HR manager stole $2,200,000 in paychecks by creating 22 fake employees over 8 years

A human resources manager in China has been imprisoned for exploiting a loophole by hiring fake employees and stealing their wages, according to a recently published White Paper.

In 2014, HR expert Yang joined a technology company in Shanghai.

During their tenure, they had the responsibility of overseeing the reconciliation and management of employees dispatched in various departments.

A HR manager (not pictured) was jailed after making up employees to gain access to funds (Getty Stock Image)

According to a white paper on the Prosecution of Duty-Related Crimes by Company and Enterprise Personnel in Minhang District, Yang was the only person in the company to view salary payments, while also solely being in charge of both hiring and processing workers’ resignations.

Realizing nobody was looking over their work, Xiaoxiang Morning News reports that Yang began to play the system, fabricating information and employment files for 22 employees.

After setting up the fake staff members on the company’s system, they would approve for their wages to be paid into bank accounts they fraudulently controlled, as per the policy document, released by the People’s Procuratorate of Minhang District, Shanghai.

Yang actually managed to go eight years running this fictitious scheme, allegedly defrauding a total of more than 16 million yuan ($2.2 million) in wages and severance pay out of the unnamed company.

Unbelievably, it wasn’t until 2022 that the HR specialist's scheme was roused by fellow company members.

Flags were allegedly raised by finance staff, who noticed a ‘member’ of the team called Xiao Sun who apparently had a perfect attendance record.

However, they realized that despite Xiao Sun being marked as ‘present’ every single day for the last six months, nobody at the company had ever spoken, seen, or even heard of them.

The fraudster conned the company out of $2.2 million (Getty Stock Image)

Eventually, investigators got involved and found Xiao Sun and 21 other employees Yang had enrolled on the company’s books had never existed.

It was also found that Yang had been syphoning money out of the company and into their own hands, causing the Minhang Procuratorate to intervene and lock down all bank cards in the transaction chain.

Following the investigation, Yang was urged to return 1.1 million yuan ($152,000), while their family pitched in and delivered 1.2 million yuan ($165,000).

However, that amount really pales in comparison to the 16 million yuan that was actually stolen over the eight-year period.

The white paper - which highlighted other corporate fraud cases handled in 2024 - alleges that for running the scam, Yang was sentenced to a decade and two months in prison.

Their political rights were also stripped for a year, and an embezzlement fine was also slapped on the perpetrator.