On the other hand, a clever thief would cite “gambling loses” when he really hid all the stolen money in an offshore account (or maybe in an old suitcase).
Posted on 12/23/2023 12:29:46 PM PST by dynachrome
How could this happen?
That question swept through the offices of NFL teams last week after The Athletic broke the news that Amit Patel, 31, a former employee in the finance department of the Jacksonville Jaguars, allegedly stole more than $22 million from the team over a four-year period.
Patel was a mid-level employee who worked for the Jaguars from 2018-23. He allegedly created fraudulent charges on the club’s virtual credit card and then covered his tracks by sending falsified files to the team’s accounting department. According to a charging document, he used that money to buy vehicles, a condominium and a designer watch worth over $95,000. He also purchased cryptocurrency, splurged on luxury travel for himself and others and used the funds to keep a criminal defense lawyer on retainer. Patel’s attorney said that the vast majority of the $22 million he stole were gambling losses; Patel allegedly placed bets on football and daily fantasy sports with online gambling sites.
(Excerpt) Read more at theathletic.com ...
$22M?! Unbelievable.
I hope Patel had a good sense of humor and bought a Jaguar.
Do they have auditors?
Are NFL teams audited by CPA firms?
Annnnd....where is he now?
Wonder if they at least have some outside accounting firm do an annual internal audit.
This looks really bad and was entirely preventable.
Gambling losses is a clue.
This is to me larger than one person.
Some exceptionally rough people are involved with sports betting.
Patel? Put the squeeze on him. He’ll Singh!
In accounting there’s the concept of immateriality, a quantity of money that’s just not that important. So if you’ve got a million dollar company and you find your books are off $10, it’s not worth the cost to figure out what went wrong, you go with the cash on hand and move on.
The NFL salary cap is $224 million. Plus of course all the other things a team has to pay for. And the revenues that come in to make every team profitable. So you’ve got a company here that’s cycling around half a billion dollars in and out over the course of the year. $5.5 million (what he averaged per year) just ain’t material in that. Heck $22 million straight up barely rates.
Doesn’t have to be sports betting. Indian casinos are everywhere. There’s 3 in and around Jacksonville. In some ways legalized gambling is rougher. Mobsters can beat you up, an Indian casino can hose your credit rating and foreclose on your house.
Would have gone a lot further as a politician.
Wow, a $22 million, 5-year contract. He must be a heck of a player.
WorldCom
Enron
Now those were BIG companies.
But $22 million of fraud is hard to hide from auditors. People knew, and had reason to know. I saw a case where some mid-level employee stole about $250k over 20 years; this got exposed in the early 1980s.
It is very surprising all the controls that are missing in so many organizations.
The claim about “materiality” was waved around in the 1970s when Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in response to bribes paid overseas by international companies.
On the other hand, a clever thief would cite “gambling loses” when he really hid all the stolen money in an offshore account (or maybe in an old suitcase).
That will buy a lot of motels.
Who Is Amit Patel? All About Indian-American Accused Of Stealing $22 Million From Football Team
🌐ndtv.com
Is this a case of the immigrant doing the stealing that an American wouldn't do?
They probably hire retired NFL players ... they have degrees in sports management.
They're not mad he stole $22 million. They're mad he did what only others were supposed to do and that he exposed how prevalent it is.
They should use him as a tackling dummy until the debt is paid off.
“This is to me larger than one person.”
Somewhere there is an auditor or similar person just above the culprit in the chain who needs to be asked how this got missed.
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