Apple Employee Arrested for Taking $1M in Supplier Kickbacks

Paul Shin Devine, a global supply chain manager, was charged in a federal grand jury indictment and was also named in a civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., according to The Wall Street Journal.

The grand jury indictment includes charges of wire fraud, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions, according to the paper. Another man, Andrew Ang of one of Apple's suppliers, was also charged.

Devine allegedly used a front company and a series of U.S. and foreign bank accounts to receive payments, according to The San Jose Mercury-News. Code words like “sample” were used for the payments to keep other Apple employees from becoming suspicious, according to The Mercury-News.

Devine allegedly gave the suppliers confidential information that would enable them to negotiate favorable contracts with Apple in return for kickback payments, according to the Journal.

Apple reportedly began investigating Devine for a possible violation of its corporate policy and reportedly found emails from his personal Hotmail and Gmail accounts in his company laptop computer that contained the confidential information and payment ackowledgements, according to the Journal.

"Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business," said an Apple spokesman to the Journal, adding that it has "zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside of the company."