WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Fannie Mae, the US mortgage giant, laid off around 700 employees, including some of Indian origin. This is part of a company restructuring and an ongoing investigation into the potential misuse of its charitable contribution matching program.
According to a Times of India report, about 200 staff members were terminated for “moral reasons.” Many of these staff members are thought to be of Telugu descent. The terminations were carried out over two consecutive days last week and are based on charges that some staff members conspired with non-profit organizations — including the Telugu Association of North America (TANA) — to steal company donations for personal use.
Sources close to this told The Times of India that a few of the fired employees held key roles in TANA, such as one who was a regional vice president. A second employee had close ties to the American Telugu Association (ATA) as a spouse had previously held a leadership position there.
The alleged wrongdoing is for Fannie Mae’s “matching grants program.” The program, like most corporate charity efforts, doubles donations made by employees to eligible nonprofit organizations. Some employees are said to have worked with nonprofits to fabricate donation records. This caused the matching funds to be returned to the employees, which cheated the company.
The scandal bears a strong resemblance to an earlier Apple scandal this year. Apple terminated more than 100 employees in January 2025 due to similar allegations against its “Matching Gifts Programme.” In that scheme, Apple matches employee donations to approved non-profit groups.
In December 2024, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said that six former Apple workers — who were not Indian — were accused of cheating Apple’s charity matching program. Prosecutors said that between July 2018 and April 2021, the group lied about donating money to children’s charities and stole the matching funds for themselves. One of the former workers, named Kwan, allegedly paid back coworkers for phony donations while keeping Apple’s matching money for herself, cheating the company and the state of California, the statement said.
The two scandals share similar traits that raise questions as to the sincerity of corporate charity-matching schemes, especially in the event of concerted abuse. The Economic Times indicated that TANA was the subject of an active inquiry by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) into the Fannie Mae matter.
It was filed in December 2024 by the Northern District of California. It called upon TANA to produce documents before a grand jury. This was the information about all the donations made to it, the expenditure, and the names of the representatives associated with the organization during 2019-2024, as reported by the Economic Times.
This developing issue has caught the attention of both nonprofits and corporations, especially as investigations mount to find possible systemic problems. Although Fannie Mae has not made an explicit public statement, the dismissals reveal just how serious the supposed misconduct is.
Federal officials are continuing to investigate both the nonprofit organizations involved and the internal controls that allowed the alleged fraud to continue unchecked. Neither TANA nor ATA issued public statements regarding the allegations as the investigations go on; both Apple’s and Fannie Mae’s cases illustrate how well-meaning charities can be abused — and the increasing attention by law enforcement authorities who would like to stop it.
