Former Qualcomm R&D Vice President Convicted of Selling Qualcomm's Own Technology Back to It for $180 Million
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced that a federal jury in San Diego, San Diego County, California, convicted Dr. Karim Arabi, a former vice president of research and development at Qualcomm, of wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, finding that he sold a microchip technology that rightfully belonged to Qualcomm back to the company for $180 million. Arabi is 58 and lives in San Diego.
Prosecutors told the jury that under Arabi's employment agreement, virtually all technology he invented while working at Qualcomm belonged to Qualcomm. Instead, he developed a valuable microchip technology, marketed it through a company he created, Abreezio, and carefully hid his involvement: he was the company's shadow chief executive, picked its corporate name and weighed in on its office furniture.
To carry out the scheme, Arabi created fake email accounts and sent phony emails impersonating his sister, presenting her as the supposed inventor of the new technology. The Justice Department said the sister was in fact a nonentity throughout Abreezio's formation, development, marketing and sale, and that in the summer of 2015, when Abreezio was filing a new round of patent applications, she legally changed her last name to further conceal her relationship with Arabi.
After the deal closed, Qualcomm unwittingly paid almost $92 million to Arabi's sister, and the department said Qualcomm actually paid $150 million in total to the coconspirators and others before discovering the fraud. The concealment continued afterward: Arabi invested the money in Canadian and Norwegian real estate while hiding his involvement, funneled funds back to his U.S. companies through intermediary shells, lied repeatedly through Qualcomm's subsequent civil fraud suit, and received steady installments of laundered proceeds until the month before his arrest.
The trial lasted four weeks and the jury deliberated for less than two days. Acting U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden said the defendant took advantage of the trust placed in him, lining his pockets by orchestrating a scheme to deceive and bleed his own employer, in a direct attack on the fairness and integrity that keep business honest. FBI San Diego Acting Special Agent in Charge Houtan Moshrefi and IRS Criminal Investigation Los Angeles Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher also said corporate executives who facilitate fraud will be held accountable.
Two other defendants pleaded guilty before Arabi's trial: Ali Akbar Shokouhi, another former Qualcomm employee and the primary investor in Abreezio, and Sanjiv Taneja, Abreezio's nominal chief executive, each pleaded guilty to money laundering and were scheduled to be sentenced on August 1, 2025, and July 11, 2025, respectively. The case, No. 22-CR-1152, was investigated by the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Norway's Økokrim, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas W. Pilchak, Janaki G. Chopra and Eric R. Olah, with substantial assistance from the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs. Each of Arabi's three counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and substantial fines. (Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California)
Source: 美国司法部加州南区检察官办公室
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于加州圣迭戈的高通公司总部大楼（资料图），楼顶可见高通标志。图：Coolcaesar，CC BY-SA 4.0，via Wikimedia Commons / Photo: Qualcomm headquarters in San Diego, California (file photo), with the Qualcomm sign visible at the top. Photo: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
