‘Ghost employee’ scheme earns former senior director at Optum 3 years in prison
Last week a senior director at Optum, the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, was sentenced to three years behind bars for attempting to defraud his former employer using a method that prosecutors called a “ghost employee” scheme.
Karan Gupta, 48, was sentenced after being found guilty by a jury in a six-day trial back in February. Having been convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy, he will spend the next 36 months behind bars, beginning Aug. 24.
In a statement announcing the sentencing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Gupta was responsible for stealing more than $950,000 from Optum, some of which Gupta himself pocketed as part of a kickback scheme involving a fake job.
Coconspirator fesses up
According to details revealed at trial, between 2015 and 2020—ending sometime after the senior director was fired in November 2019 for engaging in a separate “no show” employment scam—Gupta had helped his friend and coconspirator, Shangraf Kaul, 45, take a job at Optum as a data engineering manager.
The problem was, Kaul was not qualified for the role. Further, after Gupta hired him on a six-figure salary, Kaul never actually worked at Optum, prosecutors said. Instead, he collected the money and sent 60% of his take-home salary to Gupta to complete the scam.
The $950,000 total fraud figure includes the benefits Kaul received as part of his unearned compensation. He still took home hundreds of thousands of dollars over the five years the scam with Gupta went on.
Together, the men attempted to hide their tracks by sending Kaul’s paychecks to a designated checking account that Gupta could access directly, the DOJ said.
For his role, Kaul pleaded guilty on Feb. 26 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is currently awaiting sentencing, the agency confirmed.
As for the second “ghost employee” scheme that got Gupta fired—it does not appear he has been criminally charged for anything related to that matter.
Gupta’s arrest was made possible by an FBI investigation, spurred by Optum’s report of the fraud conspiracy to authorities.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.