The manager of an IT giant withdrew $5 million through purchases from fictitious suppliers and bought herself a Porsche, Tesla, handbags and watches

Hewlett-Packard scammed on the cards

The manager of an IT giant withdrew $5 million through purchases from fictitious suppliers and bought herself a Porsche, Tesla, handbags and watches

The original of this material

© CNews.ru08/22/2022, HP financier stole millions from the company in a complex scheme to buy Porsche, Tesla, handbags and watches, Photo:

Dmitry Stepanov

Former financial manager of an American IT giant HP stole about $ 5 million from corporate cards, buying non-existent goods for the needs of the company from fictitious sellers on the Internet. The woman spent the money acquired by criminal means on expensive cars, jewelry and accessories. This did not bring her happiness – she will spend the next three years in prison, and luxury items and the rest of the money stolen from HP will have to be returned. However, the period could be much longer.

Waste from HP

The court sentenced ex-HP finance manager (Hewlett-Packard) Shelby Seto (Shelbee Szeto) to three years in prison for embezzlement of $ 5 million belonging to the company. In addition, the woman is ordered to return over 250 luxury items that she purchased with the stolen money.

Thirty-year-old Seto fully admitted her guilt and repented of her deed at the end of March 2022 after being charged with five counts a month earlier. The lady, in particular, was charged with fraud, money laundering and other tax crimes. The punishment for wire fraud alone under US law can be up to 20 years in prison.

HP is an American technology company whose product range includes personal computers, printers and 3D printing solutions. According to IDC analysts, in the second quarter of 2022, HP became the world’s second largest PC manufacturer in terms of shipments (13.5 million units; 18.9% of the market), second only to China’s Lenovo (17.5 million units; 24.6% of the market).

Fraudulent scheme

The woman worked at HP, a large US IT company from August 2017 to June 2021. First as an assistant to a senior executive, then moved to the position of financial planning manager.

Seto’s responsibilities included paying HP suppliers. In this regard, she had access to several branded credit cards.

The enterprising financier decided not to limit herself to making settlements with HP counterparties and use the company’s funds to meet her own needs. To do this, the woman created fictitious accounts in PayPal, Stripe and Square systems, imitating the accounts of companies she invented. Under the guise of purchasing goods from these firms, Seto transferred at least $4.8 million to accounts under her control in portions of $30,000 to $40,000 at a time.

As follows from court documents, the now convicted woman tried to withdraw another $330,000 from corporate credit cards to her Square account at once, but the platform blocked the transaction, on what basis is not specified.

In addition, Seto backed up financial transactions with fake invoices. She uploaded them to HP’s internal information system so that the company had no doubts about the legitimacy of operations and the existence of suppliers. The unlucky manager misled not only her company, but also Square, as well as the California bank First Republic Bank, about the “purity” of transactions – fake business accounts on Stripe and Square were tied to her personal bank account.

Finally, Seto forgot to notify the IRS of the income she received from her mini-business without mentioning it on her tax return.

What did Seto lose besides her freedom?

The list of property to be confiscated from Seto, compiled by the prosecutor’s office, takes about 13 A4 pages. It lists such valuable items purchased by a woman with money stolen from HP, such as: a 2020 Tesla sedan; off-road vehicle (SUV) Porsche — model 2021; 46 Chanel handbags; 16 Rolex watches, each pair of Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet; a lot of jewelry made of precious metals and stones from Cartier, Tiffany, Gucci, Luis Vuitton.

In addition to luxury items, the court also ruled to withdraw $25.4 thousand from the fraudster’s bank account, frozen for the duration of the investigation.

Remorse and Therapy

In her written address to the court before sentencing, Seto asked that the fact that she attended group therapy at Narcotics Anonymous be taken into account. It follows from the words of the woman that at the time of the crimes she suffered from drug addiction, but she caught herself and has not been taking substances for a year now.

“My actions in the past have been selfish, immoral, unfair, and downright horrific,” Seto said. “By breaking the law, I wanted to impress people I didn’t want to lose. Now I have people who support me and love me for who I am.”

CNews was unable to find Shelby Seto’s Instagram account*. presumably owned by her Facebook page* in the name of Shelle Szeto, empty. The Wayback Machine service did not record its previous states, so it is difficult to say for sure whether the page was originally empty or was subjected to cleaning by the owner or her representatives, it seems difficult.

Proven Method

Seto’s corporate credit card scam and fake Amazon and Square accounts are not new. In 2021 CNews wrote about the case of Kyriakos Kapiris, who was essentially accused of purchasing non-existent IT equipment from himself at the expense of his employer. However, compared to Seto, his “successes” turned out to be much more modest – Kapiris embezzled only about $ 370 thousand.

At the end of June 2022, he admitted his guilt. He will be sentenced on October 14, 2022.

*Owned by Meta, a recognized extremist organization banned in Russia