Aasim Johar, 54, colluded with the university’s former assistant director of estates and buildings Geoff Turnbull to mastermind a bogus procurement scheme that operated for ten years between 2005 and 2015.

During that period, Turnbull ordered deliveries worth thousands of pounds of cleaning materials through Johar’s employers, Universal Solutions (International), that were not needed.

Johar then collected commission on the “ghost” goods while Turnbull, who has since died, received expensive “promotions” worth £112,010 for his part in the fraud.

Johar, of Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, was found guilty by a jury at a hearing last month following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Sineidin Corrins, deputy procurator fiscal for specialist casework at the Crown Office, said: “This was a complex and elaborate fraud which cost the University of Edinburgh millions of pounds in misappropriated funds over a period of ten years.

“The scale and breadth of Aasim Johar and Geoff Turnbull’s elaborate and fraudulent scheme and dishonesty during that period was breathtaking. Their systematic dishonesty caused enormous financial damage to a famous educational institution.

“But Aasim Johar will now spend a lengthy time in jail for his crimes thanks to the diligent work of skilled COPFS prosecutors, working with criminal justice partners to establish the truth and ensure a successful conviction.”