between 2020 and 2023.

During this period, the 56-year-old held 8 full-time public sector roles at different times, earning around ÂŁ350,000 in total.In the spring of 2023, he was reportedly working across 5 full-time positions at the same time, including roles at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office.At one point, Chowdhury was contracted to work 183 hours a week, more than the total number of hours in 7 days.According to the prosecution, Chowdhury provided inaccurate information about his employment status on job application forms and failed to disclose that he was already working as a civil servant. He also did not inform his employers about his other jobs after securing the positions.How did he conceal multiple jobs?Prosecutors said Chowdhury used sick notes to manage his workload.

In March 2023, he was reportedly on sick leave from 4 organisations but continued working at the Home Office without informing them that he was unwell.In May 2023, his manager at the UK Health Security Agency, Aleesha Adams, organised a video call with him because he had been on sick leave for 3 months and she wanted to make a plan to get him back to work.Adams told the jury that during the call she noticed that he appeared to be wearing white make-up to look ill, the BBC reported. She said that Chowdhury had been coughing and waving tissues in front of the camera.

However, as the meeting progressed, the make-up appeared to rub off his forehead, revealing darker skin underneath.Chowdhury denied wearing make-up and described the allegation as a smear. He also blamed a technical error after Adams discovered that he had joined the meeting using his Defra email address.Adams grew suspicious. ''I believed he was lying,'' she told the jury.

She escalated her concerns up the chain at the UKHSA.But Chowdhury’s fraudulent behaviour went on for several more months until he left the civil service in September 2023. He was finally caught in 2024 by the government's National Fraud Initiative, which conducts searches of civil service databases such as payroll every two years to look for anomalies.(Also Read: UK firefighters attacked with fireworks while trying to put out blaze)What did Chowdhury say?During the trial, Chowdhury said he had taken on several jobs because he feared losing his livelihood after experiencing insecure employment in the past.

He had previously been made redundant from a role at the Department for Education in 2013 and said he was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He told the court that he had not been thinking clearly when applying for jobs ''because of my stress, distress and trauma and due to my panic at the time".He had also told employers that he needed to work from home to care for his mother, who had dementia and was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2023.

But rather than reduce his workload to look after her, he kept taking on new jobs.Sarah Melo, a specialist prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service, said, “This was sustained and deliberate dishonesty. He knew he could not legitimately hold multiple full-time positions at the same time, but continued to conceal what he was doing."A Defra spokesperson said Chowdhury had abused the trust placed in him as a public servant and that the department would explore all available avenues to recover the money.The judge said Chowdhury faced a “very significant custodial sentence” and refused him bail.(Also Read: Scammers create fake AI images of missing pets in UK to extort reward money from owners)Chowdhury accused of bullying motherSeparately, Chowdhury is also facing a civil case brought by his siblings, who have accused him of exerting undue influence on their mother shortly before her death to secure a larger share of the family home.His two brothers and sister allege that their mother could not have understood what she was signing because she was “desperately unwell”.

They claimed that their mother was nearly blind and could not speak English, and was unaware of what she was signing because the documents were not translated into her native Bengali at the time they were signed.Chowdhury denies the allegations. The case is ongoing.