SANTA ANA, California
A former Orange County commercial real estate agency executive pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than $2.7 million from his employer by submitting fictitious invoices for companies controlled by his family and friends, whose services never were performed.
Varun Aggarwal, 41, of Irvine, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney scheduled a January 22, 2024, sentencing hearing, at which time Aggarwal faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
According to his plea agreement, from 2008 to January 2022, Aggarwal worked in the Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors’ internal auditing department and rose to the department’s director’s level.
From January 2012 until January 2022, Aggarwal used his position at KBS to embezzle his employer’s money.
As a member of the company’s internal auditing group, Aggarwal was familiar with KBS’s policies and procedures for payments to vendors.
Aggarwal used his knowledge of KBS’s policies and procedures to have his friends and family serve as approved vendors for KBS’s contracting work.
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.
He then sometimes funneled the payments on the invoices from KBS to his bank accounts – through the approved vendors – without informing the vendors that the invoices and the payments on the invoices were for his benefit.
In carrying out this scheme, Aggarwal fraudulently obtained approximately $2.7 million from KBS that he caused it to pay to the approved vendors that ultimately went to himself.
According to court documents, Aggarwal resigned from KBS in January 2022 after the company began investigating the invoices.
The FBI investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Sagel of the Santa Ana Branch Office is prosecuting this case.