US court finds Indian-origin man guilty of wire fraud for hiring 'unqualified friend' in Minnesota

An Indian-origin man, who served as a Senior Director at Optum, a subsidiary of United Health Group, was found guilty on Tuesday of several counts of fraud, the FBI said. United States Attorney Daniel N. Rosen announced that the 47-year-old was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ten counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.

As per the statement from the US Attorney's Office, District of Minnesota, the ruling came after a six-day jury trial in the US District Court in Minneapolis before US District Court Judge Kate M. Menendez. According to the court documents, Gupta was earning an annual salary of more than $260,000 at the height of his career at Optum.

Gupta came under the radar after he hired an unqualified friend for a job in which the friend did no work and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks. As per the court record, Gupta recruited his friend in 2015 for a managerial data engineering position. He gave the friend a false resume, which the friend used to secure the position.

More from United States Of America

Indian man held by US immigration agency for sexually assaulting a child Federal probe launched into ICE officers over alleged false testimony in Minneapolis shooting case

The California man then became his friend’s supervisor, and the unqualified person stayed in the company for almost four years. “The friend met no one else at Optum, sent almost no emails, and regularly did not log into his Optum computer for weeks on end,” the court doccument read.

Karan Gupta, age 47, a Senior Director at Optum, a subsidiary of United Health Group, was found guilty after a six day trial on multiple counts, including fraud and money laundering conspiracy, for hiring an unqualified friend for a position where the friend did no work and paid… pic.twitter.com/cgIWXGXvhK

— FBI Minneapolis (@FBIMinneapolis) February 18, 2026

What Gupta got in return

According to the statement released by the attorney’s office, Gupta’s friend paid him more than half of his unearned Optum salary in kickbacks. “Gupta abused his position of trust as the Senior Director of a subsidiary of the largest healthcare provider in the United States to defraud his company by hiring a ghost employee for a fictitious position, so that he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks over many years,” Rick Evanchec, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office, said in a department news release.

The friend in question lived in New Jersey and was withdrawing kickback payments from his bank account in cash, then depositing the cash in a New Jersey branch of Gupta’s bank. The authorities noted that the friend later opened a new checking account, designated the account to receive Optum direct deposits, and sent Gupta the account’s debit card, which Gupta used to withdraw the fraud proceeds.

According to the FBI, the scheme was discovered when Gupta was fired from the organisation in 2019 for committing a separate fraud. The court records showed that Gupta’s fraud against Optum totalled more than $1.2 million.