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New Jersey sysadmin gets 5 years for Cisco scam

Does bird for replacement kit switch

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A former sysadmin who pocketed several million dollars by scamming Cisco's part replacement program has been sentenced to five years in prison by a federal court in New Jersey.

Michael Kyereme was a network troubleshooter for the city of Newark between 2002 and 2007, where he was authorized to buy replacement parts from Cisco.

The 41-year-old was arrested and later admitted to falsely ordering replacements for faulty networking gear, and requesting swaps for gear that was more expensive than what the city actually owned. He then resold the merchandise in California and kept the profit.

Prosecutors say that Kyereme had requested 280 items from Cisco's replacement service, with some of the premium networking gear retailing for upwards of $25,000. He allegedly only returned parts to Cisco 132 times — and only 33 items actually matched the replacement part he received.

The scam defrauded Cisco of nearly $4.2m, according to prosecutors.

When the FBI nabbed Kyereme in 2007, he had nearly $3m in Cisco components stashed in his home and car.

In July, Kyereme pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion. ®

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Latest Comments

Realtech network cards

I was speaking to a sysadmin who said he ordered some network cards for some cisco gear and when he unwrapped the huge expensive gold plated packaging it was just a pair of ordinary network cards. So he sent them back for a refund and bought cards for £5 each instead.

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Dummies!

Certain techs will also try to rip off customers when OEM computers are bought and then they arrive the tech rips out the sound card then resells them on ebay.

Also the IT manager was fire thinking that for ever 10 laptops he buys for the company they get 1 free and he though he could keep that 1 freebie for himself.

WRONG!!!!!!!

stupid contractors.

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Shame on Cisco

Okay, I can understand them being tricked out of a few parts, but this many over such a long time period?

I am surprised that the chased this guy, he might have cost them $4.2m, but such a public display of their own incompetence surely must have wipe a lot more than that off their share value.

They obviously haven't heard the saying 'Fool me once...'

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