Shelbee Szeto, $5+ Million Wire Fraud Scheme, California 2022
OAKLAND — Shelbee Szeto, a former planning manager at HP, pleaded guilty to a $5+ million wire fraud scheme that involved defrauding her former employer out of millions of dollars.
According to the plea agreement, Szeto, 30, of Fremont, was employed by HP, Inc. (HP) as an executive assistant and finance planning manager from August 2017 until June 2021. In these roles, Szeto was responsible for making payments to HP vendors and was issued multiple HP commercial credit cards to make the payments on HP’s behalf.
However, rather than make payments in accordance with the company’s policies, Szeto devised a fraudulent scheme whereby she sent approximately $4.8 million in unauthorized payments from her HP commercial credit cards to several Square, PayPal, and Stripe merchant accounts under her control.
The plea agreement provides several details of the scheme. For example, the agreement describes how, as part of her employment with HP, Szeto was issued multiple American Express commercial credit cards that were intended only for business expenses. Szeto then set up bogus merchant accounts with PayPal, Stripe, and Square that she maintained under her control, but represented were for legitimate vendors.
Szeto then unlawfully sent payments from the credit cards to the bogus accounts. To further her plan, Szeto uploaded falsified invoices to HP’s internal system and falsely represented to HP that the payments were made to legitimate vendors. She also made false representations to Square that the payments sent from the credit cards were sent to HP’s approved vendors for legitimate business transactions and falsely represented to her bank that the money from HP was for legitimate business transactions.
According to the plea agreement, Szeto caused at least $4.8 million to be fraudulently from HP accounts to accounts she controlled and attempted to steal an additional approximately $330,000 from HP. Szeto acknowledged that the total loss and attempted loss from her scheme was at least $5.2 million.
On February 11, 2022, the Office of the United States Attorney filed an Information charging Szeto with two counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343; two counts of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957; and one count of filing a false tax return, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1). According to today’s plea agreement, Szeto pleaded guilty to all five counts.
The maximum statutory sentence for the wire fraud counts is a fine of up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release, per count. The maximum statutory sentence for money laundering counts is ten years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and three years of supervised release per count. The maximum statutory sentence for the false tax return charge is three years in prison, a fine of up to $100,000, and one year of supervised release.
Shelbee Szeto, a former HP Planning Manager, pleaded guilty to a $5+ Million wire fraud scheme in California, involving unauthorized payments from her HP commercial credit cards to several merchant accounts under her control. Szeto faces up to $250,000 in fines and 20 years in prison. The case is ongoing.
Mandatory Facts:
- Defendant: Shelbee Szeto
- Criminal Charges: Two counts of wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, and one count of filing a false tax return
- City and State: Oakland, California
- Date: February 11, 2022
- Sentence: Shelbee Szeto pleaded guilty to all five counts
- Dollar Amounts: At least $4.8 million in unauthorized payments and an additional approximately $330,000 attempted to be stolen
Key Facts
- State: California
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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