Former Jaguars employee accused of stealing more than $22 million from team

A former Jacksonville Jaguars employee is accused of stealing more than $22 million from the franchise from 2019 to 2023 by exploiting the organization’s virtual credit card program, and he used that money to buy, among other items, two vehicles, a condominium and a designer watch worth over $95,000. Some of that money was also allegedly used to purchase cryptocurrency and place bets with online gambling sites. 

Amit Patel, who worked for the Jaguars for five years starting in 2018, is named in court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Fla. earlier this week. The Jaguars were not named in the federal filing – the organization was referred to as “Business A” – but the team confirmed it was the victim of Patel’s alleged crimes. 

“We can confirm that in February 2023, the team terminated the employment of the individual named in the filing,” the team said in a statement. “Over the past several months we have cooperated fully with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida during their investigation and thank them for their efforts in this case. As was made clear in the charges, this individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity at the team’s expense for personal benefit. This individual had no access to confidential football strategy, personnel or other football information. The team engaged experienced law and accounting firms to conduct a comprehensive independent review, which concluded that no other team employees were involved in or aware of his criminal activity.”

An NFL spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Patel’s attorney did not immediately respond to an interview request. The assistant U.S. Attorney handling the case also did not respond to a message left with his office.

Patel is listed in the Jaguars’ media guides from 2018-2022. His titles during those years were coordinator, financial planning and analysis, and then manager, financial planning and analysis. The court filing states that he was fired in February 2023. 

Before his exit, Patel oversaw the company’s monthly financial statements and department budgets and served as the club’s administrator of its virtual credit card (VCC) program, which allowed certain authorized employees to “request VCC’s for business-related purchases or expenses,” according to the filing. 

His authority over the VCC program enabled Patel to, beginning in September 2019, allegedly make fraudulent transactions. The court filing states that he hid those transactions by identifying “reoccurring VCC transactions, such as catering, airfare, and hotel charges, and then duplicated those transactions; he inflated the amounts of legitimate reoccurring transactions; he entered completely fictitious transactions that might sound plausible, but that…