Swift IT worker pleads guilty to bilking carrier out of $1.65M

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Updated Jan 10, 2018

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A former IT worker at Swift Transportation has pleaded guilty to federal felony charges related to several alleged scams in which he embezzled $1.65 million from the carrier giant over the course of three years, according to court documents.

David Dwight Reynolds, a network engineer at the Phoenix-based Swift, made hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal purchases on company credit cards, which he disguised as company purchases, between 2013 and 2016. He also between 2014 and 2016 created a fake company and used it to bill Swift for hundreds of thousands of dollars in invoices for work performed by real contractors. Both schemes cheated Swift out of more than $800,000, combining for the total of $1.65 million.

Prosecutors say Reynolds used Swift credit cards to buy items like cellphones, furniture, TVs, cameras, computers, welding equipment and gun accessories — amounting in the three-year span to $865,000 in purchases. He would then create fraudulent invoices to file with his supervisors to hide the personal expenses.

The fraudulent firm he created, PNG Solutions, would bill Swift for IT work performed by other contractors, according to court records. He would pay the contractors with a Swift credit card, and then send an invoice, often for a higher amount, to Swift’s accounts receivable department to issue a check to PNG Solutions for the work performed by the real contractor. Reynolds embezzled another $800,000 out of Swift with the duplicate invoices, according to court records.

Reynolds entered a guilty plea to felony charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. He’s due in court April 4 to pay Swift $2 million restitution and to pay $560,000 in back taxes, as well as to face sentencing.