A former engineer of Microsoft is currently cooling his heels in a US prison after he was found guilty of tax frauds using Bitcoin.
In what could best be described as the first official case where an entity used Bitcoin to evade tax, the former Microsoft engineer was said to have defrauded the company of close to $10 million.
According to the court filing, which was presented by the United States Department of Justice, the culprit, Volodymyr Kvashuk, was on the tech company’s payroll between 2016 to 2018, when he carried out the acts. This conviction is coming after two years that the culprit was fired from the company.
Kvashuk was slammed with up to 18 counts of felonies
According to the judgment, Kvashuk will serve nine years in a US prison after being charged and convicted of close to 18 felonies during his time with Microsoft. Kvashuk was said to have appeared before a jury at the beginning of this year on different counts of felonies ranging from wire fraud to money laundering and others. He was also charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft during his two years as a Microsoft employee.
The records brought before the court showed that Kvashuk was in charge of testing an online retail platform that belonged to the tech giant.
While working at the online retail store, the software engineer breached several company laws and stole gift cards belonging to the company. After stealing the gift cards without a trace, Kvashuk then went ahead to purchase a luxury home and a Tesla car worth $1.6 million and $160,000.
According to the records, Kvashuk started stealing in smaller quantities, so the company would not notice but decided to go big after using his account to steal about $12,000 in small denominations. However, Kvashuk chose to allow his greed to take over him as he started using fellow employee’s account to continue his theft.
Kvashuk to be deported after serving his jail term
With Kvashuk being a seasoned engineer, he further used his skills to entirely hide the stolen funds’ digital trail, which he wired to his bank account. An investigation by authorities showed that Kvashuk continued his crime spree for close to seven months as he transferred nothing less than $2.8 million worth of Bitcoin to his account.
Furthermore, investigations revealed that Kvashuk fooled tax authorities after claiming that the Bitcoins he got were gifts from his relatives.
During his trial, Kvashuk said that it was never in his plans to defraud Microsoft as he was working on a special project on behalf of the company. In their review, prosecutors claimed that Kvashuk’s behavior had inadvertently put his fellow employees’ jobs and lives at risk.
Following close to five days of the lengthy court sitting, Kvashuk was announced guilty after a jury deliberated on the issue for close to 5 hours. Kvashuk has been ordered to pay a fine of over $8.3 million and face deportation back to his country when he completes his term.
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