Indian-American Ex-Cisco Director Charged With $9.3 Mln Fraud in US - Report

Prithviraj R. Bhikha was a director in the global supply unit of the technology giant, and had misused his position to create overseas shell companies that took money from his employer and wired it back to his US accounts.

New Delhi (Sputnik): The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested Prithviraj R Bhikha, a former director from world's leading computer networking products supplier CISCO, and has charged him with defrauding the company out of $9.3 million, reported newspaper The Economic Times. 

Bhikha was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on 1 March and subsequently release on a $3 million bail bond.

According to the FBI, Bhikha had created shell companies outside the US for negotiating with third-party vendors on behalf of CISCO. CISCO paid two of these companies $6.5 million and $2.8 million using a wire transfer. These companies subsequently wired more than $8.5 million back to US accounts belonging to Bhikha and his wife.

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When some people at CISCO got suspicious about one of the shell companies, Bhikha and another employee arranged for fake documents and masqueraded an unknown person as the CEO of the company while under suspicion in meetings with CISCO.