Another ex Polar executive pleads guilty to fraud
17 / 01 / 2024
Photo: Freedomz/ Shutterstock
A former senior operations executive at Polar Air Cargo Worldwide has pleaded guilty to defrauding the US cargo airline.
Carlton Llewellyn pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud in connection with a major scheme to defraud Polar Air Cargo, confirmed a press release by the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York on January 16.
Llewellyn is one of 10 people charged with participating in the scheme to defraud Polar. He is the sixth defendant to plead guilty in the case so far.
The charges were announced in April last year.
According to legal documents, from at least in or about 2009 through to in or about July 2021, the 10 individuals carried out the fraudulent activities in question.
Llewellyn and three co-defendants were senior executives of Polar (executive defendants), and six co-defendants (vendor defendants) owned and operated various Polar vendors and customers.
Llewellyn was the vice president of operations, system performance, and quality for Polar.
“The executive defendants agreed to accept millions of dollars in kickbacks from the vendor defendants and reaped substantial financial benefits as a result of their secret ownership interests in certain Polar vendors, in exchange for ensuring that those vendors received favourable business arrangements with Polar,” said the press release.
“The fraud they perpetrated, which involved a substantial portion of Polar’s senior management and at least 10 customers and vendors of Polar, led to pervasive corruption of Polar’s business, touching nearly every aspect of the company’s operations, for over a decade.
“As a result of the scheme, the executive defendants, along with two co-conspirators who also worked as senior executives at Polar, received unlawful payments either directly or through various limited liability companies they controlled in excess of approximately $23m in kickback payments or disbursements as a result of their ownership of conflicted companies.”
Llewellyn now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He also already agreed to pay forfeiture totalling $347,879.44 and make restitution to Polar totalling $305,800, said the US Attorney’s Office.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 7.
US attorney Damian Williams said: “Carlton Llewellyn was a senior executive entrusted with running the operations of a leading cargo airline. He betrayed that trust and engaged in a kickback scheme to defraud his employer and enrich himself, and his plea is another step toward rooting out corporate fraud.”
