The trial of a former public servant accused of using hundreds of fake tax returns to embezzle more than $1million has begun poring over a vast trove of Tax Office records, as prosecutors begin setting out their case against the 29-year-old.
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Rishi Khandelwal, from Harrison, is accused of using the identities of international students, who had returned to their home countries, to file hundreds of fake tax returns to the ATO.
Khandelwal is now fighting more than 300 fraud charges in the ACT Magistrates Court.
When authorities searched his home, they allegedly found bags filled with thousands of dollars in cash, a pink diamond ring and numerous bank cards.
The former Food Standards Australia and New Zealand employee's case returned to court on Monday for the first time since August last year.
The Commonwealth prosecution went through transactions line by line to establish a pattern for the use of bank accounts in the alleged fraud.
Khandelwal is accused of using small amounts of between $1 and $10 to create a series of NetBank accounts.
He allegedly used a network of Commonwealth Bank accounts to receive the tax returns, before funnelling most into a ''mother'' account and withdrawing it from ATMs across the city.
A bag of $50 notes was tendered as evidence, as were a series of statements, some from the human resources departments of various organisations.
The prosecution called two witnesses on Monday afternoon - both tax investigators - and trawled through a series of phone calls made to the ATO.
Those phone calls were all logged in the ATO's systems, and the majority passed identity checks to make changes to personal information or bank details, or gain access to a tax file number.
Khandelwal has maintained his innocence.
The trial continues before magistrate Peter Dingwall.
