Amit Patel used this money to place online bets, buy cryptocurrency, purchase luxury watches.
A former executive of Jacksonville Jaguars, an American Football team, swindled $22 million from the team's coffers to fund his luxury lifestyle to buy expensive watches, a Tesla and pay for his chartered flights.
Amit Patel worked as a manager of financial planning and analysis of the team from 2018 to 2023. The accused is named in court documents filed in the US District Court in Jacksonville, Florida. The team has not been named in the filing and has been referred to as "Business A" but the team confirmed it was the victim of Patel's alleged crimes, the Athletic reported.
Patel handled the team's financial statements and the department's budget and had access to the club's Virtual Credit Card (VCC) which is used by certain authorized employees to make business-related purchases and expenses.
How He Stole $22 Million
The authorized access to the VCC helped Patel and started making fraudulent purchases in 2019. He hid the transactions by manually flagging them as "recurring VCC transactions" such as catering, airfare, hotel fees, etc. and then inflated the amount to forge financial statements and entered an amount that may appear believable but also entered fictitious transactions that never occurred, the Athletic reported quoting documents filed in the court.
He then used this money to place online bets, buy cryptocurrency, purchase luxury watches and spa treatments, buy concert tickets, fund his travel in chartered flights, and buy a Tesla Model 3 sedan and a Nissan pick-up truck. The accused used the swindled money to purchase a condominium in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, court documents said.
"Over the past several months, we have cooperated fully with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida during their investigation and thank them for their efforts in this case," the New York Post reported, quoting the team.
"This individual had no access to confidential football strategy, personnel or other football information. The team engaged experienced law and accounting firms to conduct a comprehensive independent review, which concluded that no other team employees were involved in or aware of his criminal activity," the statement read.
He was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of illegal monetary transactions.