A 47-year-old Indian origin senior director of data analytics at Optum Inc in Minnesota, US, has been convicted of fraud and money laundering conspiracy in a six-day trial.
The man has been identified as Karan Gupta. He has been found guilty of swindling more than $1 million from the company. Gupta's crimes include hiring an unqualified friend for a position, where the friend did not work, and Gupta received half his salary in kickbacks.
Optum Inc. is a subsidiary of United Health Group, where Gupta worked as a Senior Director, the United States Attorney's Office has said in a statement on Feb. 18.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Rick Evanchec of the FBI Minneapolis Field Office has said that Gupta abused his position of trust.
“He was as senior director of a subsidiary of the largest healthcare provider in the United States,” Evanchec said, adding that Gupta hired a ghost employee for a fictitious position, “so that he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks over many years."
He said that the FBI was committed to holding people in positions of power accountable when the cost of their actions is ultimately passed along to the hard-working Americans.
The Ghost Job Scheme
Gupta began misusing his authority in 2015, when he recruited a long-time friend to a managerial role. Documents suggest that the friend was not even qualified for the role and that a false resume was provided.
“For over four years, the friend kept receiving a salary without working. The salary was a substantial $1,00,000 a year. “He did not work at all and rarely used his company computer,” the US Attorney's office has said.
For this favour, Gupta kept receiving half of the friend's salary in kickbacks. Investigators said that the two of them used different methods to move money to avoid getting caught.
The FBI has said that the total loss to the company is over $1.2 million.
Gupta committed another fraud at the company in 2019, which was discovered by the company, and he was terminated from services. Only after he was terminated did the company know of his ghost hiring of a “lifelong friend”.
A US Attorney said that people who manufacture such fraudulent schemes to appropriate money from legitimate businesses must be held accountable for their criminal conduct.
“These no-show jobs and the kickbacks undermine legitimate businesses,” the Attorney said, “The perpetrators must suffer the consequences.”
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