Melbourne man handed jail sentence after dozens of fraudulent JobKeeper claims

A Melbourne man has been sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment after defrauding the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) of nearly $35,000 and filing additional false claims worth an extra $460,000, including dozens of dodgy JobKeeper applications.

In May this year, Wheelers Hill man Blake Grough, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining financial advantage by deception, and a further two counts of attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception.

That conviction in Melbourne Magistrates Court came after a joint investigation by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and ATO through the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce (SFCT).

The SFCT investigation launched in June 2020 after the ATO tied Grough to a series of dubious claims, including 40 suspicious JobKeeper applications.

In total, Grough was accused of making fraudulent claims valued at $492,957.

The AFP arrested and formally charged Grough in February this year, and he was sentenced on Thursday.

Grough will be eligible for parole after two years and three months.

In a statement, AFP detective superintendent Bernard Geason called the sentence a clear message to Australians seeking to rort the tax system — including those who took advantage of the extraordinary JobKeeper business support package.

“The JobKeeper payments were designed to assist people during a pandemic and in turn, protect our community,” he said.

“With so many Australians doing it tough, it is more important than ever that we seek out those who heap the burden of crime on the public.”

ATO deputy commissioner and SFCT chief John Ford said the outcome proved the taskforce’s ability to crack down on those exploiting the tax and superannuation system.

“Compliance is firmly on our radar,” he said.

Grough is not the first Australian accused of abusing the JobKeeper scheme.

In February 2021, Melbourne man Raed Saleh was convicted in Heidelberg Magistrates Court of three counts of making a false and misleading statement to the Commissioner of Taxation, related to $6,000 in JobKeeper payments he was not entitled to claim.

Saleh was ordered to pay a fine of $3,000, a further $3,000 in reparations, and costs of almost $300.

“We have an important role to ensure the integrity of the stimulus measures and when we uncover fraud or people seeking to exploit them, we will take action, as we know the community would expect us to do,” ATO deputy commissioner Will Day said at the time.

Day, who also served as SFCT chief before Ford, became deputy commissioner of small business in 2022.