An ex-Apple employee of Indian descent who planned to defraud the computer firm and commit related tax offences has been given a three-year prison sentence and compelled to pay more than $19 million (Rs 155 crore). Dhirendra Prasad, 55, defrauded Apple by abusing his position and collaborating with two other Apple vendors to steal roughly $17 million (Rs 138 crore). Using kickbacks, parts theft, inflated invoices, and forcing Apple to pay for goods and services it never received, he accomplished this, causing Apple to suffer a loss of more than $17,000,000.
In this case, Prasad’s employment at Apple from December 2008 to December 2018 was the focal point of the criminal activity. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last week that he had been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and one count of tax evasion from the charges he faced in March of last year.
In order to streamline the procedure by which Apple purchased parts to carry out warranty repairs on older devices, Prasad, a native of San Joaquin County in the US state of California, used to work as an Apple buyer in Apple’s Global Service Supply Chain.
In addition to participating in two distinct criminal conspiracies with Apple vendors, 55-year-old Prasad allegedly admitted to evading taxes on the proceeds of his schemes, according to the DOJ.
It said that because of the position he held at Apple, Prasad had a great deal of autonomy to make decisions that would benefit his firm. Prasad used his position of authority to violate trust and profit himself at the expense of his business, all while taking pay and bonuses from Apple totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Additionally, Prasad designed his criminal schemes to evade detection using his insider knowledge of the company’s fraud-detection methods. According to the report, Prasad was also given a forfeiture order from a federal judge valued at more than $5,491,713 in lieu of the three-year prison term. In addition, the court mandated that he pay $1,872,579 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and $17,398,104 to Apple in reparations.
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