EMC engineer steals $1 million of tech gear

One of EMC's employees has pleaded guilty to stealing almost $1 million worth of kit from his employer.

Kevin Kelly, a testing engineer, stole $930,000 (602,177) of goods from the storage giant's North Carolina factory, before selling them on to BL Trading.

According to the court filings, registered at the US Department of Justice in Massachusetts, Kelly used a small bag to smuggle the kit out before selling it on the internet under a pseudonym.

Despite pleading guilty, Kelly will not be sentenced until April where he could face up to 32 years in jail, according to US law. He has been charged with identity theft, fraud and transport of stolen property and has already agreed to pay back $929,891 to EMC.

BL Trading is also being charged with sale and receipt of stolen property, wire fraud and the installing and selling on of products with EMC firmware that didn't have support contracts to take care of them.

We contacted EMC for comment whose response was that it had "cooperated with local and Federal officials" fully.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.