The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged six former Apple employees with orchestrating a scheme to defraud the company. They exploited Apple’s employee gift-matching program to fraudulently obtain approximately $152,000 (approx. Rs 1,28,00,000) in matching funds. The group included Siu Kei (Alex) Kwan, 37, of Castro Valley; Yathei (Hayson) Yuen, 34, of San Jose; Yat C (Sunny) Ng, 35, of Milpitas; Wentao (Victor) Li, 38, of Hayward; Lichao Ni, 39, of Sunnyvale; and Zheng Chang, 31, of Union City.
The accused manipulated donations to the charities over a period of three years from July 1, 2018, and April 6, 2021.
Led by Siu Kei, the group tricked Apple into matching thousands of dollars in donations to children’s charities over three years. However, they made no actual contributions themselves. Additionally, they overreported around $100,000 in charitable contributions on their tax returns to claim illegal deductions. They have been charged with multiple felony offenses, including grand theft, conspiracy to commit grand theft, perjury, and tax fraud.
How former employees defrauded Apple
Employees made donations through a third-party platform called Benevity. After an employee donated, Apple would match the amount either 100% or 200%, and Benevity would send the funds to the charity.
Kwan who served as the CEO of
Hop4Kids
and accountant for the American Chinese International Cultural Exchange (ACICE) used his connections with the charities to refund the employees' donations while keeping the matching funds for himself. This way, they cheated both Apple and the State of California.
The employees then falsely claimed these donations as tax deductions. Kwan, a certified public accountant (CPA), also prepared fake tax returns and encouraged others to join the scheme by offering free or discounted tax services.
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