AN accountant for a company that owns IGA supermarkets across the Hunter has admitted to a massive and complex fraud totalling more than $850,000.

Narelle Labuts, 61, only worked at the Singh Group, a company that owns 10 IGA stores and a FoodWorks, between 2017 and 2021.

But forensic investigators and police say she almost immediately got to work defrauding the company, creating fake financial documents so she could make hundreds of transfers totalling $878,354 into her own bank accounts.

One method Labuts would use was entering the fraudulent payments in white font, making them invisible to store managers and staff members who would review the documents.

Labuts appeared in Newcastle Local Court last week where she pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by decep

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