An Amazon warehouse manager faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $273,000 worth of computer parts and selling them to a wholesaler

Dominick Reuter
Mon, January 31, 2022

Robots called "pods" inside an Amazon Fulfillment Center in France.PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP via Getty Images

A 27-year-old North Carolina man pleaded guilty to mail fraud after stealing Amazon merchandise.

For more than a year, the man stole computer parts and sold them to a wholesaler in California.

The scheme targeted high-value components, including hard drives, processors, and GPUs.

A former Amazon employee has pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud related to a scheme involving the sale of stolen computer parts worth $273,000.

Douglas Wright, 27, admitted to stealing high-value components including internal hard drives, processors, and GPUs when he was an operations manager at an Amazon warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, the US Department of Justice announced Friday.

From June 2020 to September of last year, Wright used his access to Amazon's inventory-tracking systems to locate specific packages, which he then took home and sold to a wholesaler in California, prosecutors said.

The penalties for mail fraud include a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Justice Department is no stranger to mail-fraud investigations involving Amazon.

In December, prosecutors said a Virginia man pleaded guilty to a scheme in which he claimed refunds on goods worth $300,000 and sending back similar items of significantly lesser value.

And in October, another North Carolina man pleaded guilty to engaging in more than 300 fraudulent transactions with Amazon over four years, causing losses to the company worth over $290,000.