The Worm in the Apple, Million Dollar Kickbacks for Apple Manager

Mr Paul Devine has managed to upset the Apple cart as he has been accused of multiple counts of fraud and money laundering, accounting for a supposed million dollars worth of bribes paid to him by Asian supplies and manufacturers hoping to get the edge over Apple.

Apple have taken legal action against one of their own managers for allegedly taking kickbacks from Asian supply and manufacturing companies who bribed him approximately $1 million to pass them confidential information about Apple technologies and products.

The Register reported that this would give the Asian manufacturers a significant advantage when they drew close to the negotiations table for contract deals. However, it seems these boys bit off more than they could chew as their supposed Apple stooge, one Mr Paul Shin Devine, is being indicted for 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and a whole barrel-load of minor misdemeanours.

Apparently the companies paid Mr Devine through the regular assortment of sneaky methods to disguise this kind of underhand dealing. They routed some of the money through an elaborate system of a string of foreign bank accounts and a front company to reach Mr Devine’s own account. The rest he allegedly received in person when he went through Asia on business; clearly it wasn’t the type of business Apple was planning for him to do.

A half-assed attempt at explaining away this supposed dirty dealing was made by one of the Asian companies in question, Cresyn Co, who said that they had only received consultancy services from an Apple employee, nothing more.

Is this manager rotten to the core? Time will tell as he is due in court today in U.S. Northern District Court, San Jose. Mr Devine had better hope that his lawyers are better at misdirection than he is.

By Tom Murray posted August 16, 2010 11:45 AM