• Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 38, pleaded guilty to stealing more than $4 million from Facebook
• The former global diversity executive used her position to make fraudulent charges and receive kickbacks from the payments

Rachel Bowman –Daily Mail Dec 13, 2023

A former global diversity executive at Facebook has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $4 million from the company.

Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 38, served as Lead Strategist, Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook from about January 2017 to September 2021.

During that time, lawyers from the US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia said she cheated and defraud the company out of over $4 million.

She charged Facebook fraudulent invoices, then received kickbacks and used the money to live a luxury lifestyle in California and Georgia.

‘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,’ said US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan.

‘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 scheme operated in two ways to cause Facebook to pay for goods and services they never received which she received kickbacks from.

The former diversity executive linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards and used those accounts to pay friends, relatives, and other associates for goods and services purportedly provided to Facebook.

However, those individuals never provided goods and services to the company. To conceal the fraudulent charges Furlow-Smiles submitted fake expense reports claiming her associates provided services such as merchandise or marketing services.

Once they received payment from Facebook, her associates would send most of the money back to Furlow-Smiles either in cash or transfer to accounts in her or her husbands name.

To conceal the transactions sometimes her associates would wrap up the cash in other items like t-shirts or she would direct her associates to pay each other.

Furlow-Smiles also caused Facebook to onboard or provide contracts to people who paid her kickbacks including friends, relatives, former interns from a prior job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist and her university tutor.

She also got the company to make payments for her benefits in other ways including payments of nearly $10,000 to an artist for specialty portraits and more than $18,000 to a preschool for tuition.

‘Furlow-Smiles used lies and deceit to defraud both vendors and Facebook employees,’ said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.

‘The FBI works hard to make sure greed like this doesn’t pay off and those who commit fraud are held accountable.’

Furlow-Smiles sentencing is scheduled for March 19 before US District Judge Steven D. Grimberg.

Continues …