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Karan Gupta defrauded UnitedHealth of millions, says U.S. Court
Gupta hired an unqualified friend to a senior role and received a major share of his salary as a kickback.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Thu, 19, Feb 2026
- 03:46 EST
- 27
Representative image / Pexels
The U.S. District Court in Minneapolis found 47-year-old Karan Gupta guilty on charges of fraud, on Feb. 17.
Gupta, a former senior director of data analytics at Optum, Inc., a subsidiary of Minnesota based UnitedHealth Group, earning over $260,000 annually at the peak of his career.
In 2015, he recruited and approved the hiring of his friend despite the friend being unqualified. For nearly four years, the friend performed no work whatsoever, meeting no one else at Optum, sending almost no emails, and often not logging into his company computer for weeks—yet collected a salary starting above $100,000 that increased with raises and bonuses each year.
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Additionally, Gupta received a kick-back from the deal from each paycheck. The issue came to light after Gupta was fired for another alleged fraud committed by Gupta.
After a six-day jury trial, Gupta was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ten counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
“Those who manufacture fraudulent schemes to appropriate money from legitimate businesses must be held accountable for their criminal conduct,” said U.S. Attorney Rosen. “Kickback schemes and no-show jobs undermine legitimate businesses, and the perpetrators must suffer the consequences of their actions.”
Rick Evanchec, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office said, “Mr. Gupta abused his position of trust as the Senior Director of a subsidiary of the largest healthcare provider in the United States to defraud his company by hiring a ghost employee for a fictitious position, so that he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks over many years.”
Evanchec added, “The FBI is committed to holding those in positions of power accountable, particularly when the cost of their actions are ultimately passed along to hard working Americans.”
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