An indictment charging Mohd Hafiz Lockman, Mohd Yuzaimi Yusof and Khanh Thuong Nguyen, three former senior employees of Telekom Malaysia (USA) Inc., the wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Berhad, with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft was unsealed on Tuesday.
Messrs Lockman, 48, of Dublin, California, Yusof, 44, of Livermore, California, and Nguyen, 48, of Manassas, Virginia, were charged with wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory consecutive sentence of two years in prison.
The charges in the Indictment arise from an alleged scheme by the defendants to divert more than $20 million of company funds through four interconnected frauds. The defendants used false statements, forged records, fictitious transactions, and corporate and individual impersonations to deceive counterparties, suppliers, auditors, and supervisors.
Mr Lockman was arrested on April 20, 2026, at San Francisco International Airport, and Messrs Nguyen and Yusof surrendered to authorities on April 22 and 23, respectively.
U.S. attorney Jay Clayton also announced that the criminal conduct was reported by Telekom Malaysia Berhad to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in early April, and the company had been cooperating with the office’s ongoing investigation.
As alleged in the indictment unsealed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court and other public records of court proceedings, from July 2020 through February 2026, the trio were senior managers at Telekom Malaysia (USA) Inc. (the American subsidiary), which is wholly owned by Telekom Malaysia Berhad (the parent company, and, collectively with the American subsidiary, called Telekom Malaysia), a major telecommunications company in Malaysia.
The American subsidiary’s primary business is selling access to broadband infrastructure to technology companies in the United States. The parent company approved major contracts of the American subsidiary, relying on management of the American subsidiary for information about U.S. deals.
While employed at the American subsidiary, Messrs Lockman, Yusof, and Nguyen pursued a multifaceted scheme to steal more than $20 million. First, they devised a scheme to sell Telekom Malaysia’s broadband capacity without the parent company’s authorisation and to divert the proceeds of those sales to accounts under their control.
For example, they requested parent company approval to sell eight terabytes of capacity to a multinational corporation headquartered in the United States for roughly $54 million, but, in reality, $54 million was the price the American subsidiary charged the firm for six terabytes of capacity, not eight.
After receiving the parent company’s approval, the defendants prepared two versions of the contract: one for U.S. customer that memorialised a sale of six terabytes, and another for the parent company that memorialized a sale of eight terabytes and that fraudulently bore signatures and initials of representatives of customer firm, including one representative based in the United States.
After misappropriating the excess two terabytes from the parent company, the defendants sold it for their own personal benefit to third parties, including a large U.S.-based internet services company and a subsidiary of a U.S.-based social media and technology company.
To conceal those illicit sales from the parent company, and pocket the proceeds, the defendants executed the sales through a sham entity they incorporated with a name meant to look like the American subsidiary’s name, and directed payments to bank accounts in the name of that entity, which they controlled.
The trio also impersonated a supplier of goods for the American subsidiary and captured payments the parent company intended for that supplier. In 2021, the American subsidiary was to acquire a particular type of cable from the supplier and resell it to an affiliate of the parent company at a markup.
Unbeknownst to the parent company, the defendants had caused the American subsidiary to purchase the cable from the supplier for roughly $500,000. But the defendants falsely represented to the parent company that the American subsidiary had paid roughly $2.9 million for the cable.
The American subsidiary sold the cable to the affiliate of the parent company for over $3 million, reflecting the markup, and the defendants then caused the American subsidiary to transfer roughly $2.9 million—the amount that the American subsidiary supposedly paid the supplier—to a bank account held by another sham entity with a name meant to look like the supplier’s, but secretly controlled by the defendants.
To accomplish this fraud, the defendants falsified several documents purportedly signed by individuals who the defendants represented were employees of the sham entity with the name substantially similar to the supplier’s. In reality, those individuals were employees of the supplier, and the defendants had falsified their signatures.
Additionally, the trio impersonated employees and interns of the American subsidiary and captured salaries intended for those employees and interns. For example, the defendants caused the American subsidiary’s records not to reflect the fact of a particular employee’s departure in 2020, and, from August 2020 through May 2025, the defendants caused the American subsidiary to pay that employee’s monthly salary into a bank account that the defendants controlled.
In 2025, the defendants finally recorded in the American subsidiary’s records that employee’s departure, prompting human resources in Malaysia to request an exit interview with the employee. To sustain the fraud, the defendants recruited another individual to impersonate the employee during the exit interview. When human resources subsequently requested a video call, the defendants arranged for their imposter to disguise his appearance and bear the face of the departed employee through an artificial intelligence program.
Messrs Lockman, Yusof, and Nguyen also sought reimbursements for fabricated work expenses. For instance, in January 2026, the defendants collaborated to request reimbursement for expenses incurred for a work trip that employees of the American subsidiary supposedly made to Las Vegas in December 2025. In fact, no such trip occurred. When the parent company requested pictures from the trip, the defendants hastily organized a trip to Las Vegas and photographed scenes with Christmas trees to make it appear as though photographs had been taken in December.
Telekom Malaysia initiated an internal investigation of the American subsidiary and the defendants. Upon discovering the fraud, Telekom Malaysia self-reported the conduct to the United States Attorney’s Office and received a conditional declination of charges against the company based on the company’s commitment to full cooperation, restitution, remediation of harm caused by the misconduct, and its agreement to report criminal conduct for a three-year period.