What's in Your Wallet?
Abusing company credit cards is a common employee grift
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." – Albert Einstein
Your boss just issued you a company credit card. What do you do?
Buy a Tesla? A $95,000 watch? A beach condo? Why not just go on another online gambling binge?
That’s how the Jacksonville Jaguars’ former finance manager rolled as he manipulated the NFL team’s virtual credit card program, federal prosecutors allege. Last week, Amit Patel, 31, was sentenced to six and a half years and ordered to pay back the $22 million tab he ran up on the Jaguar’s good credit.
Patel’s lawyer argued his client suffered from a gambling addiction and only continued to perpetrate the scheme in hopes of winning big and paying back the loot. It’s what they all say: It started out small and just kinda snowballed.
Patel allegedly bet recklessly on FanDuel and DraftKings, chartered private jets, joined a country club, and bought all kinds of pricey baubles that he will not need in prison. He could have at least bought a Jaguar, instead of a Tesla, as an homage to his team.
“He spent that money to live in the fast lane for more than three years – all the while, covering his tracks by manufacturing fraudulent accounting records,” prosecutors alleged in a sentencing document.
The lesson for companies is simple: Don’t hire flashy finance managers who love to gamble and validate themselves through uber-lux lifestyles. And not to blame the victim, but $22 million? Where were the internal controls, Jags?
"We gave him his dream job," Jaguars chief legal officer Megha Parekh said, reading a statement from the team. "We trusted him. We worked with him. We broke bread with him. We went through a pandemic and the highs and lows of the NFL with him. He betrayed us.”
There’s more to the story, but the rest is for paid subscribers.Please help make the business world a more honest, less reckless, less authoritarian place by:
Liking and commenting on posts, which boosts the Substack algorithm.
Sharing this newsletter with friends and associates.
Subscribing. Free or paid, I’m so glad you’re here.
And don’t miss these blunders.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Business Blunders to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.