I remember a similar case when a Lithuanian dude sent a barrage of fake invoices (for purported hardware purchases) to Google and Facebook. He made off with $123 million before he got caught [1].<p>A Yale University employee also stole $40 million by ordering computers for supposed research and reselling them through a third party [2].<p>An Amazon manager similarly stole $10 million with fake invoices [3].<p>It seems this kind of fraud is inevitable once an organization scales beyond a certain level.<p>Harvard<p>1-<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/lithuanian-man-pleads-guilty-to-scamming-google-and-facebook-out-of-123-million/" rel="nofollow">https://www.zdnet.com/article/lithuanian-man-pleads-guilty-t...</a><p>2 - <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089525660/a-former-yale-employee-admits-she-stole-40-million-in-electronics-from-the-unive" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089525660/a-former-yale-empl...</a><p>3 - <a href="https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/07/06/amazon_manager_fraud/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/07/06/amazon_manager_fr...</a>
From the USAO press release[0]:<p>> As she had done at Facebook, Furlow-Smiles circumvented the vendor process at Nike to commit fraud. She linked her Nike corporate card to her PayPal and Venmo accounts. She then paid her associates with PayPal and Venmo, causing fraudulent charges to her Nike card. The associates kicked back portions of the payments to Furlow-Smiles, who submitted fraudulent expense reports to Nike to cover her tracks. The expense reports falsely claimed that the payments were related to the Juneteenth event.<p>Imagine presenting yourself as a champion of DEI, cloaked in righteousness, while secretly defrauding your company with boundless greed.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/former-diversity-program-manager-facebook-and-nike-sentenced-federal-prison-5-million" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/former-diversity-progra...</a>
Convicts fail to appreciate the most important principle: One should only attempt to profit from the violation ethics or morals on a much larger scale legally without noticeably affecting other powerful people.<p>+ Wall St., MBB consultants, Boeing, Facebook, Google<p>- Madoff, SBF, and this dummy
I once knew a freelancer who made the majority of his money by operating a dozen or so micro saas platforms and then signing up all of his clients for them to complete his contracts, turning his short-term engagements into substantial recurring revenue. Of course all of the companies were in the names of his family members.<p>He was happy and his clients were happy. Win win.
Official Justice post from a few days ago: <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/former-diversity-program-manager-facebook-and-nike-sentenced-federal-prison-5-million" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/former-diversity-progra...</a><p>(<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40367856">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40367856</a>)
According to her lawyer:<p>> She’s a great mother and a good person.<p>As total bullshit statements go, that's pretty high ranking.<p>As "a great mother", what kind of example is she setting, and as "a good person" like WTF? She's just literally been convicted for serious crime and she didn't bother to even try hiding it.<p>The statement should probably have been something like "For a smart person, my client is a complete moron that should never have done any of this.".