An Amazon Warehouse Manager Faces up to 20 years in Prison after Pleading Guilty to Stealing $273,000 Worth of Computer Parts and Selling Them to a Wholesaler
Douglas Wright, 27, admitted to stealing high-value components including internal hard drives, processors, and GPUs when he was an operations manager at an Amazon warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, the US Department of Justice announced Friday.
From June 2020 to September of last year, Wright used his access to Amazon’s inventory-tracking systems to locate specific packages, which he then took home and sold to a wholesaler in California, prosecutors said.
Pfizer: 2 Ex-Executives Stole Drug IP to Help Their Startups
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer alleges in a federal lawsuit that weeks before two former executives resigned, they stole documents containing trade secrets about diabetes, obesity and cancer treatments under development by the drugmaker to benefit two new biotech startups they had launched.
The complaint, filed Wednesday in a Connecticut federal court, alleges that Min Zhang and Xiayang Qiu stole electronic documents containing Pfizer intellectual property to benefit their own new ventures, Regor Therapeutics, based in Massachusetts, and its China-based counterpart, QILU Regor Therapeutics, located in Shanghai. Both those companies were also named defendants in the lawsuit.
Federal Indictment Charges PRC-Based Telecommunications Company with Conspiring with Former Motorola Solutions Employees to Steal Technology
According to court documents, Motorola Solutions developed the DMR technology through years of research and design. Motorola Solutions marketed and sold the radios, which are sometimes referred to as “walkie-talkies,” in the United States and elsewhere. The indictment alleges that PRC-based Hytera Communications Corp. LTD recruited and hired Motorola Solutions employees and directed them to take proprietary and trade secret information from Motorola without authorization. The charges allege that, while still employed at Motorola, some of the employees allegedly accessed the trade secret information from Motorola’s internal database and sent multiple emails describing their intentions to use the technology at Hytera.
As alleged, from 2007 to 2020, Hytera and the recruited employees used Motorola’s proprietary and trade secret information to accelerate the development of Hytera’s DMR products, train Hytera employees, and market and sell Hytera’s DMR products throughout the world, the indictment states. According to the indictment, Hytera paid the recruited employee’s higher salaries and benefits than what they received at Motorola.
Colliers International Agents Charged with Multiple Felonies, Including Theft of Trade Secrets
Two prominent Colliers International commercial real estate agents, whose offices were raided by Gainesville police last June, have been charged with felonies for allegedly stealing “trade secrets” from a former employer.
Michael Ryals and Daniel Drotos ran “The Drotos Ryals Group,” a high-volume commercial real estate division under Bosshardt Realty Services, before going to Colliers International in April 2019. Several other agents went with them
Both men have been in an extended civil legal battle with Bosshardt Realty over unpaid commissions. Aaron Bosshardt, who complained to police about alleged trade secret violations, owns that company.
Spies Like Us: Claims of Bugging, Hidden Cameras, Italian Intelligence Links Among London Deal Key Players
A businessman tied to the Vatican’s London property deal admitted to prosecutors that he spied on behalf of the Vatican on a broker involved in the deal, and passed information on to an official at the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The spying admission emerged in newly released recordings of interviews conducted by Vatican prosecutors in the financial crimes trial, in which 10 figures connected to the property deal have been indicted.
The recordings also allege other efforts at suspect intelligence-gathering by figures involved in the deal and highlight Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s alleged efforts to conceal Vatican payments to Cecilia Marogna, a woman described as the cardinal’s “private spy.”
Atco Woman Accused of Embezzling $3M from Employer
Jennifer Vandever, 49, allegedly used corporate credit cards to charge personal expenses for herself and family members from 2011 to 2018, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey.
The diverted funds were used at supermarkets, restaurants, stores and gas stations, as well as for insurance, cellphone and utility bills, an indictment alleges.
It claims Vandever also used her employer’s cash for home repairs, college tuition and “extensive gift card purchases,” among other purposes.
