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One problem first Amazon Staff sentenced on friday to federal prison for his involvement in an international bribery plot.
Rohit Kadimisetty, who worked as a seller support agent in Amazon’s Hyderabad, India office until 2015, was ordered to spend 10 months in prison after he admitted he conspired to bribe across state borders. and country. Kadimisetty was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release.
Kadimisetty is one of six individuals Who is the US Department of Justice accusing? with an alleged conspiracy to bribe Amazon employees to gain an “advantage” over other sellers on Amazon’s online marketplace. In addition to Kadimisetty, the group of individuals includes seller consultant Ed Rosenberg, Joseph Nilsen, Kristen Leccese, Hadis Nuhanovic, and Nishad Kunju, who have been employed by Amazon in India until 2018.
From late 2017 to 2020, these people are accused of bribing Amazon employees to leak information about the company’s search and ranking algorithms, as well as sharing confidential data about third-party sellers. third in which they compete in the market. The scheme also involved bribing employees to reinstate suspended accounts and deface competitors’ product listings, the DOJ alleges in its indictment.
In total, the individuals allegedly paid $100,000 in bribes to employees and obtained more than $100 million in competitive benefits, the DOJ said.
In 2018, Amazon fired four employees in India who were allegedly involved in the bribery plot, including Kunju and three people not identified in court records.
Amazon launched its online marketplace in 2000, allowing many third-party businesses, from small to global, to sell on its website. Since then, it has grown to millions of sellers and now accounts for about 60% of all Amazon retail sales.
While the marketplace has helped Amazon achieve record sales, it has also been found to be stockpiling counterfeit, unsafe, and expired goods. Behind the scenes, scammers have for years used black hat tactics to take down competitors, artificially increase their listings, or circumvent Amazon’s marketplace rules.
Amazon says it invests hundreds of millions of dollars a year to ensure products are safe and compliant.
Judge Richard Jones said during Friday’s sentencing hearing in US District Court in Seattle that the activities resembled “modern-day organized crime.”
“Mr. Kadimisetty used his knowledge and contacts from his previous jobs at Amazon, to enrich himself by manipulating listings on the Amazon Marketplace,” US Attorney Nick Brown said in a statement. An announcement. “He was an important cog in the wheel of bribery: paying contacts in India to recover suspended accounts, stealing confidential information and attacking competitors who stood in the way sponsor of the bribery scheme.”
Attorneys for Kadimisetty did not respond to a request for comment. An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Four of the other defendants, Rosenberg, Nilsen, Leccese and Nuhanovic are scheduled to appear in court in October. Kunju has yet to be named in the indictment, the DOJ said.
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