An Atlanta woman named Barbara Furlow-Smiles has admitted to illegally acquiring more than $4 million from Facebook during her tenure as an executive within the corporation.
Furlow-Smiles served as a lead strategist and global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement at Facebook, now operating as Meta, from January 2017 through to September 2021, as noted by the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Ryan K. Buchanan’s Office.
In a statement, Buchanan asserted, “This defendant exploited her trusted position as a global diversity executive for Facebook, defrauding the company out of millions of dollars while disregarding the detrimental repercussions that undermine the significance of her diversity, equity and inclusion mission.”
According to Buchanan, Furlow-Smiles used her Facebook expense account to fund a luxury lifestyle in California and Georgia. The fraudulent expenses included hairdressers, babysitters, and even an $18,000 tuition fee at a preschool.
Buchanan explained that Furlow-Smiles’ strategy was to connect her corporate credit cards to PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App, and then use these cards to pay others for services that were never delivered. The individuals who received these payments – friends, family members, and other acquaintances – would then return a portion of the funds to Furlow-Smiles as kickbacks.
Furlow-Smiles purportedly made inflated invoices for vendors who would, in turn, reimburse part of the payment to her. Buchanan highlighted her actions, “She even implicated relatives, friends, and other associates in her fraudulent activities, all in the aim of funding her opulent lifestyle not through honest, hard work but through deception.”
Barbara Furlow-Smiles is set to be sentenced on March 19, 2024.
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