He shipped the stolen components from an Amazon warehouse to his home address over a 15-month period.
A 27-year-old Amazon Operations Manager from Charlotte, North Carolina has pleaded guilty to mail fraud after stealing PC components worth over $273,000 from the company.
As the Department of Justice reports, Douglas Wright stole a range of components including hard drives, processors, and graphics cards from the Amazon warehouse where he worked in Charlotte. The goods were then shipped to his home address, with Wright continuing to steal and ship items to himself for 15 months from June 2020 to Sept. 2021.
He successfully acquired the items by misusing his access to Amazon’s computer systems, although it’s unclear how he managed to ship items without triggering some kind of validation check when stock was reduced without an associated sale/payment being logged.
As part of pleading guilty to mail fraud, Wright admitted he sold the stolen components in order to make a profit. The goods were purchased by an unnamed wholesale company located in California.
Wright was caught following a joint investigation by the FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service. A sentencing date has not been set, but he’s now facing up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
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Alongside writing for PCMag, Matthew is a video game designer and co-wrote the book Make Your Own Pixel Art (available at all good book shops). Before joining PCMag, he spent 14 years writing and editing for Geek.com, and before that, nearly founded a social network while Mark Zuckerberg was still struggling through puberty. He can probably fix your PC and will grab any opportunity to build a new one.
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