Amazon’s Seattle HQ. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

A former Amazon employee was charged with federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after issuing false refunds for products ordered on Amazon.com.

A criminal complaint filed by the FBI alleges that Vu Anh Nguyen issued more than $96,000 in fraudulent refunds to himself and associates while working as a selling support associate based in Tempe, Ariz.

Nguyen used his employee access and manipulated Amazon’s product return procedures by manually authorizing refunds for items ordered from third-party sellers, according to the complaint. None of the refended items were actually returned to Amazon.

Amazon fired Nguyen after detecting the suspicious refunds and reported Nguyen to authorities in July.

“We thank the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for their swift work to hold this fraudster accountable,” Amazon said in a statement. “There is no place for misconduct or fraud at Amazon. We hold our employees to a high bar, have systems in place to proactively prevent fraud, continue to monitor activity, and will pursue all measures to protect our store and hold bad actors accountable.”

Amazon has faced larger questions about the actions of fraudsters and counterfeiters on its platform, despite a range of efforts by the company to crack down on such illicit activity.

See the full complaint below.

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