Desk: Earning a salary of lakhs of rupees every year without working may seem like a dream. But a shocking case has come to light at a renowned American healthcare company. Here, a senior Indian-origin executive orchestrated a fraud that has shocked the entire corporate world. He got a childhood friend a ‘no-show job’, meaning he didn’t show up for work, paying Rs 90 lakh per year. In return, he took half the salary as a bribe.
This entire case is from Minneapolis. According to the US Attorney’s Office, 47-year-old Karan Gupta was the senior director of data analytics at Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare. His own annual salary was ₹2.3 crore (23 million rupees). However, driven by greed, he hired an acquaintance in 2015 who had no qualifications for the position.
Karan fabricated a fake resume to secure this appointment. In this manager-level position, the employee was required to report solely to Karan. For nearly four years, the employee performed no work for the company. He would even go weeks without logging into the system. Despite this, he continued to receive his salary, bonus, and increments.
The true motive behind this entire conspiracy was bribery. In exchange for this “ghost job,” Karan Gupta began extorting half the employee’s salary every year. This amounted to approximately 4.5 million rupees annually. To ensure this fraud was not discovered, the two adopted a highly cunning transaction method. Initially, the person would withdraw cash from New Jersey and deposit it into Karan’s bank account, which Karan could easily withdraw in California. Later, a new bank account was opened for the salary. The debit card for that account was mailed directly to Karan, using which he could withdraw the bribe money directly from ATMs.
In 2019, the company fired Karan Gupta in a separate case. Subsequent internal investigations uncovered this massive scam. Investigators determined that the conspiracy defrauded the company of a total of $1.2 million, or ₹11 crore (approximately ₹11 crore). Following a six-day trial in federal court, Karan was convicted of fraud and money laundering. The FBI also considered this a gross abuse of position and trust. The investigating agency clearly states that such corporate scams directly impact ordinary and hardworking citizens. Such crimes impact the entire system.
Comments are closed.