A Georgia woman who served as the head of global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at Facebook has pleaded guilty to embezzling over $4 million from the social media platform’s vendors and fellow employees.
The Department of Justice announced that Barbara Furlow-Smiles, a Black woman, stole from Meta by implementing an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious charges, and cash kickbacks, over the four years of her employment in the DEI space for Meta.
As the Lead Strategist and Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook Inc., the 38-year-old held her position from January 2017 to September 2021.
During this time, while employed to work specifically on various engagement programs and initiatives to help people of color, women, and differently-abled, she exploited her access to the company’s corporate credit cards and her authority to approve invoices for authorized vendors.
U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said the Atlanta native abused her position of trust.
“Motivated by greed, she used her time to orchestrate an elaborate criminal scheme in which fraudulent vendors paid her kickbacks in cash,” Buchanan explained, “She even involved relatives, friends, and other associates in her crimes, all to fund a lavish lifestyle through fraud rather than hard and honest work.”
Furlow-Smiles sanctioned payments to individuals for “goods and services never provided to the company.”
These people would then kick back money from the fraudulent scheme in cash.
To facilitate her scheme, Furlow-Smiles connected PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards, using these platforms to pay friends, relatives, and other associates for services that never benefitted Facebook. Though the plan was elaborate and involved others, the Justice Department says many of the recipients of these payments were unaware that the funds came from Facebook
Once the people were paid, they gave the bulk of the money back to the Facebook executive through transfers to accounts held in her husband’s and others’ names in cash and delivering it in person. Sometimes the money was sent, according to the DOJ, through FedEx or mail.
To hide the fake charges, Furlow-Smiles resorted to submitting falsified expense reports to the company, justifying the expenses by saying she contracted them to do things such as provide swag bags and marketing services.
Cash was oftentimes stashed inside T-shirt shipments and other merchandise.
The other way she stole from the company was by onboarding vendors owned and operated by friends and associates, who, in return, provided her with kickbacks. Those people included relatives, former interns, nannies, babysitters, a hairstylist, and even her university tutor.
The embezzled funds were utilized to finance services that exclusively helped her like a payment of $10,000 to an artist for portraits and nearly $20,000 for preschool tuition.
“Furlow-Smiles used lies and deceit to defraud both vendors and Facebook employees,” said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.
Adding, “The FBI works hard to make sure greed like this doesn’t pay off and those who commit fraud are held accountable.”
Furlow-Smiles is scheduled to go before U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg on March 19 for sentencing.
