Fry’s VP Ausaf Umar Siddiqui has been accused by the IRS of taking $65 million of Fry’s company money to “fuel his lavish lifestyle and pay off gambling debts.”
Siddiqui’s downfall came when another exec found a spreadsheet with backroom deals for contracts (he was a buyer for Fry’s). He’d then get vendors to sell stuff at an inflated price, pocketing the difference. Ausaf was able to do this because he convinced other execs that HE would be the one to deal with vendors, eliminating sales reps and saving the company money. Or so he claimed.
Then, he had vendors pay kickbacks of up to 31%. Which made him $65M in three years.
A formal charge is coming, but what I want to know is how this will affect Fry’s itself (one of my favorite stops for electronics here in the Bay Area). Hopefully, it brings down prices overall, even though Fry’s itself is denying any pricing problems were passed onto the consumer. [CBS13 – Thanks Bryan Adams!]
