INDIAN-ORIGIN BUSINESSMAN IN US JAILED FOR US$1 BILLION FRAUD SCHEME

NEW DELHI, July 2 (Bernama) -- An Indian-origin businessman in the United States was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for participating in a US$1 billion fraud scheme that targeted his company's clients, lenders and investors.

Rishi Shah, 38, is a co-founder and former chief executive officer of Outcome Health, a Chicago-based technology start-up company.

His company installed television screens and tablets in doctors' offices and sold advertising space on those devices to clients, most of which were pharmaceutical companies, according to a US Justice Department statement on Monday.

The company's 38-year-old co-founder and former president Shradha Agarwal, also of Indian origin, was sentenced to three years in a halfway house correctional facility, while Brad Purdy, aged 35, the former chief operating officer, was also sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

"Outcome's former executives deceived their clients, auditor, lenders and investors for years," said Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

They were accused of lying about the company's revenue to obtain customers and funding, and "sought to hide the fraud by silencing whistleblowers and duping auditors", according to the US government statement.

The outcome was founded in 2006 and was known as Context Media before January 2017.

Its investors included Goldman Sachs Group, Google parent company Alphabet and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s venture capital firm.

Shah owned 80 per cent of Outcome and was on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 2017, with a net worth of US$3.6 billion, whereas his co-founder Agarwal owned 20 per cent of the company, according to US media reports.

The Wall Street Journal published a report on the problems at Outcome after being tipped off about the alleged fraud in 2017.

-- BERNAMA