A former Tesla Inc. employee was indicted on Thursday for allegedly stealing $9.3 million from the company by falsifying financial documents to divert payments from one supplier to another.
Salil Parulekar, 32, formerly of San Jose, worked inside Tesla’s Global Supply Management group in 2016 and 2017, when he allegedly hatched a plan to send money owed to Taiwan-based auto parts supplier Hota Industrial Manufacturing to a different supplier, Germany’s Schwäbische Hüttenwerke GmbH, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
FBI agents investigating the case say they believe Parulekar impersonated a Hota Industrial Manufacturing employee, and sent paperwork to the company’s accounting division asking to change the bank account information from a Hota account to an account controlled by Schwäbische Hüttenwerke.
Parulekar’s LinkedIn profile says he joined Tesla in 2013 as a purchasing specialist, and left the company in late 2017 as the group manager of the Global Supply Management and Industrialization team. Parulekar did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through his LinkedIn page.
The Department of Justice didn’t say whether employees at Schwäbische Hüttenwerke were aware of the scheme, or why Parulekar allegedly funneled payments to the company’s account. In January 2017, Tesla ended its contract with Schwäbische Hüttenwerke, which had supplied the Palo Alto-based automaker with a “limited number” of sample motor pumps, the Department of Justice said.
A grand jury on Thursday indicted Parulekar, who is facing nine counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, each count of wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while the charge of identity theft carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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