An ex-Facebook diversity program manager has pled guilty to scamming the company out of more than $4 million.
According to the New York Post, Barbara Furlow-Smiles admitted to faking business deals and receiving kickbacks.
Furlow-Smiles was the social media giant’s global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement.
She allegedly used the stolen money to live a lavish lifestyle from January 2017 to September 2021.
The Feds Elaborated On How Furlow-Smiles Stole From Facebook
The feds revealed that Furlow-Smiles accessed company credit cards and could approve invoices.
She used that power to cause “Facebook to pay numerous individuals… for goods and services never provided to the company.”
Furrow-Smiles recruited babysitters, nannies, a hairstylist, her university tutor, and former interns.
She also tricked Facebook into giving money to entities like an unnamed preschool and an artist who crafted specialty portraits.
To cover her tracks, Furlow-Smiles submitted fake expense reports that claimed the persons and entities were vendors who helped Facebook with marketing or supplying merchandise.
US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan released a statement on the case.
“[She] abused a position of a trust as a global diversity executive for Facebook to defraud the company of millions of dollars, ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her DEI mission… Motivated by greed, she used her time to orchestrate an elaborate criminal scheme in which fraudulent vendors paid her kickbacks in cash… She even involved relatives, friends, and other associates in her crimes, all to fund a lavish lifestyle through fraud rather than hard and honest work.”
FBI Special Agent Keri Farley added:
“Furlow-Smiles used lies and deceit to defraud both vendors and Facebook employees.”
Meta noted it is working with the feds on the case:
“We are cooperating with law enforcement on the case regarding this former program manager, and we will continue to do so.”
The Department of Justice revealed that Furlow-Smiles paid associates through apps like PayPal and Venmo and submitted fake expense reports.
Her associates–most of them unknowing accomplices–returned the money through account transfer or cash.
Furlow-Smiles then influenced Facebook to use her friends’ businesses.
Once the company approved, she approved “fraudulent and inflated invoices” in exchange for kickbacks.
Furlow-Smiles will be sentenced on March 19, 2024.
