Apple has reportedly fired 185 members of its team at the Cupertino headquarters. The tech major has alleged that these employees, including several Indians, worked hand-in-glove with certain non-profit organisations and misused its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
Apple’s Matching Grants programme, is a CSR charity programme wherein employees’ donations made to non-profit organisations are matched by the company. As per NBC reports, the company discovered that employees were tying up with certain non-profits (some of which were linked to the Indian community), to falsify their donations. The said employees got back the sum they originally donated in charity to the organisations once Apple matched their contributions. Simply put, the collaboration saw organisations retaining the sum donated by Apple and returning the bit donated by the employees. That means the employees merely pretended to be donating the amount just so that Apple would match the sum. These fake donations were also used to obtain tax returns, which amounts to tax fraud under US law.
The names of six employees have been revealed by authorities in the Bay Area who have reportedly swindled Apple of over $150,000 over three years via two non-profit organisations, namely the American Chinese International Cultural Exchange (ACICE) and Hop4Kids.
Some media reports indicate that some of the terminated employees were Indians who were swindling Apple of money under the pretext of donations to Telugu non-profit entities. These organisations and the concerned employees have yet to be named.
