An accountant at smoothie giant Innocent ripped off her employer to boost her salary by more than £26,000, a court heard.
Priya Moodley, 35, was paid £49,000 a year but she funnelled company cash straight into her bank account between 2012 and 2015.
She spent thousands of pounds on 'luxury goods' and a trip to visit her unwell mother in South Africa, Southwark Crown Court heard.
The ledger manager carried out the scam by overpaying fruit and veg suppliers to the Coca Cola-owned Innocent brand, and asking them to repay the money into her own account.
According to the Daily Telegraph, prosecutor Peter Zinner said: 'This was a pre-planned and fairly sophisticated fraud by an employee on her employer - her employer at the time was Innocent, a company that makes smoothie drinks, fruit juice and veg pots.She was employed in the company as a ledger manager and her salary was about £49,000 per year at the time of her arrest.
'The prosecution say that seven unlawful transactions were made between 2 April 2012 and 14 March 2015 which effectively enriched the defendant to the total sum of £26,672.
'The defendant would contact various suppliers of goods at Innocent, for example fruit and vegetable companies, and she would indicate to them they had been overpaid or an error had been made in payments to them.
'Prior to that she had set the groundwork by making payments to those companies in preparation for the fraud.For example, £5,000 would be paid into the recipient company's account in preparation, the defendant would then contact the supply company and say 'we have made a mistake, we have overpaid you'.
'Of course the recipient company would then make the payment back not to the company but to the defendant's personal account.'
Moodley provided her own bank details to the unwitting suppliers, who then transferred the cash into her account.
She was caught after a company audit revealed the 'suspicious' transactions.
'It seems a lot of the money went on luxury goods as opposed to necessities because she had quite a good salary,' added Mr Zinner.
Moodley, of Chiswick, west London, admitted one count of fraud by abuse of position.
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