A former Tesla employee allegedly embezzled $9.3 million from the company.
A former Tesla Inc. executive was indicted by a federal grand jury indicted for allegedly embezzling $9.3 million by impersonating an employee at a supplier.
According the indictment, Salil Parulekar got Tesla to send money owed to one supplier to another supplier. Once the money was moved, by impersonating an employee at that company he shifted the money into his account.
Parulekar, who worked for Tesla for four years until 2017, was responsible for overseeing Tesla’s relationship with certain suppliers for various parts and services related to the company’s electric vehicles, according to the Justice Department.
Allegedly Parulekar sent money meant for Taiwanese parts supplier Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co. to a former supplier, Schwäbische Hüttenwerke Automotive GmbH, between 2016 and 2017.
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Tesla ended its relationship with Schwäbische in 2017, telling Schwäbische it was withholding payment for a series of purchase orders issued the year before, according to the indictment.
“Parulekar allegedly stole the identity of a Hota employee and, by impersonating the employee, deceived Tesla’s Accounts Payable division into switching the bank account information for Hota” and a German supplier that Tesla had cut off from future payments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
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Parulekar allegedly created fake documents showing Tesla made the missing payments to Hota and stealing a Hota employee’s identity, tricking Tesla’s accounting division into switching Hota and Schwäbische’s bank account information.
In March 2018, Schwäbische acknowledged that it received about $9.3 million from Tesla, according to the indictment, the Wall Street Journal reported. Parulekar was charged with nine counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
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Tesla has not commented publicly on the situation.