Accountant jailed for 3.5 years for stealing $878,000 from IGA supermarkets to fund gambling

An accountant who gambled away nearly $880,000 stolen from a network of IGA supermarkets has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Narelle Labuts, 61, worked for the Singh Group, which owns 10 IGA stores in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales.

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The house always wins, so it never eventuated.

Labuts used her position of trust to siphon off the company's funds over a four-year period, employing a method of using white font on 522 transactions to conceal her actions. She was sacked in 2021 after a bank flagged an unusual transaction. In October 2024, police charged her with fraud offenses.

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I knew that what I was doing was wrong thing but was 'praying for a big win to return it all back'.

During sentencing, Labuts told the Newcastle District Court that she lost 90 percent of the embezzled funds to gambling, particularly poker machines. She expressed deep remorse, stating she knew her actions were wrong and was "praying for a big win to return it all back." She has since sought counseling for her gambling addiction.

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I am so incredibly sorry and acknowledged I had 'destroyed the trust [her employer] put in me'.

Labuts pleaded guilty late last year and was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars, with a two-year non-parole period. She will be eligible for parole in July 2028. The court heard she had only returned $3,500 of the stolen money, with the IGA network recovering an additional $9,000 by withholding her entitlements. Judge Tim Gartelmann SC emphasized the need for sentences to deter others, noting that such fraud can be easy to commit but difficult to detect.

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The sentences for fraud offences must deter others to commit them. They are easy to commit and hard to detect.