A former Apple employee in the Cupertino firm’s supply chain that was responsible for making purchases and invoicing them back to Apple, has pleaded guilty to over $17 million in fraud against the company. Dhirendra Prasad faces up to 20 years in jail.
Prasad was originally charged with fraud in March 2022, with prosecutors saying he had obtained kickbacks, and made Apple pay for undelivered goods and services. It was claimed that he defrauded the company out of $10 million during his ten-year employment term from 2008.
Apple fired Prasad in December 2018. He had worked with the company for over ten years.
Now, CNET reports Prasad has pleaded guilty to the charges and has admitted to over $17 million in a written plea statement. His statement says that he began defrauding Apple in 2011 with schemes including inflating invoices.
Prasad did not commit the crimes alone, he worked with two co-conspirators, Robert Gary Hansen and Don M. Baker, who have both been charged and admitted their involvement.
In one instance, Prasad said he had motherboards shipped in 2013 from Apple to Baker’s company, CTrends. Baker had the motherboards’ components harvested and then shipped the components back to Apple, for which Prasad issued Apple billing invoices to purchase. After Apple paid the fraudulent invoices, the pair split the proceeds.
Prasad also admitted engaging in tax fraud by funneling illicit payments from Hansen to Prasad’s creditors. He arranged for a shell company to issue fake invoices to CTrends to conceal Baker’s illicit payments to Prasad, allowing Baker to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars of unjustified tax deductions and resulting in an IRS loss of more than $1.8 million.
Prasad has agreed to forfeit $5 million in unspecified assets bought with the money.
Prasad’s sentencing hearing will take place on March 14, 2023. He faces up to 20 years in jail for mail fraud and wire fraud, plus potentially five years for defrauding the US.