British man faces multiple 20-year prison sentence and up to $500,000 in fines after defrauding the OEM of $14 million.
The Telegraph reported that 47 year-old Mark Allan participated in a “conspiracy” to defraud HP of $14 million (€10 million) through the fraudulent purchase of computers and other equipment “at a discount”.
Over a two-and-a-half-year period ending in November 2011, James purportedly recruited businesses worldwide “to buy computing products and falsely represented the purchases under an HP discount pan offered to large-volume purchasers”, with the equipment then “diverted for resale”.
An HP security team assisted with the investigation, including by undertaking an undercover buy, to generate evidence against James, which was then presented at a seven-day trial at Houston federal court. According to the article, the jury “deliberated for about five hours before returning a verdict” against James, who now faces “multiple 20-year prison terms and multiple fines of as much as $500,000 (€365,000).