A former employee of Apple, Dhirendra Prasad, has been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to repay over $19 million USD (about $25.7 million CAD) in restitution after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Prasad worked as a buyer in Apple’s Global Service Supply Chain department between 2011 and 2018, and during that time, he conspired with two vendors to conduct fraud against Apple by taking kickbacks, stealing parts, inflating invoices, and causing Apple to pay for items and services it never received. This resulted in losses amounting to more than $17 million USD ($23 million CAD) for Apple, according to a release by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
The report also states that Prasad used his insider knowledge of Apple’s fraud detection practices to avoid being caught for several years. Prasad admitted to the charges in November, and two conspiracy charges to commit money laundering were dismissed during sentencing.
In addition to the three-year prison sentence, Prasad had to forfeit over $5,491,713 USD ($7.3 million CAD) worth of assets that already have been seized by the government. In addition to the restitution, Prasad was also ordered to pay $1.9 million USD ($2.5 million CAD) to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for not paying taxes on the proceeds of his fraudulent schemes. After the three-year prison sentence, Prasad would have to serve three years of supervised release.
In August last year, former Apple engineer Xiaolang Zhang admitted to stealing Apple’s Project Titan trade secrets.
Source: United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California Via: iMore
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