A woman from New Mexico, United States was sentenced to 18 months in prison after stealing 3,000 iPod units. The music player gadget made by Apple was supposed to be distributed to underprivileged school children but instead was resold.
The perpetrator, named Kristy Stock, is an employee of the Central Consolidated School District of New Mexico who is tasked with running a reading and math learning program for Native Indian children.
While managing the program, Stock was supposed to buy iPods to distribute to school children using government grants, as quoted from Engadget, Sunday (16/1/2022).
But, thanks to help from other conspirators including his friends James Bender and Saurabh Chawla, the gang instead shipped the stolen iPod to Maryland for sale on eBay for a higher price.
Because his account had been banned due to security concerns, Chawla used Bender's eBay account to sell the stolen device. Meanwhile Bender acts as a mediator.
Then, between 2015 and 2018 Stock communicated directly with Chawla, and provided information such as model, color and number of devices before agreeing on a price and auctioning the stolen product on eBay.
According to court documents, Stock admitted to running the scheme between 2013 and 2018. During that period he made $800,000 from selling stolen iPods.
Not only that, Stock was also caught providing a false income tax report which resulted in a tax loss of around USD 270,000. Stock was later sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of tax fraud and the transfer of stolen goods.
Chawla, who was part of the gang, received the harshest sentence, 66 months after failing to pay taxes worth USD 700,000. Meanwhile Bender was sentenced to 366 days in prison.
