Embezzling Fry's VP Once Gambled Away $8 Million In ONE DAY
The LA Times is reporting that former Fry's executive and accused embezzler, Omar Siddiqui, once gambled away $8 million in a single day. According to the IRS, Mr. Siddiqui financed his gambling by taking at least $65.6 million in kickbacks from Fry's suppliers. He's been charged with money laundering and fraud, and if convicted, he faces 140 years in prison.
The LA Times says that the high stakes gambler was extended millions of dollars in credit from the various Las Vegas casinos that flew him in on private jets, and put him up in opulent suites. Court records show that Siddiqui, who earns a salary of $225,000 a year, lost as much as $167 million at casinos over the last decade.
Here's how the scam allegedly worked: Siddiqui convinced Fry's to eliminate the independent broker who was supplying their products — and instead demanded that vendors pay him through a fraudulent company.
According to the criminal complaint filed by U.S. Atty. Joseph P. Russoniello, Siddiqui deposited at least $167.8 million in PC International's bank account between 2005 and 2008. The IRS alleges that $65.6 million came from just five vendors. It is still investigating where he got the rest.
Some in the electronics industry say Siddiqui dictated what would — and would not — be sold at the giant electronics chain.
One company, Phoebe Micro Inc., sold Fry's $80 million worth of goods between 2003 and 2008. The firm gave Fry's a $4 million discount, the IRS said, but paid Siddiqui's company $24 million.
The IRS also documented six cases in which Siddiqui received $1 million to $5 million from vendors, then paid identical, or nearly identical, amounts to casinos within one to three days.
Debt finally topples a Las Vegas high roller [LA Times] (Thanks, kimdog!)
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Comments:
If he lost $167m.. Imagine the total money he must have had in play! You dont lose every hand, every bet.. he had to win some.. to Net lose $167m.. he had to appear as a billionaire!
Wow how much is Fry's making for this guy to get $65.6 million and them not notice.
It always amazes me that these people are smart enough to embezzle, but dumb enough spend it so conspicuously.
No, it was all on one crazy blackjack hand where he bet 25 million, then split and doubled down a few times. I was there.
wow...what I could do with a 225k a year salary, and this idiot is going to spend the rest of his life trying to prevent his back door from becoming a piston chamber. Some people are never satisfied.
Someone wasn't using the new card counting app for the iPhone. Yup, there's an app for that.
Sadly, he's the only one qualified to be U.S. Treasury Secretary.
@LastAndLeast: Not just conspicuously, but in a way that there is such a limited gain.
He could have: bought a house, bought a boat, bought a car, rented 10 hookers a day for the rest of his life, bought a sports team, gotten plastic surgery, a toupee, hair restoration therapy for his head and laser hair removal for his back. Of all the things he could have done, he blew it all on gambling.
Not only did he make 65.6 million but he blew it all in the worst fashion imaginable.
This man is a loser of the highest degree.
Hah, that's ironic - every time I go into Frys they treat me like I'm the one who's a criminal
DEALER: Player has 13.
SIDDIQUI: Hit Me.
DEALER: Player has 18.
SIDDIQUI: Hit Me.
DEALER: Player has 20
SIDDIQUI: Hit Me.
DEALER: Player has 28.
SIDDIQUI: Hit Me.
Did he bet on RED OR BLACK?
Is he gonna blame his gambling problem on Grand Theft Auto?
They blame video games for everything else.
@DTVTransitioned_GitEmSteveDave: It would've saved him money by getting him kicked out of the casinos.
So annoying that morons get to WASTE a what would be fortune to most of us, and it's whilst gambling. If he was smarter, he just would have kept it, and lived an amazingly wealthy life and no work!
@Plates: With the GOP Nat'l chairmanship looking iffy because the guy slipped tens of thousands of dollars to his sister via his political slush fund, it looks that that position might be opening up...
@philmin: See, that's why I'll never be a Vegas Whale. I'd waste too much time looking around for the one-million-dollar limit Beer Pong table.
@Thanatos: Think of how much more he'd have gotten away with if they didn't check for receipts at the door!
Ever play roulette?
ALWAYS BET ON BLACK!
@snowburnt: the problem is if he bought anything significant the IRS would look to see where he got the money. the biggest idiocy with gaining money by criminal means (stealing, drug dealing, etc) is that the criminal can't even spend it intelligently, they basically have to piss it away with nothing to show for it or they'll get caught.
It has nothing to do with smarts. Any fool knows that when there are two people at both ends of a transaction, there's a opportunity for an outside deal to be made. It's not smarts; it's corruption. When you realize that brains has nothing to do with what is simply greed, understanding how dumb he was in spending it become a lot easier to fathom.
The other thing that sucked was the lack of the ECS mobo combos for the last few months. A few vendors have stepped in but, glad I didn't have many computer build orders.
The casinos track the "coin-in" rate, most gamblers will be amazed at their "coin-in" for a weekend trip.
Reading the LA times article makes you wonder about the casino's ability to get high rollers addicted to gambling...
Looks like the door guards were frisking the wrong people.
I guess it's just how a risk-taker's mind works. My biggest bet so far was $5 in lottery tickets. Paid for with money that I earned from my paycheck. So...yeah, not sure what he was thinking.
140 years in prison... It is funny to see how murderers and sexual predators get away with only 5-10 years while fraudsters like that guy get the lifetime sentence. This is how human society treats human life compared to money.
So. They can nail this guy easily enough, but Bernard Madoff is sitting pretty in his $ Multimillion condo?
Only 140 years? He should be forced to watch Vegas Floor Shows non-stop for what is left of his life.
"If convicted" - ha! This asshat will probably get small fine and time already served. He'll be out to do more damage in a couple of years, tops.
Too bad he had a gambling problem. Otherwise he could have invested all of that stolen dough, maybe put it with Bernie Madoff or buy GM stock. Imagine how much he'd have today!
@Odaecom:
OMG!!! You actually miss the ECS boards? Ever try to get a defective one replaced? Unless you purchased Fry's PSC, good luck - I've sent ECS 3 e-mails on one that crapped out after 3 months and have yet to receive a reply; let alone a RMA!
Fry's was selling the combos at a huge loss. hoping they'd make up the difference on cases, power supplies, etc. The current combos are mainly older CPUs matched with older or entry level boards.
AirLink is also getting kicked to the curb. If you need to stock up on cheap wi-fi gear ($9.90 "G" adapters, $22.90 "N" routers, etc.), what's left in the stores is it.
It suprises me nobody at Fry's got suspicious when someone on a buyer's salary was getting free rides on private jets to Vegas on a regular basis.
When convicted, he should be sentenced to share a cell with Sigfried & Roy's pet tigers.
Here, kitty kitty... :-)
Will the casinos have to give back the "ill-gotten gains" like those who took money out of Madoff apparently will have to?
Not so long ago, the casino wouldn't have called his employer... he would've earned a trip out into the desert!
@Larry Retzlaff: You mean the Bernard Madoff who was arrested by the FBI, is in the process of being indicted by a federal grand jury, and is confined to his apartment until he is tried (and likely sent to jail for the rest of his life)?
You and I must have different definitions of "sitting pretty".
$8 million in one day? Are there really casinos with no maximum bet?
I mean, seriously, if you were playing an incredibly fast pace of 1 hand/spin/whatever per minute, you're talking about $11,111 per game, playing 12 hours straight, assuming you lose everything in play every single time.
If there is one, I'd love to know, because this guy could theoretically always double your money, since he has plenty to play with. Just bet black/red on roulette and double each lost bet until you win.
Heck, on roulette, assuming he is playing this long he should start hitting up random odds, so he would need to play $152,091,254 that day to lose $8 million with the house edge of 5.26%.
I live here in Vegas and it's amazing how some idiots are. Just because Vegas is known to be the city of excess doesn't necessarily mean they have to go nuts, but hey their money, their life but embezzling????? Ugh.....I am tired of reading or hearing the news like this..it never ends! If he embezzled to help the less fortunate, he will have my sympathy, but because he did it out of greed, I have NO sympathy to this type of person period!
What's 8M on blackjack when we got about 400B being spent to pay high-priced prostitutes to skin grapes for bank execs on private jets who are on their way to golf in Scotland for the weekend?
Maybe he should run for congress.