Indian-origin man, Dhirendra Prasad, an ex-employee who defrauded Apple of more than $17 million entered a guilty plea. He and one of his accomplices were allegedly also engaged in tax evasion. Prasad, who spent several years working at Apple, will be sentenced for his misdeeds in 2019.
The Apple employee, 52, entered a guilty plea on Tuesday in federal court. He worked there from 2008 to 2018. He was in charge of acquiring components and services from several suppliers for Apple.
According to Prasad, he started defrauding Apple in 2011 by accepting bribes, falsifying bills, stealing components, and billing the firm for services it never received. Prasad testified to the prosecution that the scams persisted into 2018 and cost the business more than $17 million.
Along with naming Don M. Baker and Robert Gary Hansen, both of whom live in the Central District of California, as co-conspirators, Prasad also acknowledged this in the plea deal. Hansen and Baker were the owners of vendor businesses that worked with Apple, according to Prasad’s testimony before the court.
Prasad confessed that he sent Apple motherboards to Don M. Baker’s business. The motherboards were subsequently collected by Baker, who then sent Apple the parts. For the same, Prasad issued Apple billing invoices. This is only one of many fraudulent deeds he has committed. In addition, Prasad and his fellow conspirator Hensen both acknowledged their involvement in tax fraud.
According to a CNET investigation, Prasad cited one occasion in which he sent motherboards from Apple to Baker’s business, CTrends, in 2013. Co-conspirator Baker then took the motherboards apart, delivered the parts back to Apple, and Prasad provided Apple with fake invoices to pay for it. The two would later split the money received from Apple.
Again, in 2016, Prasad arranged for parts to be sent from Apple’s inventory that was kept in a Nevada warehouse to Hansen’s company, Quality Electronics Distributors, Inc. This time, Apple was once more charged for its own parts.
Additionally, Prasad admitted to tax evasion by sending unauthorised payments from Robert Gary Hansen to Prasad’s creditors, according to the investigation. In order to hide Baker’s illegitimate payments to Prasad, he set up a shell company that produces false bills to CTrends, resulting in an IRS loss of more than $1.8 million. This allowed Baker to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit tax deductions.
The two conspirators confessed to participating in the scams after being indicted in separate federal proceedings. On March 14, 2023, Prasad will appear for a sentencing hearing; he will not be arrested prior to that day. The Special Enforcement Program made provision for the prosecution, which was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation.
The US authorities seized Prasad’s assets worth more than $5 million. The 14th of March has been set down for his sentencing hearing. Prasad may receive a sentence of up to 25 years in jail if he is proven guilty. He would have been sentenced to 70 years in federal prison if he had not entered a guilty plea.
