patrick.net

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Western District of Washington
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 18, 2020
Six indicted in connection with multi-million dollar scheme to bribe Amazon employees and contractors
Consultants to Amazon Marketplace merchants paid over $100,000 in bribes to secure an unfair competitive advantage worth more than $100 million

Seattle - Six people have been indicted by a Grand Jury in the Western District of Washington with conspiring to pay over $100,000 in commercial bribes to Amazon employees and contractors, in exchange for an unfair competitive advantage on the Amazon Marketplace, announced U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran. EPHRAIM ROSENBERG, 45, of Brooklyn, New York; JOSEPH NILSEN, 31, and KRISTEN LECCESE, 32, of New York, New York; HADIS NUHANOVIC, 30, of Acworth, Georgia; ROHIT KADIMISETTY, 27, of Northridge, California; and NISHAD KUNJU, 31, of Hyderabad, India, are charged with conspiracy to use a communication facility to commit commercial bribery, conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud. The defendants will make their initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Seattle on October 15, 2020. ...

In exchange for those bribes, the corrupted employees and contractors took the following illicit steps:

Reinstating suspended merchant accounts and product listings on the Amazon Marketplace...
Facilitating attacks against competitors...
Misappropriating Amazon’s highly confidential business information...
Circumventing Amazon’s internal limits on 3P accounts...