CRICKET South Africa lost more than £400,000 through fraud by one of their employees, and it was a happy coincidence that conviction was achieved in Johannesburg within a few days of the Test team wrapping up the series against England at Edgbaston.

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Diteko Modise, 39, a former financial director of the United Cricket Board -- as the authority was known then -- was sentenced by the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court to effectively 30 years in prison after being found guilty on eight counts of fraud and one count of money laundering totalling £517,000. Only a small proportion was recovered.

Modise, who joined the UCB staff in 200, was told he would be considered for parole only after serving 20 years. He indicated he would appeal.

According to court reports, his version was that the money in question was genuinely given to him by former UCB chief executive Ali Bacher to develop cricket grounds in the rural areas of Postmasburg and Kuruman in the Northern Cape. However, one of the Board officials, Don MacIntosh, disagreed, saying the money was meant for the development of cricket in Soweto and Mamelodi.

The court heard that in 2002 Modise instructed his subordinates to transfer funds into an account held by More Raud Investments, a company solely owned by him. He instructed one of his subordinates to transfer an amount of more than £90,00 into the More Raud Investments account on the pretext that it was for the purchase of a bus for the Proteas cricket team. Instead he bought a Land Rover for his own use and later pruchased a Mercedes-Benz. The prosecution alleged he spent other funds on designer clothes and furniture.

Other UCB funds were utilised to establish companies in the cleaning, construction and mining industries, all of which were operational in Kimberley before being attached by the Asset Forfeiture Unit during Modise's arrest in 2004. He also bought three houses in Pecanwood, Dainfern Valley and Buccleuch, north of Johannesburg, and an apartment in Bloemfontein.

Magistrate Jeremy Janse van Vuuren said Modise had paid back the UCB about £22,000 after he was confronted by the chief executive Gerald Majola about the fraud. Another £90,000 was recovered following an asset forfeiture order in the Johannesburg High Court in May this year.

The court rejected his request for a correctional supervision sentence. Modise had earlier asked the court to give him a non-custodial sentence, saying he had since formed a company and that he would use the profits to reimburse the Cricket South Africa, but the magistrate refused. "You must take responsibility for the crimes you have done," he said.

"At no stage did you admit guilt. You should have desisted from continuing with your criminal conduct in August 2002, but you chose to continue. These crimes were clearly planned. This was clearly an act of greed."

The prosecution alleged Modise embezzled the money between 2000 and early 2004. The fraud was uncovered in March 2004 when the Border Cricket Union informed the UCB of an overdue payment.