The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a significant prison sentence for Kayricka Wortham, a Black woman who orchestrated a sophisticated fraud scheme while working as an Operations Manager at an Amazon warehouse in Smyrna, Georgia., Media Take Out confirmed.
Her fraudulent activities spanned nearly two years and resulted in the theft of over $9.4 million from the company.
Her scam was ingenious … until she got caught. From about August 2020 to March 2022, the Georgia woman acted as an Operations Manager and had the authority to approve both new vendors and the payment of vendor invoices for Amazon.
She used her authority to create a network of fake vendors and invoices to funnel money into her and her accomplices’ accounts. Her accomplices, including Brittany Hudson who owned a business, contracted with Amazon for package delivery and charged the company for packages that they never delivered. The two then submitted fake invoices for fake vendors to Amazon, further facilitating the fraudulent scheme.
So how did they get caught … well they were flossing a bit too hard on the gram. The stolen funds were used to purchase luxury goods, including expensive real estate and high-end vehicles – which were all shown off on social media.
Kayricka Wortham, also known as “Kayricka Dupree” and “Kayricka Young,” 32, of Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr., to 16 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Additionally, she was ordered to pay restitution to Amazon in the amount of $9,469,731.45. More than $2.7 million in fraudulent proceeds were seized from multiple bank accounts, the residence in Smyrna, and the vehicles purchased with fraudulent proceeds were forfeited.
