Former Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Employee Charged with Embezzling $9.3-M from the Company
A former Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) employee was charged by a federal grand jury today of embezzling roughly $9.3-M from Elon Musk’s electric car company over the course of 2 years.
The indictment comes as the result of an FBI inquiry.
The employee Salil Parulekar, 32 anni, allegedly engaged in a scheme that involved diverting payments, falsifying invoices, identity theft, and impersonating an employee of 1 of Tesla’s suppliers, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California on Thursday:
According to the indictment, Parulekar learned in January 2017 that Tesla had terminated its supplier relationship with Schwabische Huttenwerke Automotive GmbH (“SHW”). At the time of the termination, SHW had only provided a limited number of sample products, specifically, motor pumps, to Tesla. Parulekar allegedly knew the termination meant that Tesla was withholding future payments to SHW and that Parulekar was not authorized to contravene this decision. Notwithstanding these facts, Parulekar redirected a series of payments intended for another supplier, Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (“Hota”), and caused them to be paid to SHW.
Parulekar is being charged with 9 counts of wire fraud and 1 count of aggravated identity theft. According to the US DOJ, each count of wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine; the maximum penalty for the aggravated identity theft charge is 2 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
A LinkedIn page appearing to belong to Parulekar indicates someone by the same name worked for Tesla for more than 4 years, and, if the information presented there is accurate, continued to work there as recently as last December.
HeffX-LTN will try to contact Tesla and the US DOJ for comment and information we will update this article if they respond.
Source US Department of Justice
Note: Volkswagen (OTCMKT:VLKAY) intends to sell its new EV for less than $22,900, and to protect German jobs the world’s most advanced car maker it is converting 3 factories to make Tesla rivals, a source familiar with the plans said.
HeffX-LTN Analysis for TSLA: | Overall | Short | Intermediate | Long |
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