Say It Ain’t So, Apple Guy

ArsTechnica is reporting that Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager of Apple and a rising star of infamy, was arrested Friday, accused of taking millions in kickbacks from several suppliers of iPhone and iPad accessories, and has been indicted, along with at least one of his suppliers, stung with a twenty-three-count indictment by a federal grand jury, counts including accepting kickbacks, money laundering and wire fraud stemming from a joint investigation of the FBI and the IRS. Woah.

According to the indictment Devine fed these suppliers company secrets in exchange for kickbacks with those suppliers from a handful of Asian countries, including China (of course), South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, using this information to somehow leverage lucrative contracts with Apple with Apple left none the wiser. This man allegedly collected this money using a bunch of bank accounts, one of which was in his wife’s name, with banks in several Asian countries. Quite the jetsetter apparently. Maybe some of those accessories included portable battery pack chargers?

Apple, dismayed that that the Antennagate scandal had finally cooled down, made no delay in distancing itself from culpability by issuing a statement about high ethics this and zero tolerance that, and also by suing Devine for receiving more than $1m in kickbacks and bribes over the past several years.

The US Marshals Service is currently detaining him in a super secret location because when you’re dealing with a guy doing shady things with other guys who sell headphones, neon bumpers and those crappy car FM transmitters, you call in the big guns to keep him alive to stand trial. [via ArsTechnica, MercuryNews]

Doug Simmons