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Apple Exec Stashed $150,000 In Shoe Boxes
angry tapir writes "US federal agents found more than US$150,000 in cash when they searched the house of Apple manager Paul Devine earlier this month, according to prosecutors. 'He had over $150,000 stored in shoe boxes,' Department of Justice Attorney Michelle Kane said. Devine was charged two weeks ago with taking kickbacks from Apple suppliers."
You don't use shoe boxes, they're too obvious.
iBox?
Seriously, if this guy was socking cash back and wanted to hide it from the feds, why didn't he think of better hiding places?
Heck, just watching the Sopranos would give you some better ideas for cash placement than shoe boxes all over the house.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Don't they realize that's just a prototype for the long-rumored iStash?
:wq
Maybe he just don't trust banks to be to big to fail anymore.
And Steve Jobs told him "Just don't hide the stolen money that way"
Devine pleaded not guilty to the charges last week.
Oh my. I would love to hear his excuse for this. "What? Doesn't *everyone* keep a few hundred thousand dollars in shoe boxes? My financial planner told me to diversify! Those Swiss bank accounts were for storing cheese!"
but even if you couldn't trust your bank, $150,000 in shoeboxes? Really? That's not safe. Coffee tins, freezer, mattress, that loose brick in the garage... you've got to diversify.
You're stashing it wrong.
Steve
What's next "Apple Employee Cuts Line at Starbucks"?
Hardly stuff that matters
"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated"
There are lots of ways to securely stash cash. shoeboxes under the bed are not one of them. a run to home depot for a post hole digger, some PVC pipe and caps = a money safe the feds wont find.
Although this guy does not look like the type that knows how to run a complex device like a shovel.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Shoeboxes in your house? Wow, that's the least amount of effort he could possibly muster.
Everyone knows you're supposed to bury treasure boxes!
You can't take the sky from me...
The balance on his bank account was 12 dozen shoes.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
So...I need a place to keep all this money safe. Yep. Nice and safe. A safe place to keep it hidden. Someplace...safe...
OH! A shoebox! Brilliant!
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
One of the problems with stashing $150,000 in cash is that you lose some $4,500/yr (or more) due to inflation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation_Ancient.svg
FTA "Devine had a further $20,000 worth of foreign currency in his possession, she said, arguing that it was possible that the Apple executive might have other hidden sources of cash."
Next they will find he had $500,000 in dollar coins stashed in hundreds of piggybanks.
Because not putting money in the bank is a crime.
Law brought to you by Goldman/Sachs.
I am an embezzler of some repute at a fairly well known tech company. I am getting lump sum payments from a supplier in regular payments. They insist on providing me the cash in shoe boxes but I can't think of anything "outside" of these that could be better. Advice?
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Um, I hate the obviously anti-Apple news as much as the next Apple fanboi but this is hardly negative Apple news. In fact, I can't find even a vague hint of anything negative being directed at Apple in this situation.
That's odd, this story causes me to wonder how much corruption is rampant at Apple if we scratch the surface and find shoe boxes with cash ... whatever the case here in the US, this certainly illustrates the growing problems that Apple and many other companies are having with foreign counterparts guilty of "when in Rome" infractions against ethics and business.
I used to think "Made in America" when I bought an Apple product. Then after realizing it was all coming from Taiwan and China I thought "Invented in America, Made in China" but I still imagined this premium I was paying lead to good American ethics and proper treatment of employees to consumers. The deaths of nine or more plastics workers in Apple's iPhone supplier followed by a million in kickbacks being stored in shoe boxes by a corrupt Apple Manager and suddenly I realize that buying Apple just means you're paying a premium on something that might provide you a better experience but really employs all the same corruption inherent in almost any very large business.
While I'm not faulting Apple anymore than -- say -- Samsung or Sony, they've dropped from high standards of worker and consumer ethics all the way down to 'one of the rest.' Maybe they're simply too big to control that now but you better believe this is negative to someone like me. I've only ever bought (to my knowledge) iPod shuffles as gifts and a single exclusive album on iTunes but you won't catch me buying anything else from them for a while.
My work here is dung.
Doesn't anyone know how to launder money any more? Steal way more money than you need, run it through some partially legitimate business, take part of it as profit from the business, but be able to keep the remaining result in a bank. Crooks these days....
from TFA:
Prosecutors say that Devine shared confidential information on Apple products such as the iPod and iPhone in exchange for cash kickbacks. He allegedly provided suppliers with projected sales figures, data on how much it cost Apple to produce the products, and pricing bids from supply chain competitors.
This looks a lot more like "corporate espionage" than "kickbacks". I usually consider kickbacks to mean that he accepted bribes from clients for favoritism. But this guy was basically getting paid to spy on his employer and provide intelligence.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
At the end of TFA:
That's awfully sweet of her, but it's going to make it all the more bitter when he skips town the moment he's released.
I once had a boss who took kickbacks from vendors. I remember one time CDW gave him a huge plasma TV, and an iPod, and many other goodies. He also used to rent SUV's on the company credit card and use it to take his family on trips. He was eventually fired.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
Really there is nothing new in this 'story' so I'm calling it a dupe. The title includes 'Stashed $150,00 in Shoe Boxes'. Is that news? Is someone trying to build a case? Because we all know its a terrible crime to put cash in a shoe box. Come on. There is no useful information here.
in the Banana Stand
He now rates having the name of Paul "iStash" Devine putting him in company with Bill "Cold Cash" Jefferson and others.
I used to think "Made in America" when I bought an Apple product
So you're saying the last time you bought an Apple product was a Woz assembled Apple II?
Because like ALL consumer electronics, it's been pretty much China since then.
Isn't it enough to be proud of buying something carefully designed in America, regardless of who manufactured it?
Or heck, just to be happy with something well designed at all, regardless of origin. A well designed product counts as a win for the human species, I would say, since it serves as a model and an example anyone can follow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I friend of mine loves the iPhone. When the new one came out, he was one people waiting in the super long lines for it. Three times they were out of stock, so he had to try again later. He said he noticed some interesting similarities about the people in the various lines.
Quite a few paid in cash. Normally not unusual at all. But these people were paying with the exact amount needed (even accounting for tax) and with clearly uncirculated bills. They were also the ones that seemed the most vocal about how excited they were to get the iPhone and how awesome it was going to be. He noticed how all were using the same basic superlatives; almost as if they had memorized a script. Corporate plants? Who knows? But in was an intriguing thought...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I use those old metal CD cases you buy at Wal-Mart. Much neater and you can hide them in odd places.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
He'll be introduced to the government version of iBox'ed.
So the bugger had some cash in shoe boxes. It may be stupid, but that in itself is not against the law.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
And this is a crime why? At most this should just be a fireable offense handled completely internally by Apple.
Nothing beats cold hard cash.
I didn't think it was. Although, cops won't think twice about confiscating your money if you have more than a couple hundred bucks on you. They'll just suspect you of being a drug dealer and take it, since there is no shortage of unconstitutional drug law to back them up.
Wow. That must make me CEO at my company.
Since the total he stole was $1 million, he would still need a lot more shoe boxes.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
When you store money to store it, you use 100s.
If possible, get 500 Euro notes in the first place. It's a denser storage medium.
Roulettes have a 97% rate of return. Betting on red or black pays 2:1, there are 18 black numbers, 18 red numbers, and a 37th number which is neither black nor red and pays nothing. Some casinos have two numbers that pay nothing, but the outcome is still 36/38 = 94.7%
Maybe he was just saving up enough cash to buy the latest Apple gadgets...?
More so, this is kind of a big deal in the geek and tech industry.
No, not really. He's far and away not the only one.
-Every American brand that buys from an OEM has multiple people with this kind of opportunity.
-Every retailer has category managers with this kind of opportunity.
Take the scope out more,
-Every C-level exec who signs for the purchase of high-dollar goods/services (like a Microsoft, IBM, or Oracle contract) gets the same opportunity.
It's influence peddling. It's happening everywhere and the smartest ones know how to do it well within legal boundaries. This guy? Not so smart.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It would need to be one heck of a safe.
The pressure at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench is over 8 tons per square inch. http://www.marianatrench.com/mariana_trench-oceanography.htm
The first rule of security is not to destroy what you are trying to protect. You might as well just burn it.
This is an exec at apple. Probably making way more than $150k a year, sans kick-backs. It's not outrageously weird for the guy to have that much in cash.
This is how I roll!
They hire Procurement people to wrestle every penny out of a partner; and then expect them to behave differently when it comes to their own pockets? Sounds like poor controls to me.....
Inflation is currently running more like about 1% per year, has been in that neighborhood for quite a while, and there's reason to believe that we could be entering a period of deflation. And your typical passbook savings is paying a fraction of a percent in interest. So, while there are still a lot of good reasons to keep money in the bank (if your house burns down, your cash is gone... but if your bank burns down, your money doesn't. FDIC insurance. Etc.), the rate of return vs. inflation isn't really one of them.
So the revelation that an employee was ripping off Apple and funneling information to its competitors in exchange for bribes means you'll stop buying from Apple (and presumably buy from those competitors who were paying the bribes?)
So, it might not be standard or common for U.S. executive to be taking kick-backs like this. But from what I understand, this is extremely common in China. When you outsource and use a Chinese company to help you find the best / cheapest company, you probably aren't getting that. The factory you use will likely have paid a kick-back / bribe to someone working for the Chinese company helping you. From what I've been told (sorry to be vague), the lower level employees do this, and not necessarily the outsourcing company (though that wouldn't surprise me).
And they wondered why he had all those shoe boxes
Actually, he had $250,000 stashed in boxes. But for some reason, the feds only reported $150,000... :)
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Insulation... That's how you do it. Put that shit in the walls of your friends house and wait...
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Foxconn has been shaking off the reports of the psychological and physical trauma workers face as statistically insignificant, reminding the media that 12 out of every 1,000 Chinese citizens commit suicide every year.
Go ahead, quote Foxconn. You'll get about as much credibility as the Chinese state media.
Twelve out of every thousand citizens? Well, let's look at what the World Health Organization says:
Suicide Rates (per 100,000), by country, year, and gender.
...
CHINA (Selected rural & urban areas) in 1999: 13.0 males and 14.8 females.
CHINA (Hong Kong SAR) in 1999: 16.7 males and 9.8 females.
...
So I can either believe Foxconn that reports 12 per every thousand or the WHO that reports ~28 per every hundred thousand. Now, which statistic is the most believable? Foxconn's statistic means that some twelve million Chinese commit suicide yearly. That's an impressive number unheard of. That number rivals wartime casualties.
Maybe Apple's investments in Foxconn have lead to "good American ethics and proper treatment of employees" after all...
Again, from your own article:
All those who have committed suicide have been between the ages of 18 and 24 and are part of a young generation of migrant workers attracted to jobs in the cities who then face terrible conditions. While these workers’ struggles could have been forgotten, their important role in the global supply chain of high-priced, high-demand devices like the iPhone and the iPad is keeping their stories in the media.
A report released last week by Students and Scholars against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based workers’ rights non-profit created in 2005, details the exhaustion caused by 12-hour shifts, alienation from not being allowed to speak to co-workers, and a rapid just-in-time production model that has workers putting in a phone motherboard every seven seconds to meet the global demand for high-priced gadgets.
Once a company buys from that sort of situation or profits from that sort of situation, you are doing business to a degree outside of the ethics and proper treatment of employees that Americans demand.
Your post defending Apple confuses and frightens me. Why you would bend over backward to defend Apple when it's clear they've joined the leagues of the other tech companies is beyond me. Face the facts, the global economy has companies inside third world style labor countries lining up to be a part of the supply chain -- and American companies all too glad to make a buck off them! Now we know Apple's no different.
My work here is dung.
> t's not (yet...) illegal to possess US currency. Period.
You clearly don't keep up with current US law. As of Aug 18th the courts have ruled in "USA v. $124,700" that possession of large sums of money is automatically evidence of drug trafficking. Any money found on your person is immediately forfeited to the state and you may be charged with some drug offense.
Even before the judgement people had their money seized. For example, a few years ago there was a notable case of a trucker being stopped at a weigh station near El Paso, where a police officer searched the truck and confiscated $23700. Although carrying the cash was still technically legal, the trucker was taken into custody and spent six hours in jail. ACLU later filed a suit to get the money back, but as far as I know that still hasn't happened.
Also, it has long been illegal to carry more than $10000 across a border. That limit is not a hard one. Last year, TSA detained a man for carrying only $4700. So even if you think you are within the legal limit, you'd be advised to seriously consider carrying your money in some other form, like a traveller's check.
> Second, and more important: it's not (yet...) illegal to possess US currency. Period.
Possessing it is one thing, but if the cops catch you with it, they'll assume you're selling drugs and will seize it. Moreover, they'll sue the money itself, so you'll have one hell of a time getting it back (money doesn't have civil rights, and they're not suing *you*).
You actually have to prove that the money is innocent. And even that is hard, because you do NOT get the benefit of any doubt. If anything, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was yours and that you got it legally.
You wrote:
> Why do you only single out Apple out of all of Foxconn's customers?
In reply to someone who wrote:
> While I'm not faulting Apple anymore than -- say -- Samsung or Sony
How is that being "singled out"?
He hates the unethical behavior. You imply that what he said means that he hates Apple.
What gives?
Which is retarded. I do store some cash at my house, so that I have some in case I need it. I only keep $160 on hand because I'm not a paranoid anti-bank nutter. However even so, that cash is stored in a safe. It isn't an amazing safe, since it only holds $160 and various documents (like insurance information, passport, etc) however it is still a safe. It can survive a fire, which is what it is most likely to face, and also a good deal of water, which it would also likely face in a fire. However it is also pretty resistant to theft. It is bolted to the floor and would be hard to get off, and then weighs 100 pounds on top of that. I doubt a thief would bother, they'd just take my TV instead, but then insurance would cover that.
Now, were I going to keep $100,000+ it would be in a very good safe. It would be a safe that cost a few thousand dollars. It would be rated to withstand even extremely intense fires and long term immersion. It would weight a thousand pounds or so. It would be well secured, probably directly to the foundation. It would be extremely resistant to cracking, drilling and so on.
Why?
Because it would have a hundred fucking thousand dollars in it! That kind of money is worth safeguarding to a very high degree because it is worth a lot of effort for potential thieves. Nobody is going to go through much effort to steal my $160 because there are electronics worth far more that are easy to steal. However a hundred grand is worth some real effort.
This is also what you would expect out of someone who is paranoid enough not to trust banks. They are so worried about their money that only their personal stewardship is acceptable. You'd think they'd make sure to secure it well.
Stuffing bills in shoeboxes really does look guilty. Sorry, just the way it is. It looks like you are hording money you don't want anyone to know about and never thought how you might keep it.
But after fixing it, the logic looks sound again.
Foxconn had 10 successful suicides in 5 months, for a rate of 24 per year. That's the rate the WHO would say to expect if Foxconn had 86,000 employees. News reports say that Foxconn has more like 300,000 to 450,000 employees, in which case working at Foxconn during their news-making "suicide streak" period made you at least 3-5 times less likely than your countrymen to kill yourself.
Once a company buys from that sort of situation or profits from that sort of situation, you are doing business to a degree outside of the ethics and proper treatment of employees that Americans demand.
That's because American demands include "out of sight, out of mind" and "let them eat cake". Seeing someone in the third world work for us under awful conditions makes us feel bad, so we'd prefer to have them lose that opportunity and work under even-more-awful conditions that we don't have to think about.
I hear that Linux users stash dildos in their ass.
Faggots can't afford a real computer so they pass judgment on those who can.
Agreed.
If you must pick an arbitrary item, you should attempt to pick one that's not subject to many seasonal changes, spoils at a slow rate (to prevent stockpiling fluctuations), has a constant yet low demand (prevents speculation), and is not heavily subject to modernization (prevents inappropriate comparisons of "rare X" to "cheap X" due to technological advances).
Wool suits are subject to fashion demands, and while they were almost a staple in the past, today they are conspicuously absent in most of the professional working class. Cars are heavily subject to technological advances reducing the cost of a new vehicle (even if the prices go up, they just go up less).
Cheese is a good bet. Dairy milk fluctuates a bit, but not so much that there's been a huge cheese shortage in any recent past. You can't really modernize it much beyond what was done a few hundred years ago. Certainly machines make the work easier, but really you're paying for the milk and storage time for the biological process to do it's job.
Between 1914 and 2000 the price of 250g of cheddar cheese increased from 2 pence to 126 pence in the United Kingdom, an increase of 53 fold. Cross correlating that with white sliced bread, where the price for 800g rose form 1 pence to 52 pence, shows that a multiplier of ~50 is reasonable.
Your grandfather's suit (12 dollars) cost just over $600 in 2000 dollars. I would argue that the price of suits has (for the most part) come down, because a reasonably nice suit can easily be had for around $400.
This guy is going to get jail. BUT, it seems that the companies should be disqualified from ever doing work on Apple systems. And if it can be proven that others offered kickbacks (offer up reduced time to the manager if he outs them), they should ALSO be denied future apple work.
If this is not done, then it will simply lead to others to do the same. In addition, this would absolutely not be justice.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
that is a lot cheaper than getting easily caught. Keep in mind that since the patriot act, EVERYTHING is tracked by the feds WRT to banks, investments, etc. If a manager suddenly had 150K increase, well, the feds would have been all over him.
Also so would the IRS. And 30% of 150K is 50K. I would also assume that he did not get 150K. I would guess that he has spent a fair amount already.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Than my 401-K. Oh, this isn't about investing? My bad, move along.
Us Illinoisans had a politician (I wish I could remember the guy's name; it was back in the '60s or early '70s) who stashed gobs of cash in shoe boxes he kept in his closet. He was better at it too. His shoe boxes weren't discovered until after he died so he, apparently, got away with whatever it was he was doing to (ahem) "earn" the cash payments.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Up to $100k. If you have more cash than that, you can establish more than one account.
Banks fold all the time. Your money is still protected.
A Macintosh SE. or am I splitting hairs?
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
You have a point regarding gold, silver, diamonds, and other rare materials holding their value, but only to the extent that such items are in demand. It is possible to envision a time when even these items have lost their intrinsic value. If nobody wants or has a use for these items, then their value goes down. You cannot eat gold, silver, diamonds, or other rare materials, so they might just become as worthless as paper money. That's why I invest in firearms, ammunition, MREs, and dope. With these items I can barter for what I may need at the time, eat to survive, self-medicate, or use them to otherwise acquire other items I might need, including the currency of the day. "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope." -- Freewheelin' Franklin, Furry Freak Brothers Comics, Rip Off Press c.1972