Army Sergeant Jailed After Stealing £336k of MoD Funds for Teslas

On 12 June 2025, Andrew Oakes — a staff sergeant and financial systems administrator with the 2nd Infantry Training Battalion at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire — was sentenced to three years and six months in prison at Teesside Crown Court after pleading guilty to five counts including fraud by false representation, fraud by abuse of a position of trust, and acquiring criminal property. The offending ran from February 2021 to October 2024 and reached a total of £336,448 in diverted public defence funds. Oakes exploited near-unrestricted access to a pre-signed military cheque book, writing approximately 28 government cheques payable to himself while removing or rewriting reference stubs to make the payments appear as routine transfers to legitimate battalion suppliers. The money funded three Tesla vehicles, a BMW Mini, a Nissan Qashqai, Apple products, a hair transplant, and roughly £16,555 spent on adult services. The fraud was uncovered in May 2024 by the Ministry of Defence's Economic Crime Team. Judge Nathan Adams noted at sentencing that colleagues who had granted Oakes compassionate leave — believing he was grieving a family bereavement — had their sympathy weaponised against them, causing lasting damage to the morale of the unit he was trusted to serve. Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.