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Tech exec at area drug company and boyfriend charged with swindling company out of more than $2 million
By adamg on Thu, 01/12/2023 - 12:10am
A senior technology officer at the Lexington-based US branch of Takeda Pharmaceuticals and her boyfriend were arrested Wednesday for allegedly setting up a fake consulting company that then billed Takeda for services it never actually provided.
Priya Bhambi, 39, and Samuel Montronde, 37, had to answer to a charge of wire fraud in US District Court in Boston. Both were released on personal recognizance, but agreed to eventually put up $50,000 unsecured bonds.
The couple moved into a $1.9-million, 19th-floor 2-bedroom condo at Echelon Seaport on Seaport Boulevard last year with the proceeds of the scam, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent on the case. Bhambi also kept ownership of a two-family home on more sedate Anawan Avenue in West Roxbury, according to Registry of Deeds records, while Montronde moved up from Brockton - possibly in the 2019 Mercedes Class E they allegedly bought, also with money from Takeda.
According to the affidavit, the two exchanged a series of what proved to be incriminating text messages to set up a fake "change management" consulting firm that Montronde would allegedly run - in fact, he provided no services at all - while Bhambi would arrange payments from Takeda for the consulting he did not actually provide. It started with a text message Bhambi sent him:
BHAMBI texted MONTRONDE, “... I have put some wheels in motion to pursuit [sic] a small hustle, lol...
After Montronde came up with a name - Evoluzione, LLC - they came up with a fake "employee" there, named Jasmine, to handle any inquiries from Takeda.
Also on or about February 4, 2022, BHAMBI sent the following text message to MONTRONDE: "What’s the first thing your [sic] going to do on the road to being a millionaire baby?" MONTRONDE responded, “A house for us,” and BHAMBI replied, "A house would be my first move too baby...If I get it right...dream home 2022 for us."
Three days later, Montronde filed organization papers with the Secretary of State's office, describing Evoluzione as "a team that is committed to transforming the organizations that it works with. We come from humble beginnings and our method focuses on the problem solving and flexibility required to overcome obstacles and adversity."
On March 8, Evoluzione submitted its first invoice to Takeda, for $460,000. Over the next few months, the company filed four more invoices, each for that amount.
Two days after Takeda paid one of the invoices, in June, the affidavit continues, Montronde paid Mercedes of Westwood - the dealership behind the Rte. 1 McDonald's - $58,993.94 for the Class E sedan. Bhambi then bought the Echelon condo on July 14.
But somebody at Takeda grew suspicious of the payments, the affidavit states:
Beginning in or about September 2022, questions were raised within Victim A about the work purportedly performed by Evoluzione. In response to communications from Victim A employees seeking an opportunity to discuss the matter, [email protected] sent an email, copying [email protected], stating that "Jasmine...ha[d] been working directly on the account...and c[ould] provide any details[.]"
Thereafter, employees of Victim A made repeated attempts to coordinate a call with "Samuel" and "Jasmine" but were unsuccessful.
Victim A [Takeda] initiated an internal investigation, which resulted in BHAMBI's termination on or about November 21, 2022.
Innocent, etc.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete affidavit | 351.73 KB |
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Comments
Dumb criminals
This is so egregious. I’ll be super interested to see how the whole thing shakes out. Isn’t money laundering supposed to obscure origin?
I kinda wish
I worked for a company where people only started asking questions after the 4th purchase order request for $500k for "consulting services".
This story is more damning of the pharmaceutical then the scammers.
Crooks always think like that
"It's their fault for not preventing me from stealing from them."
They're correct. If you can't
They're correct. If you can't be bothered to defend your property, you don't deserve it.
Public company too
Pardon me while I go short the stock of pill Enron.
They did hire a "senior
They did hire a "senior technology" manager who didn't have the sense to encrypt incriminating-looking online communications, so there's a lot of dim to go around here.
Big Same
I was thinking the same thing.. what kinda company starts to question this after the 4th invoice for a cool half million.
(removed remark about being CTO)
But then again you're right, most places it takes an act of god to buy a pencil...
A few jobs ago, I wanted to buy 75k in hardware for a project that was already planned and budgeted for. It required:
3 competitive quotes from other vendors, BESIDES our regular one
Each quote had to be detailed line by line with what each item was and its cost
"Large Purchase Justification form" (Required for purchases over 50k)
2 normal approvals (my mgr, and his boss)
CFO's signature, because it was over 10k
CEO's signature, because it was over 50k
So many steps to get something that everyone knew was happening and supported, and was a directive of the CEO.
Yet over there at Takeda she could push thru *three* 500k invoices for something very vague.
And I thought having unrestricted access to a corporate black amex card was nice at the porno company...BigPharma clearly is where its at.
Can't they all be bad?
Sure, Takeda probably could have paid more attention, but $2 million is not that much money for a $30 billion company. And eventually they did catch it and start asking questions and the house of cards came crashing down.
But here's my real question: if you are a CTO at a company of this size, what on god's green earth are you doing with this sort of embezzlement scheme which is likely to come back and bite you in the behind?! You have an MBA and 10 years of experience in the Medical Industrial Complex. Five more years of pushing papers and pills and can afford this kind of luxury legit.
Salaries for someone like this are probably $200k base, plus additional compensation? With 10 years experience? So unless you are very bad at managing money, you shouldn't have to steal to buy a Mercedes and a $2 million condo. Especially last year, with 3% mortgage rates. This seems like a get rich quick scheme which very quickly became a get poor and maybe thrown in the slammer scheme.
And then there's just the dumbness of all of it. If I were going to set up this sort of swindle, I'd probably firewall everything going on with it (no communications that weren't in person, by voice). In other words: Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink. Apparently if you can't wink, send an incriminating text.
Luckily for Takeda, they bought an asset which should be easy to seize, dispose of and which has retained its value (in the Seaport) and … I guess they can sell the Benz, too.
(Adam: going to copy-paste some of her LinkedIn profile here in case it goes dark soon … feel free to delete …
Priya Bhambi (She/Her)
VP Head of Office of the Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Takeda
I am a versatile biotech/pharma executive with an industry reputation for building and leading enterprise level, multidisciplinary organizations, programs, and organizational transformation strategies for improving an organization’s long-term success and financial stability. Throughout my career, I have been successful in creating and executing strategic decisions that enhanced organizational prospects for long-term outcomes, including innovative, breakthrough initiatives.
Leadership experience- Directing lean processes, driving transformational change, compliance, and program design teams for global biotech and pharmaceutical companies. I develop organizational capabilities that align investment portfolios to a strategic vision and budget, enabling organizations to achieve integration and divestiture targets.
★ EXPERIENCE HIGHLIGHTS ★
✅ Led the build-out, design, and launch of the first digital dedicated center in the company’s 240-year history, along a C-suite, 10-year Digital Transformation Plan.
✅ Created and implemented the global in-sourcing strategy for 1,000s of positions to assemble the talent bench for the future.
✅ Transformed the organization’s investment change journey mindset by bridging the gap between Agile, Waterfall, investment, value driver, and strategic imperatives.
✅ Instituted multiple project management offices, procedures, and standardized tools (including charters, resource management, RACI’s, stakeholder maps, risk assessments, mitigation planning, gap analysis, decision matrixes, RAIDs, FMEA, and controlled processes for actions and follow ups) to promote ongoing process
improvements to stimulate innovation and team growth.
✅ Led an organization-wide portfolio de-risk transformation initiative that enabled the organization to repurpose $40M through dynamic capability improvements and mechanizing ability to pivot quarterly.
Takeda
5 yrs 3 mos
Head of Office of the Chief Digital & Technology OfficerHead of Office of the Chief Digital & Technology Officer Apr 2022 - Present
Global Head of Portfolio & Transformation May 2019 - Nov 2022
Global Head of Strategic Planning & Governance Nov 2017 - May 2019
Head of Global PMO
Biogen
Jul 2013 - Nov 2017
Northeastern University
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Health/Health Care Administration/Management2012 - 2014
B.A. 2002 - 2006))
Here is her boyfriend's
Here is her boyfriend's linkedin:
Samuel Montronde
Supervisor at Old Colony YMCA
Greater Boston
Interesting pair.
Don't hate the playa
Hate the game
Every single thing
About this woman sounds exhausting. Bostonians like this are a punchline to me.
Imagine needing money that badly, and all the work and school you have to go through to get it.
All that Northeastern
All that Northeastern schooling
Yep
They reject me, but this dim bulb gets in.
Sick institution.
Lmfao small world. I
Lmfao small world. I interviewed their IT Manager after he attempted to get a job with my company. Needless to say he was clueless, not up to par with the industry, and didn’t land the job.
"their IT manager"??? Do you
"their IT manager"??? Do you understand that a company the size of Takeda has literally thousands of IT employees? You seem a bit clueless too.
Org size
It has to scale with the org though. You can’t have the CEO approving everything under 10k when your company spends hundreds of millions on research. In theory the VPs and directors are the “CEOs” of their sub organizations.
A company I’m familiar with has signing authority tiers of 100k/250k/500k/1M/5M for various levels (5M is CEO and second C-level signature). All things go through the procurement group who are supposed to catch scams like this at any level. But if your have the signing authority and are willing to lie to the procurement group and forge receipts/service affidavits it’s harder to catch on the first try. Smart criminals would a) not go back to the same trough multiple times and b) not leave a paper trail saying “this criming is da best!”
Correction..
She was not the CTO, she worked in the "office" of the CTO, big difference
yeah it feels like
Assistant to the Regional Manager kind of stuff, right?
Exactly, like in The Office.
Exactly, like in The Office. Dwight kept calling himself "Assistant Director" and Michael would correct him with "Assistant TO the Director".
oh dear
That makes this even dumber!
Essentially “chief of staff” to CTO
But if you read her profile she was also VP level as Chief of Staff meaning she was easily brining in $500k plus total comp per year after that last promotion. She could have purchased the car and the condo without the scam. How greedy can you be?
That makes so much more sense
That makes so much more sense. Why would a CTO undertake this kind of risk, when she could just borrow 2 mil for a condo, rather than steal it.
And she texts like a stone idiot, so office worker with a glorified title and 6 figures of debt to Northeastern totally tracks.
> ... I have put some wheels
> ... I have put some wheels in motion to pursuit [sic] a small hustle, lol...
Taking notes on a gosh-darned alleged criminal conspiracy: people just can't help themselves.
mycrimes.txt
.
Exactly. Real professionals
Exactly. Real professionals keep that stuff in a file called boring_financial_records_and_lists_of_my_good_deeds.txt.
But, but
Those were private text messages!
Right... but there's a thing
Right... but there's a thing called FBI who can track those. There's others too...
Stringer Bell!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBdGOrcUEg8
His followup, words to the
His followup, words to the effect of "What were you thinking, for heaven's sake?" are pretty much my reaction to this entire story.
Amateurs
Amateurs
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/biogen-inc-agrees-pay-900-million-settle-...
Dream home 2022
It could be anywhere in the world, and she picks South Boston.
What a vapid, worldless person.
Swindle
I have never met a "consultant" that wasn't a swindle. The money wasted on that crap by non-profits and idiot companies is gobsmackingly ridiculous.
Also, how can anyone so utterly illiterate have a job like that?
As a consultant I have created real value
While you are right that there’s a lot of bullshit out there, as a consultant I have created real value: I have designed big data networks, laid out the architecture of distributed computer systems, conducted security reviews, and trained employee teams in software engineering. We’re not all bullshitting swindlers.
Noted
You're right of course. There are just so many people on the make in our end-stage market economy that it's puke-worthy.
Marty Walsh
Funneled millions to his girlfriend's consulting firm. Worked out for them, too.
could be a worse choice
She could have chosen Florida, amirite?
They moved on up..
To a deluxe apartment in the sky...
How is this different from
How is this different from what an actual consultant does?
Completely awesome
These people had never heard of the outside world. Heard of it now, though lol
Stupid criminals indeed
Most management consulting is so nebulous to begin with that all he had to do was produce a couple of slide decks and a report or two, all full of generic platitudinous BS, and instead of looking at jail time, she would at worst get a talking to for failure to get good value for money spent, and he would have his first customer success story for his new legit consulting business.
The Globe finally picked up the story.
But Adam had it first!!!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/12/business/former-takeda-worker-boy...