Amazon warehouse manager stole $1.7 million worth of goods. Are your goods still there?

A Charlotte, North Carolina, man pleaded guilty to fraud charges for stealing merchandise from Amazon warehouses and reselling it.

It is understood that the man's name is Douglas Wright, Jr., and he is the operations manager of Amazon's Charlotte warehouse.

Between June 2020 and September 2021, Wright used his access to company computers to steal goods with a total value of more than $273,000 (about 1.7364 million RMB). Many of these goods were computer parts, such as internal hard drives, processors, graphics processing units, etc. After the theft, Wright transported the goods from the warehouse to his home and then sold them to a computer wholesale company in California.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Wright faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In fact, this is not the first time that Amazon employees have used their authority to seek benefits. In the second half of 2020, an Amazon employee was arrested by the FBI for fraud.

It is reported that the employee is named Vu Anh Nguyen. He worked as a sales support assistant at Amazon. His job included providing support to third-party sellers and assisting in creating and managing seller lists using a "Spoofer" account (this account allows Amazon employees to view and edit third-party seller accounts).

Vu Anh Nguyen's modus operandi was as follows: first, he purchased some high-value goods such as electronic products from third-party sellers through 8 Amazon accounts of himself and others, and then used his access rights to refund the sellers but not return the goods.

Between November 2019 and February 2020, Vu Anh Nguyen used employee channels to improperly issue 318 refunds to himself and others, involving an amount of approximately US$96,500 (approximately RMB 613,800).

After the incident, Amazon issued a statement thanking the FBI for helping the platform catch the bad apples, and stressed that the platform absolutely does not allow corruption and fraud to exist. Amazon said that it has a strict self-inspection system and process, and has strict requirements for employees. Once it is found that an employee abuses the platform system for profit, it will take severe measures to hold him accountable.

Amazon

Merchandise theft