Former HP Employee Accused Of Swindling Company Of Rs 38 Crores Pleads Guilty

A 30-year-old former employee of tech company HP, Inc. pleaded guilty to stealing around $5 million (more than Rs 38 crore) from the Silicon Valley computer company and using it to buy luxury cars, jewelry and watches, federal prosecutors said.

According to reports, the employee has been identified as Shelbee Szeto, who frauded her own company with money laundering, and a related tax charge in a scheme to defraud her former employer out of more than five million dollars.

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The U.S. Attorneys in the Northern District of California released a statement that said Szeto was employed by HP, Inc. (HP) as an executive assistant and finance planning manager from August 2017 until June of 2021.

The press release mentioned that Szeto is responsible for making payments to HP vendors and was issued multiple HP commercial credit cards to make the payments on HP's behalf.

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However, instead of paying the required amount in accordance with the company's policies, Szeto decided to swindle her company.

According to the press release, Szeto came up with a scheme through which she sent approximately $4.8 million in unauthorised payments from her HP commercial credit cards to several Square, PayPal, and Stripe merchant accounts under her control.

The accused reportedly used the money to buy luxury products like a Tesla sedan; a Porsche sport utility vehicle; several handbags and purses from Dior, Gucci, Hermes, and Chanel; and a collection of jewellery including necklaces, rings, and pendants, and watches from luxury brands like Rolex, Bulgari, Audemars Piguet, and Cartier.

The Fashion Law

The Department of Justice, US Attorney's Office of Northern District of California also said that Szeto bought 161 line items.

Some of them are multiple items such as ¡°7 necklaces with clover-shaped design,¡± ¡°6 gold necklaces with pendants,¡± and ¡°26 pairs of earrings.¡±

She set up fake merchant accounts with PayPal, Stripe, and Square that she kept under her control but represented legitimate vendors. Szeto also sent payments from the credit cards to the bogus accounts. Along with that, she also uploaded fake invoices to HP's internal system and falsely represented to her employer that the payments were made to legitimate vendors.

¡°She also made false representations to Square that the payments sent from the credit cards were sent to HP¡¯s approved vendors for legitimate business transactions and falsely represented to her bank that the money from HP was for legitimate business transactions,¡± added the statement.

Her sentence will be announced in July, and Szeto is expected to face up to ten years in prison, along with a fine of $2,50,000 (Rs 1.9 crore) for money laundering.

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