The former head of IT at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has been charged over an alleged $8 million fraud scheme involving the purchase and resale of mobile phones.

Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) alleges the senior NGV employee used their position to arrange hundreds of fraudulent invoices and purchase mobile phones through the gallery’s accounts over a six-year period.

The phones, valued at about $8 million, were allegedly sold for personal financial benefit, with the conduct alleged to have occurred between September 2019 and September 2025.

IBAC last week announced that a “senior” NGV employee had been charged with eight offences, including theft and misconduct in public office over the alleged misuse of their position.

NGV employees are considered Victorian public servants.

The Age reported this week that the employee is the gallery’s former head of IT, who allegedly produced hundreds of fraudulent invoices for mobile phones over several years.

The scale of the alleged spending is striking: $8 million would be enough to buy more than 5,000 iPhone 17s, or almost 4,000 iPhone 18 Pros.

IBAC also alleges the employee used their position to conceal the alleged conduct.

Operation Sonder

The individual started working at the NGV as a service desk administrator in 2017 and was appointed as IT operations and projects coordinator the following year, according to The Age.

A year later he was promoted to IT manager, and in 2021 became NGV’s head of IT.

IBAC established Operation Sonder last year to investigate the theft and corruption allegations.

Telstra’s fraud squad alerted NGV to the alleged fraud in September last year, and the employee was fired the same month, The Age reported.

The matter was also referred to Victoria Police and IBAC.

The fraud allegedly occurred while the man was the head of IT at the National Gallery of Victoria. Photo: Shutterstock

“The NGV worked with IBAC while they undertook an investigation,” an NGV spokesperson told ABC News.

The former employee will face the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 20 October.

The NGV spokesperson said the gallery had introduced “new measures and controls” to “strengthen [its] systems and processes” since the fraud was revealed.

‘Extraordinary’

Liberal MP David Davis said the alleged fraud was “totally unacceptable".

“The [government] must answer questions on how this extraordinary [alleged] fraud was committed, who reported this matter to IBAC and why these lax standards were tolerated by Labor,” Davis said.

It’s not the first time IBAC has targeted an IT manager.

In early 2020 a Victorian government IT project manager was fired after not declaring a conflict of interest after a company he owned completed $14 million worth of government IT contracts.

An IBAC report found that the project manager had “used his departmental position to further his private business interests in ways that gave rise to a conflict of interest with his public duties”.
A number of other alleged frauds involving tech workers have also been uncovered in recent years.

Early last year a Sydney IT consultant was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a doomed scheme that attempted to defraud $21 million from the National Australia Bank.

In July last year, four people, including two former tax office employees and contractors, were charged and sentenced for participating in a tax fraud scheme that had garnered attention on TikTok.

This scheme involved individuals setting up ABNs for fake businesses and then lodging fraudulent business activity statements to claim GST refunds.

And in March this year, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia reported a potential fraud racket to authorities that had obtained about $1 billion in illegitimate home loans, including through the use of artificial intelligence.