Microsoft Ex-Employee Sent To Prison For 9 Years After Stealing $10 Million

A former Microsoft employee was sentenced to a long prison term of 9 years. Some time ago he had managed to branch off gift cards and similar digital assets on a large scale and thus significantly increase his salary in an illegal way.

The court was about the theft of valuables, which at least totaled around 10 million dollars. The man had obtained this by, among other things, branching off codes for gift cards and reselling them on his own account. He used his position as an internal tester in the development team of the Microsoft Store.

The 26-year-old programmer had the stolen codes paid for using Bitcoin, among other things. He then sold the digital currency units on the relevant online exchanges and redeemed them in real dollars. In order to avoid further inquiries from the tax authorities, he declared the Bitcoins as a gift from relatives.

Fast into a great life

He tried to disguise the true origin by using the e-mail accounts of several colleagues, among other things, so-called mixing services, which are often used for money laundering in the cryptocurrency. Here you basically swap units with other users. Because the blockchain basically makes it possible to trace every transaction and the mixers make this much more difficult.

The accused worked for Microsoft for two years from 2016 to 2018, then Redmond corporate security managed to track him down. After all, theft to the extent mentioned is ultimately not exactly inconspicuous. It also raised questions about how the man could afford a $1.6 million water lot with his salary. He had also bought a Tesla with maximum equipment for $160,000.

Microsoft released the thief after he was identified. The entire case was turned over to the prosecutor, who ultimately charged 18 counts. The trial has now ended with the imposition of a nine-year prison term.