Former Optum Employee Sentenced to 36 Months for Fraud and Money Laundering Conspiracy
A former Optum employee has been sentenced to 36 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of a years-long employment fraud scheme that also resulted in a money laundering conspiracy conviction.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota said Karan Gupta, 48, of Walnut Creek, California, was sentenced on 24 August 2026 by U.S. District Judge Kate M. Menendez. Gupta had been found guilty on 17 February 2026 following a six-day jury trial of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ten counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
No-show job and kickback arrangement
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Gupta led a scheme between 2015 and 2020 to defraud his employer, Optum, Inc. He created a no-show position for his lifelong friend, Shangraf Kaul, 45, of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, as a data engineering manager.
Prosecutors said Kaul received salary from Optum despite not performing the job, while Gupta took more than half of Kaul’s salary as kickbacks. The Department of Justice described the scheme as an abuse of Gupta’s position of trust within the company.
The August 25 sentencing release confirms Gupta’s money laundering conspiracy conviction but does not set out the individual transactions that formed the laundering count. AML Observatory therefore does not infer additional fund-flow details beyond the conduct established in the federal case.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.
The case illustrates how internal corporate fraud can develop into an AML issue when criminal proceeds are subsequently concealed or moved through a coordinated financial arrangement. For compliance teams, employee-related fraud risks can therefore require attention beyond conventional customer-facing monitoring.
