California Man Sentenced in Gambling Embezzlement Case

Narsimha Raju Sagiraju, 28, was sentenced to five years in a Santa Clara County jail after embezzling more than $400,000 from former High School classmates as part of an elaborate gambling scheme.

Sagiraju, who plead no contest to three felony counts of security fraud and three felony counts of grand theft, persuaded former Cupertino High School classmates to invest money with him for a construction startup.  Instead Sagiraju gambled and lost the funds in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo casinos. 

After one of Sagiraju’s victims reported the fraud to the district attorney’s office in November 2014, prosecutors opened an investigation.  The scammer was eventually arrested in Las Vegas during last year’s Super Bowl weekend.

But the $400,000 turns out to have been just the tip of the iceberg as a former business partner accused Sagiraju of embezzling nearly $2 million from him.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com