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For seven years, a product manager at a large British systems integrator, together with a former colleague, stole computer hardware from his employer with impunity for further resale via the Internet. Perhaps the duo would have continued to rob the company to this day if not for chance. The businessmen will spend the coming years behind bars. The total damage is estimated at $250 thousand.
Steal for seven years and not get caught
The ex-manager of a large British system integrator Chillblast was caught stealing computer equipment and components worth about $250 thousand, writes Tom’s Hardware. The employee sold the stolen goods online, with the help of a former colleague.
Matthew Hudson, now a former product manager at Chillblast, defrauded his own employer for seven years. He was helped in this by another ex-employee of the company, 32-year-old Daniel Key.
Hudson, who had access to inventory documents by virtue of his position, taking advantage of the gullibility of his colleagues, stole about thirty laptops, ten desktop computers, 50 video cards, as well as countless storage devices and monitors from 2013 to 2019. The duo sold the stolen goods on online trading platforms - eBay and Gumtree; Hudson and Key divided the profits among themselves.
The thefts went unnoticed for several years - Hudson cleverly covered his own tracks by falsifying documents until 2019. The enterprising Briton manipulated the volume of stocks of equipment and components. He appropriated the copies returned by clients to himself, although according to the papers they were listed as being in the warehouse, but unavailable for shipment due to reservations.
By chance
The villain was identified by chance: one of Hudson’s colleagues noticed an advertisement on the Gumtree website for the sale of a unique laptop model that could be exclusively at the disposal of Chillblast.
An attentive employee notified Benedict Miles, the company's managing director, of the discovery, who in turn examined the advertisement and found in it the serial number of a laptop that matched the one appearing in the Chillblast inventory list. So Miles realized that the laptop had been stolen from the company's warehouse and Hudson's involvement in this was quite obvious.
The very next day, Hudson was suspended from work by management and tried not too gracefully to evade responsibility. He wrote a letter of resignation of his own free will, which did not involve compensation for the damage caused to the company.
The management did not accept the statement and demanded that not only the stolen computer be returned, but also that the work laptop used by Hudson be returned. A Chillblast employee carefully examined the contents of the device’s hard drive and discovered a backup copy of Hudson’s smartphone data, which included correspondence with Daniel Key and other information that shed light on the real scale of the theft of equipment from the company’s warehouse.
Punishment
Hudson and Key were arrested in 2019 and were not charged until 2023. This significant delay is due to restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the complexity of interaction between the Crown Prosecution Service and local police.
On December 7, 2023, Hudson was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. He will serve only half of this term in a correctional facility. He will spend the rest of his life free, but under the supervision of the authorities under the conditions of parole.
On December 9, 2023, the verdict was read for Hudson's accomplice, Daniel Key. The judge sent the man to prison for two years, finding him guilty of trafficking in stolen goods. In total, Key managed to sell equipment and components worth 136.8 thousand pounds sterling.
The total cost of what Hudson stole was about $250.9 thousand. The ex-manager of Chillblast personally sold goods worth $182.6 thousand via the Internet.
Similar cases
In January 2022, CNews wrote that in the United States, a teacher in one of the schools in New Mexico stole iPods for six years, which were intended to teach Native Americans math and reading. Over the years, she managed to accumulate almost $1 million by stealing about 3 thousand players. The woman was sentenced by the court to one and a half years in prison.
In March 2022, CNews wrote about a fraudster from Yale University Medical School in the USA, who spent almost eight years buying computer equipment at her employer’s expense in order to make money on resale. Money passed through the woman for thousands of Apple iPads and Microsoft Surface Pro tablets worth over $40 million.
In October 2021, CNews reported on another resourceful American who, as an information technology manager at one of the Massachusetts NGOs, for several years in a row bought non-existent hardware from himself using the Amazon and Square platforms, using bank cards belonging to the organization. Between December 2016 and May 2020, he embezzled $370,000.
Steal for seven years and not get caught
The ex-manager of a large British system integrator Chillblast was caught stealing computer equipment and components worth about $250 thousand, writes Tom’s Hardware. The employee sold the stolen goods online, with the help of a former colleague.
Matthew Hudson, now a former product manager at Chillblast, defrauded his own employer for seven years. He was helped in this by another ex-employee of the company, 32-year-old Daniel Key.
Hudson, who had access to inventory documents by virtue of his position, taking advantage of the gullibility of his colleagues, stole about thirty laptops, ten desktop computers, 50 video cards, as well as countless storage devices and monitors from 2013 to 2019. The duo sold the stolen goods on online trading platforms - eBay and Gumtree; Hudson and Key divided the profits among themselves.
The thefts went unnoticed for several years - Hudson cleverly covered his own tracks by falsifying documents until 2019. The enterprising Briton manipulated the volume of stocks of equipment and components. He appropriated the copies returned by clients to himself, although according to the papers they were listed as being in the warehouse, but unavailable for shipment due to reservations.
By chance
The villain was identified by chance: one of Hudson’s colleagues noticed an advertisement on the Gumtree website for the sale of a unique laptop model that could be exclusively at the disposal of Chillblast.
An attentive employee notified Benedict Miles, the company's managing director, of the discovery, who in turn examined the advertisement and found in it the serial number of a laptop that matched the one appearing in the Chillblast inventory list. So Miles realized that the laptop had been stolen from the company's warehouse and Hudson's involvement in this was quite obvious.
The very next day, Hudson was suspended from work by management and tried not too gracefully to evade responsibility. He wrote a letter of resignation of his own free will, which did not involve compensation for the damage caused to the company.
The management did not accept the statement and demanded that not only the stolen computer be returned, but also that the work laptop used by Hudson be returned. A Chillblast employee carefully examined the contents of the device’s hard drive and discovered a backup copy of Hudson’s smartphone data, which included correspondence with Daniel Key and other information that shed light on the real scale of the theft of equipment from the company’s warehouse.
Punishment
Hudson and Key were arrested in 2019 and were not charged until 2023. This significant delay is due to restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the complexity of interaction between the Crown Prosecution Service and local police.
On December 7, 2023, Hudson was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. He will serve only half of this term in a correctional facility. He will spend the rest of his life free, but under the supervision of the authorities under the conditions of parole.
On December 9, 2023, the verdict was read for Hudson's accomplice, Daniel Key. The judge sent the man to prison for two years, finding him guilty of trafficking in stolen goods. In total, Key managed to sell equipment and components worth 136.8 thousand pounds sterling.
The total cost of what Hudson stole was about $250.9 thousand. The ex-manager of Chillblast personally sold goods worth $182.6 thousand via the Internet.
Similar cases
In January 2022, CNews wrote that in the United States, a teacher in one of the schools in New Mexico stole iPods for six years, which were intended to teach Native Americans math and reading. Over the years, she managed to accumulate almost $1 million by stealing about 3 thousand players. The woman was sentenced by the court to one and a half years in prison.
In March 2022, CNews wrote about a fraudster from Yale University Medical School in the USA, who spent almost eight years buying computer equipment at her employer’s expense in order to make money on resale. Money passed through the woman for thousands of Apple iPads and Microsoft Surface Pro tablets worth over $40 million.
In October 2021, CNews reported on another resourceful American who, as an information technology manager at one of the Massachusetts NGOs, for several years in a row bought non-existent hardware from himself using the Amazon and Square platforms, using bank cards belonging to the organization. Between December 2016 and May 2020, he embezzled $370,000.
