Someone with a case of the Mondays tried to pull off a real-life Office Space accounting scam
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Anyone who's seen Office Space has no doubt dreamt of sticking it to their corporate overlords, but while Peter Gibbons and co. managed to get away sans jail time, one scheming software engineer at Zulily wasn't so lucky.
Ermenildo Valdez Castro, former Zulily employee/future folk hero, thought he'd put one over on the big Z. In court records obtained by the Seattle Times, court records revealed that Castro had a document labeled "Office Space project" on his company laptop detailing how he introduced a code to siphon money away from the Seattle-based e-commerce company and wire it into his personal account. The document was discovered after a search was conducted on the laptop after he had been fired. Unfortunately for Castro, when his plan went awry, Stephen Root wasn't on hand to burn the entire operation to the ground.
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In the 1999 Mike Judge cult comedy, Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) passively hates his job at Initech but he's spurred to action when the company decides to downsize. He and his two downsized colleagues Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) and Michael Bolton (David Herman) infect Initech's accounting system with a virus designed to siphon off fractions of pennies over time to a separate account — an idea they got from Superman III — eventually resulting in a pretty nifty payday.
Except a bug in the virus accidentally steals (checks notes) $300,000 over a single weekend, all but guaranteeing their arrest. However, just as Peter is ready to turn himself in for his crimes, long-suffering employee Milton (Stephen Root) torches the Initech building and with it any evidence of Peter's wrongdoing.
But this being real life, Ermenlido Castro got caught because he flew too close to the sun. And while there bought an incriminatingly large amount of swag.
A Zulily employee since late 2018, Castro introduced his malware in February 2022, diverting shipping fees from some customers to a personal account, affecting more than 30,000 transactions. Castro also manipulated the price of merchandise on Zuliy, buying nearly 1,300 items, worth more than $41,000, for only $250. While Castro claims that the money he stole is all gone, thanks to GameStop and other bad investments, when police searched his house, they found the hundreds and hundreds of items, some in the original packaging, shipping labels still attached.
Zulily caught on to Castro's little scheme last June and soon enough fired him. Castro is accused of stealing more than $300,000 from Zulily, including $260,000 in electronic payments and more than $40,000 in merchandise. He later confirmed to police "that he named his scheme to steal from Zulily after the movie."
So, ummmmmm, Castro is gonna need to go ahead and come into court for his arraignment on Jan. 26. Mmmmmmk.
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