Barbara Furlow-Smiles, $5M Fraud, Georgia 2024

ATLANTA – In a brazen display of greed, Barbara Furlow-Smiles, a former diversity program manager at Facebook and Nike, has been sentenced to federal prison for stealing over $5 million from her employers in an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious paperwork, and cash kickbacks.

According to U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan, Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks.

“Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. “After being terminated from Facebook, she brazenly continued the fraud as a DEI leader at Nike, where she stole another six-figure sum from their diversity program. Her prison sentence reflects the consequences of her decision to orchestrate an intricate scheme to defraud two of her employers for personal profit.”

As Lead Strategist at Facebook, Furlow-Smiles’ employer put an extreme amount of trust in her, only to have that trust completely violated, said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. After she was fired, she carelessly continued her fraudulent schemes at Nike, thinking she was untouchable.

Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 54, was sentenced in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 22, 2024. The charges include wire fraud and money laundering.

The scheme operated in two ways. First, Furlow-Smiles linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards and used those accounts to pay friends, relatives, and other associates for goods and services that in truth were never provided to Facebook. To conceal the bogus charges, Furlow-Smiles submitted fraudulent expense reports, falsely claiming that her associates or their businesses had performed work on programs and events for Facebook, such as providing swag or marketing services, when in fact they had not done so.

After these individuals received the payments from Facebook, they returned the vast majority of the money to Furlow-Smiles. The total amount of the scheme is estimated to be over $5 million.

Furlow-Smiles will serve 10 years in federal prison for her crimes. The case was investigated by the FBI, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office handling the prosecution.

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