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Apple Employee Arrested: Paul Devine accepted kickbacks from Asian iPhone Copycats

Apple Employee Arrested: Paul Devine accepted kickbacks from Asian iPhone Copycats

A mid level Apple (AAPL) manager, Paul Shin Devine, was arrested earlier on Friday on charges for accepting more than $1 million in kickbacks from half a dozen Asian suppliers manufacturing copycats of iPhone and iPod according to a federal indictment.

Paul Devine, a global supply manager working for Apple, was indicted for offenses that include wire fraud, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions (kickbacks).

The indictment also names Andrew Ang, an employee for one of Apple’s suppliers.

Apple spokesperson, Steve Dowling, released a statement, “Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,”. He also added that Apple has “zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside of the company.”

Paul Devine couldn’t be reached for a comment at this time.

The investigation was conducted jointly by the IRS and FBI. An agent for the IRS confirmed that Devine was being held at an unknown location by the U.S. Marshals Service.

At attorney has not been appointed for Paul Devine.

The indictment charges Paul Devine, who came up with a scheme in which he supplied companies like Cresyn Co. Ltd. (South Korea), Kaedar Electronics Co. Ltd. (China) and Jin Li Mould Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) with confidential information that would let them negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.

In exchange for confidential information, Paul Devine demanded payments which were sent to his wife’s bank accounts. Paul was careful as he requested the companies to transfer amounts in small payments to avoid raising any flags.

Ang, an employee for Jin Li Mould Manufacturing Ptd. Ltd. (Singapore), helped broker the deal for Paul Devine and in exchange for his services received payments from Paul Devine.

Apple’s complaint indicated that Devine was being investigated for violation of its corporate policy and the company discovered a cache of suspicious emails from his personal Hotmail and Gmail accounts. The cache was recovered from the company laptop which also contained sensitive information along with discussions with suppliers and confirmations for payments received by Paul Devine.

[Thanks: http://www.wirl.net]

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