Microsoft is sitting on tons of cash. So maybe the wealthy corporation wouldn’t notice if just a little tiny bit “went missing?”
Well, one employee must have believed that, because he brazenly siphoned off some of Redmond’s stash into his personal account.
Meet Robert Curry, a former Microsoft staffer who is now staring federal charges in the face after being accused of defrauding the corporation out of a hefty $515,000.
How, you ask?
Well, the prosecution asserts that Curry diverted the funds from Microsoft’s corporate bank accounts to his personal account via three separate wire transfers.
As an insider, Curry was intimately familiar with the company’s internal controls and thus falsified documents to receive payment for service that was never rendered to Microsoft.
A senior executive, Curry was the Director of Business Development in the Strategic Partnerships Unit of the Online Audience Business Team. In this role, one of Curry’s responsibilities was approving payment to partners for services rendered.
The prosecution alleges that in order to execute his plan, Curry created a shell company then exploited the trusted relationship between Microsoft and a legitimate vendor called Pentad Solutions.
Using this arrangement, Curry is purported to have transferred the funds to his own account throughout 2010 on the pretext of payment for services to Microsoft – services that it has since been established were never rendered.
Yes, $515,000 is loose change for a multi-billion dollar corporation like Microsoft. But clamping down on insider fraud is clearly something no business can take lightly.
Such action sends a strong warning to any employee that may be contemplating similar activity, while at the same rtime eassuring investors of the company’s commitment to protecting shareholder value in all its various forms.
[ Via Seattle PI]
