Around £220,000 was stolen from the Fringe, it has been revealed.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society said it had "uncovered and resolved a sophisticated case of fraud."
The money was stolen by one of its employees using "complex financial disbursements over an eight-year period."
The money has now been recovered and the culprit identified.
A case has been filed with Police Scotland.
The person no longer works with the Fringe.
Kath Mainland, Chief Executive of The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said: "We have been a victim of a sophisticated fraud campaign conducted by one individual in a position of responsibility over an extended period of time.
“The amount of money involved in any given year was, on average, less than one per cent of the Fringe Society’s annual turnover and not operationally impactful. We do take matters such as this very seriously. Despite already recovering the funds I wanted to be open about the situation and offer the opportunity to members to discuss this at our Annual General Meeting in August."
Under Police advice, The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society cannot name the individual involved nor disclose specific information due to the ongoing investigation.
Ms Mainland added: "This matter has had no impact on the Fringe itself, and we are looking forward to what will be a fantastic celebration of culture and entertainment from all around the world.
“The disappointment at having identified the crime is certainly alleviated by our success in recovering the funds swiftly and being able to move on.
“The measures required to reinforce our financial processes have already been taken, although I am satisfied that not much more could have been done to prevent us falling victim to such a deliberate and sophisticated crime."
The Fringe asked independent forensic accountants to review its processes to ensure all lost funds were identified and recovered.
Ticket revenue and restricted public funds are already ring-fenced and were not involved.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel