Four Former Mohawk Employees Charged with Defrauding the Company

Chattanooga, TN, September 25, 2023-Four former employees of Mohawk have been indicted for allegedly defrauding the company by using a consulting company to illegally charge for information technology services at inflated rates and for work that was never done, reports the Times Free Press.

“The U.S. Attorney's office in Rome, Georgia, unsealed indictments Thursday charging eight counts of fraud against Mohawk's former global chief information officer and three other former Mohawk employees. Federal prosecutors accused the Mohawk IT workers of using a company they created, Meta Technology Platforms, to bill Mohawk for more than $3 million of outsourced IT work while concealing their ownership in the company.

U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan “charged eight counts of wire fraud against Jana Kanyadan, the 53-year-old former global head of Mohawk's IT division who lives in Marietta, Georgia, and three other former Mohawk IT employees-Sivakumar Thiyagasamadram, 54, of Cumming, Georgia; Madhu Shivalingegowda, 38, of Acworth, Georgia, and Chintan Sandesara, 39, of Marietta, Georgia.

“In 2019, the Calhoun, Georgia-based Mohawk Industries launched a multi-year IT project and outsourced work for a major computer software project to IT consulting firms. Mohawk paid Meta Tech more than $1.8 million before learning its own employees controlled Meta Tech. Mohawk then terminated its relationship with the consulting company and dismissed the workers, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta.”