Ex-Amazon manager jailed for stealing $10M using fake vendor invoices

A now-former Amazon manager described by prosecutors as the "mastermind" behind a nearly $10 million scheme to steal money from the online megaretailer using fake invoices has been sentenced to 16 years behind bars in federal prison. Amazon Warehouse ops manager Kayricka Wortham – also known as "Kayricka Dupree" and "Kayricka …

[Pascal Monett]

"more crimes while on release after posting bond"

Well, you can't fault her for not being persistent.

What got her caught ? Too much, too quick, or someboy slipped ?

We know what she and her conspirators were doing, but nothing on how the law got whiff of the affair. Did the beancounters at Amazon do some sleuthing after asking a question, or was there something illogical that led to the discovery ?

$10 million in two years seems a lot, but it is Amazon. Plus or minus $10 million a month must be a blip on the balance sheet there.

[DS999]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

We've seen these sorts of scams at other big companies like Apple and Microsoft. I think it helps to be an insider or know an insider who knows the ins and outs about how invoices are processed. If you can get the first one paid, the rest will probably be on autopilot since all the due diligence would be on the first one from a new vendor (maybe taking over the name of an existing but no longer active vendor would help there?)

Heck just knowing the address to send them to, and how to format it would be valuable info. I wouldn't have a clue where to send an invoice to Amazon, or whether they expect it to be sent in paper, email, or as input to their EDI system. But an insider would.

I imagine the people get caught when something changes - a reorg, someone gets replaced in a certain role due to quitting, promotion or whatever and the new person is looking to make a splash that will impress in their new role. Maybe they are looking at invoices that don't seem right, maybe they are picking some at random to investigate, who knows. They probably figured if they could find something where Amazon is overspending by $1 million with a legit vendor they will be in line for a nice bonus. Hopefully whoever found this gets something out of it!

[katrinab]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

Or maybe, the auditor picks some accounts at random to check, because they can't check all of them, and that one happens to get selected.

Usually, it is because they get too greedy.

[ITMA]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

Someone I used to know many years ago got caught defrauding their employer out of something like £50K.

Being a young "underling" in the accounts department allowed them a certain level of access. From that they stumbled across what the company did with payments it received from customers (mainly B2B) which they weren't able to link to a customer's account. This was back when everything was BACS or cheque.

Basically, they put these "orphan" payments into a "holding account" (aka "slush fund") and this person found a way of writing checks to their "friends" (who didn't work there) from that account - a bit too obvious writing them out to themselves.

Occasionally one would get queried but they were always around to make up an appropriate plausible excuse.

That went on for a while, not making the cheques too big or too often.

Then they took some time off and one was queried internally while they were away.

Not being around to cover, the end result was a rapid progression through an internal investigation of all the "payments" they had been involved with, fired, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and prison. (young offenders institute as they were called then).

A couple of the "friends" they had been making the cheques out to also ended up with suspended sentences.

And of course all of them were fired from the jobs they had.

[OhForF']

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

Throwing around money buying luxury cars is one of those things that gets colleagues to start asking questions like 'How can they afford that'. Not sure if that was the case here but that is what gets a lot of schemes discovered.

Probably hard to have millions in the bank and not using them where others can see.

[DS999]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

That's easy to overcome - "my father died and I inherited a lot of money". Unless you had said something previously to contradict it like saying you grew up poor, they wouldn't have any reason to doubt it. Though it might seem strange to coworkers that you inherited enough money to buy a million dollar supercar but continue working a regular job paying low six figures.

You'd have to convince people you REALLY love working, and not have a history of talking about how much you hate work or about how you hope you'll win the lottery so you can retire!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

Based on these folks photos in the news, none of them came from money. They look very working class, just like you'd expect. So no rich Daddys.

[DS999]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

So then your story is "my grandma won a huge lottery jackpot in <insert name of state that allows lottery winners to remain anonymous> recently and is sharing with the whole family"

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

They obviously never got the advice "when you're in a hole stop digging". If they think 16 years is going to be a long sentence they've yet to discover how much umbrage a court will take over forging court papers.

[IGotOut]

Re: "more crimes while on release after posting bond"

$10 million in invoices is incredibly easy to hide in mega corps.

I worked for a large UK UT reseller and it was not unusual to see invoices for well over £500k.

A few thousand here, few there for fake companies wouldn't be noticed, especially if you're the one approving them

[Anonymous Coward]

Now...

apply the same levels of punishment to companies that do similarly stupid things to steal wages from employees.

[BebopWeBop]

I am always surprised about how silly the errors that these fraudsters make then trip them up. Now I have a much better scheme - but that would be telling. Ebook on www.nigeria.com (for a small fee).

[Doctor Syntax]

There's only one silly error really: assuming they can't be caught.

[dogcatcher]

There's only one silly error really: assuming they can't be caught.

No, the silly error is a failure to work out their final return on their investment, should they be caught and punished.

[d2]

@dogcatcher'No, the silly error is a failure to work out their final return on their investment, should they be caught and punished.' Irony is...US,UK,etc 'elected' gummints are immune to your logic, as they pilfer&pillage harried taxpayers ad nauseam & ad infinitum.