US govt charges 3 former TM employees for misappropriating over USD20 million
Three former senior employees of Telekom Malaysia (TM) have been charged by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) for allegedly misappropriating more than USD20 million from the telecommunications company through a years-long fraud scheme.
According to the DOJ, Mohd Hafiz Lockman, Mohd Yuzaimi Yusof and Khanh Thuong Nguyen—all former senior executives at TM’s US subsidiary—allegedly used forged documents, false statements and fake records to siphon funds from the company between July 2020 and February 2026.
The trio have been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Mohd Hafiz was reportedly arrested at San Francisco International Airport, while the other two surrendered to US authorities last month.
According to the indictment, the former executives allegedly diverted millions of dollars from TM into bank accounts under their control through several fraudulent schemes.
One of the alleged schemes involved a purported sale of eight terabytes of network capacity to a US multinational company for USD54 million. However, investigators said only six terabytes were actually purchased. The defendants allegedly sold the excess capacity to other companies and channelled the proceeds through a sham entity they controlled.
The DOJ also alleged that the group inflated the cost of cable purchases and redirected nearly USD2.9 million in payments into their own bank accounts.
On top of that, the defendants are accused of submitting fabricated work expense claims and impersonating employees and interns in order to collect salaries. One particularly unusual allegation claims that they even used an AI-assisted impersonator to deceive TM’s human resources staff.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. described the alleged activities as a “deliberate and calculated embezzlement scheme” involving falsified corporate records for personal financial gain.
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