A grand jury in the Western District of Washington has indicted six people in a multi-million dollar scheme to bribe Amazon employees and contractors to gain an unfair advantage on the Amazon marketplace, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday.
The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired to pay over $100,000 in bribes in order to benefit specific merchant accounts on the platform used by third-party sellers. The accounts gained more than $100 million in competitive benefits, according to the indictment, and caused harm to competitors and consumers.
“The ultimate victim from this criminal conduct is the buying public who get inferior or even dangerous goods that should have been removed from the marketplace,” U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran said.
Among the “illicit steps” described in the indictment, corrupted employees and contractors helped reinstate products and merchant accounts that Amazon had suspended or blocked entirely from doing business on the marketplace.
In its own news release on Friday, Amazon said it supported the lengthy investigation.
“Bad actors like those in this case detract from the flourishing community of honest entrepreneurs that make up the vast majority of our sellers,” Amazon said in a statement, adding that the company “has systems in place to detect suspicious behavior by sellers or employees.”
Those indicted include Ephraim Rosenberg, 45, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Joseph Nilsen, 31, and Kristen Leccese, 32, of New York City; Hadis Nuhanovic, 30, of Acworth, Ga.; Rohit Kadimisetty, 27, of Northridge, Calif., and Nishad Kunju 31, of Hyderabad, India. The six are charged with conspiracy to use a communication facility to commit commercial bribery, conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud.
The DOJ action comes at a time when the government is also paying closer attention to Amazon’s own practices and advantages as they relate to third-party sellers. During a big-tech antitrust hearing in front of a U.S. House subcommittee in July, CEO Jeff Bezos faced questions about whether Amazon abuses its position as operator of the marketplace to compete with third-party sellers and inform development of its own in-house products.
