Amazon sent the FBI to take my family’s bank accounts
What a weird story. I have limited, tangential experience with getting the FBI involved with crimes of an employee. In our case, they were not in a rush to make any moves against the person until they had an airtight case with indisputable evidence. Honestly felt strange given how obvious the crime was during the investigation.<p>Although in this case the seized funds were apparently returned. I have a feeling a lot of crucial details have been left out of this piece (EDIT: See links below to the investigation details. There are multiple parties involved and some of they were keenly aware that they were breaking laws that were &quot;FBI-type stuff&quot;). The devil’s advocate take on this outcome would be that the person cooperated with the FBI to provide evidence and&#x2F;or testify against bigger fish in the case in exchange for being let off the hook. If this was the case, we’d probably see some headlines about an Amazon-related criminal charges in the coming months or years. Although in our case the released documents were full of “Company 1” and “Individual 2” anonymity, so someone (usually a journalist) would have to figure out the connection.<p>Or maybe this really was some big misunderstanding with disastrous consequences to the family. Impossible to know from an article from this perspective.<p>EDIT: There&#x27;s a more in-depth review of the case here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.geekwire.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;former-aws-real-estate-managers-accused-taking-millions-kickbacks-challenge-amazons-motives-amid-fbi-investigation&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.geekwire.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;former-aws-real-estate-manager...</a><p>From the summary, it does appear that multiple people are involved in the case and the person in this article (Nelson) doesn&#x27;t look like the key player in the alleged frauds, though he would have played a significant role in facilitating the accusations. There&#x27;s definitely some shady business going on, but this guy could have been more of a pawn than active player.<p>One of the text messages from transcripts is notable (Note &quot;Nelson&quot; is the accused person in the Medium article):<p>&gt; “Flip me a couple buildings … and let me really line your pockets like we were discussing!  ” Ramstetter wrote in a Dec. 17, 2018 message to Nelson, according to a copy of the exchange Amazon filed with the court.<p>The transcript in that article is also enlightening, because it&#x27;s literally a conversation between two of the partners who acknowledge that what they&#x27;re doing is &quot;federal, FBI-type stuff&quot; and express concern over it. If you ever get a message like that from someone proposing to &quot;line your pockets&quot; in exchange for facilitating deals with your employer, maybe don&#x27;t work with that person any more.