SANTA ANA, California
Officials stated that a former executive at an Orange County commercial real estate agency was arrested Monday on a federal criminal complaint alleging a decade-long scheme in which he stole $2.5 million from his employer.
According to authorities, Varun Aggarwal submitted fictitious invoices for companies controlled by his family and friends whose services were never performed.
Varun Aggarwal, 40, of Irvine, California, was arrested Monday by the FBI.
Aggarwal is charged with one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
If convicted of both counts, Aggarwal would face a statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.
A review of company, bank, and tax records shows that Aggarwal, using approximately six vendors, stole approximately $2,601,246 from KBS between January 1, 2012, and January 13, 2022, according to the affidavit.
The FBI investigated this matter.
According to court documents, around 2012 and through January 2022, Aggarwal used his position at the Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors to embezzle his employer’s money.
During his decade-long tenure at KBS, officials stated that Aggarwal worked in the company’s internal auditing department, rising to the level of the department’s director.
As a company accounting group member, Aggarwal was familiar with KBS’s policies and procedures for payment to vendors.
Aggarwal used his knowledge of KBS’s policies and procedures to have his friends and family perform contracting work for his groups at KBS.
After several of these companies became approved vendors for KBS, Aggarwal used these approved vendors to submit fraudulent invoices for consulting services that were not performed for the company, the complaint alleges.
He then funneled the payments on the invoices from KBS to his bank accounts – through the approved vendors – at times without informing the vendors that the invoices and the payments on the invoices were for his benefit.
Aggarwal resigned from KBS in January 2022 after the company began investigating the invoices, the affidavit states.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Sagel of the Santa Ana Branch Office is prosecuting this case.