US authorities have sentenced a former executive assistant and finance planning manager at HP, Inc. to three years in jail for defrauding HP of over $5 million. The 30-year-old woman had pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and related tax charges in March 2022.
During 2017-21, the convict was responsible for making payments to HP vendors using multiple HP-issued commercial credits cards. However, the convict used these credit cards to send over $4.8 million in unauthorized payments to several bogus Square, PayPal, and Stripe merchant accounts that she controlled. She further uploaded fake invoices to HP’s internal system to misrepresent the payments as transfers to legitimate vendors. She made similar false representations to the remittance companies. The convict also attempted to steal another $330,000 from HP using this scheme.
After the convict finishes her jail term, she will serve an additional 3 years of supervised release. Further, she will not be able to maintain a position of fiduciary capacity without the permission of her probation officer. Additionally, the convict will have to forfeit several luxury items, including vehicles and jewelry, that she had purchased using the illicit proceeds.
Source: US Department of Justice
