Share
News

Ex-Facebook DEI Exec Charged with Stealing $4M from Social Media Giant with Elaborate Plot

Share

Former Facebook executive Barbara Furlow-Smiles has pleaded guilty to taking her employer to the cleaners to the tune of $4 million.

The former global diversity executive for Facebook used the cash “to live a luxury lifestyle in California and Georgia,” according to a Department of Justice news release.

“This defendant abused a position of a trust as a global diversity executive for Facebook to defraud the company of millions of dollars, ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her DEI mission,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said.

“Motivated by greed, she used her time to orchestrate an elaborate criminal scheme in which fraudulent vendors paid her kickbacks in cash. 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 served as Lead Strategist, Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook, which is now known as Meta. From January 2017 to September 2021, she led Facebook’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programming.

In that role, she could approve purchases and had a company credit card.

Furlow-Smiles linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards and through them paid friends, relatives, and other associates for providing goods and services to Facebook that were never provided.

Furlow-Smiles created a paper trail in which the people she paid had done work for Facebook when they had not.

Should companies have DEI departments?

According to the criminal information against her that indicated she faced a charge of wire fraud, “After her associates received payments from Facebook, they kicked back the vast majority of the money to defendant Furlow-Smiles.”

“Associates paid the cash kickbacks in person and by Federal Express or mail, sometimes wrapping the cash in other items, such as T-shirts. Defendant Furlow-Smiles also directed associates to pay each other, or others to whom she owed money, to conceal her involvement in the scheme,” the document said.

The criminal information said Furlow-Smiles recruited people, including “friends, relatives, former interns from a prior job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and her university tutor.

“She also caused Facebook to make payments for her benefit to others who did not pay kickbacks. For example, defendant Furlow-Smiles caused Facebook to pay nearly $10,000 to an artist for specialty portraits and more than $18,000 to a preschool for tuition.”

Furlow-Smiles also set up a scheme in which “several vendors that were owned and operated by friends and associates who paid her kickbacks” were made Facebook vendors. She would the order from them and approve “fraudulent and inflated invoices to charge against the purchase orders. Facebook paid the invoices once she approved them. After payment, defendant Furlow-Smiles directed the vendors to return a portion of the money they had received to her.

“These kickbacks were paid in cash, in transfers to accounts held in her husband’s name, and in transfers to others associated with defendant Furlow-Smiles,” the criminal information said.

Related:
Skydiving Instructor Jailed After 28 Deaths at Parachuting School

Furlow-Smiles will be sentenced on March 19.

“We are cooperating with law enforcement on the case regarding this former program manager, and we will continue to do so,” Meta said in a statement, according to the New York Post.

Furlow-Smiles’s associates were not named, and it is not known if they will face charges.


An Urgent Note from Our Staff:

 

The Western Journal has been labeled “dangerous” simply because we have a biblical worldview and speak the truth about what is happening in America.

 

We refuse to let Big Tech and woke advertisers dictate the content we share with our community. We stand for truth. We stand for freedom. We stand with our readers.

 

We’re asking you to help us in this fight. We can’t do this without you.

 

Your donation directly helps fund our editorial team of writers and editors. If you would rather become a WJ member outright, you can do that today as well. Your support means we can continue to expose false narratives and defend traditional American values.

 

Please stand with us by donating today.

 

Thank you for your support!

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , ,
Share
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack can be reached at jackwritings1@gmail.com.
Location
New York City
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Foreign Policy, Military & Defense Issues




Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.

Conversation