SANTA ANA, California
Varun Aggarwal, a 42-year-old former executive from an Orange County commercial real estate agency, was sentenced Thursday to 33 months in federal prison for embezzling over $2.7 million from his employer.
Aggarwai did this by submitting fake invoices for services that were either never provided or were billed at much higher rates than actual.
The sentencing was carried out by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney sentenced Aggarwalt and ordered him to pay back $.7 million as restitution.
Aggarwal had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in August 2023.
“[Aggarwal] was not driven to commit his crimes by need, desperation, or the inability to legitimately earn a living,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Despite the advantages defendant enjoyed – including a first-rate education and a well-compensated professional career – [Aggarwal] chose to commit the underlying criminal conduct causing great losses and abusing his position of trust over a lengthy period of time.”
From 2008 to January 2022, Varun Aggarwal worked in the internal audit department of KBS Realty Advisors in Newport Beach, eventually becoming the director.
From at least January 2012 until January 2022, he exploited his position to steal money from KBS.
Aggarwal knew the company’s payment processes well and manipulated them by having his friends and family become approved contractors for KBS. He then had these approved contractors send fake invoices for consulting work that was never done or was overpriced. Aggarwal redirected these payments to his personal bank accounts, often without the contractors knowing that he was benefiting from these transactions.
Through this fraud, Aggarwal illegally got about $2,729,718 from KBS, which was supposed to pay for these services.
He left KBS in January 2022 when the company started to look into the suspicious invoices
The FBI investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Sagel of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force is prosecuting this case.