According to various sources citing the US Attorney’s Office for Northern California, a former Apple employee of Indian descent has pled guilty to mail and wire fraud charges spanning many years that robbed the Cupertino-based tech giant of more than $17 million.
Between December 2008 to December 2018, Dhirendra Prasad, 52, worked as a buyer in Apple’s global supply chain department. This individual was in charge of purchasing components and services from multiple suppliers for Apple. According to sources, Dhirendra Prasad stated in a written guilty confession that he started defrauding Apple in 2011 with two co-conspirators, Robert Gary Hansen and Don M. Baker. Dhirendra Prasad confessed to stealing, accepting kickbacks, and fabricating bills.
According to a CNET investigation, Prasad said that in 2013, he sold motherboards from Apple to Baker’s business, CTrends. Baker, a co-conspirator, then extracted the motherboards’ components and transported them back to Apple, for which Prasad produced Apple billing bills. The couple divided the money once Apple paid the bogus bills.
According to the study, Prasad admitted to participating in tax evasion by funnelling unlawful money from Robert Gary Hansen to Prasad’s debtors. A shell business he set up sends bogus invoices to CTrends to disguise Baker’s illegal payments to Prasad, enabling Baker to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in unwarranted tax deductions and resulting in a $1.8 million IRS loss. Prasad faces up to 20 years in prison for mail and wire fraud. The sentencing hearing will take place on March 14, 2023.
