The US authorities have charged eight individuals, six of them Indian-Americans, with involvement in a lucrative scheme in which information technology vendors paid over $2.3 million (about Rs 13.5 crore) in bribes and kickbacks in order to secure business from executives of a Manhattan-based medical cost management company.
The defendants charged with paying the bribes and kickbacks are Sarvesh Dharayan, Sanjay Gupta, Venkata Atluri, Rangarajan Kumar, Vadan Kumar Kopalle and Dareen Siriani. And the defendants charged with receiving the bribes and kickbacks are Anil Singh and Keith Bush. Four of the accused —Dharayan, Gupta, Koppalle and Siriani — were arrested from their homes in New Jersey on July 17 and produced in a Manhattan court, while one of them, Singh, had been arrested in April 6.
Singh, according to a release from US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office, has “pled guilty to honest services fraud and other charges before US District Judge Denise l. Cote on July 11, 2013”. Bush, arrested on July 12, is scheduled to appear in court for a pretrial conference on August 15. Two of the accused, Atluri and Kumar, are not yet in custody.
“For the eight defendants charged in this multi-million dollar scheme, bribes and kickbacks were allegedly the cost they imposed for doing business with this medical-cost management company,” Bharara said, noting “the defendants achieved their years-long fraud through fake companies, sham invoices and made-up consulting services”. Bharara said his department’s actions “underscore our commitment to work with our law enforcement partners to bring to justice individuals who break the law out of greed”.
Singh was employed as a Senior Vice President and the Chief Information Officer at the New York company that provides nation-wide medical cost management solutions including, medical reimbursement services, while Bush was employed as the company’s Director of Database Administration. Both of them reportedly had considerable influence over the selection of vendors, specifically vendors of database administrators, hired by the company, whose name has been withheld — as is the case with the names of vendor companies. The six individuals charged with the illegal payments paid varying amounts aggregating to over $2.3 million in money and other benefits to Singh and Bush over four years till September 2012 in exchange for agreement to steer millions of dollars of the New York firm’s DBA business to them.
Dharayan, 42, of Edison, New Jersey, Gupta, 38 of East Windsor, New Jersey, Atluri, 41, of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, Kumar, 47, of Monroe, New Jersey, Kopalle, 43, of Edison, New Jersey, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison, one count of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, which carries a maximum term of five years in prison, one count of honest services fraud, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison, and one count of violating the Travel Act, which carries a maximum term of five years in prison. They were also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.
Singh, 40, of East Brunswick, New Jersey, who pled guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, honest services fraud, violating the Travel Act, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, faces a maximum penalty of 70 years in prison on all counts. Bush, too, faces a maximum penalty of 70 years for the charges brought up against him. According to the complaint, Dharayan, Gupta, Atluri, Kumar and Kopalle paid the kickbacks and bribes through conduit companies established by Bush and Singh for the very purpose of disguising the true nature and origin of the illegal payments.