Chinese drone giant DJI unearths US$150 million losses from fraud

DJI has unearthed cases of fraud involving its own employees that may trigger losses of about 1 billion yuan (US$150 million) for the world’s biggest drone maker, marking one of the largest recent cases of graft among China’s technology giants.

SZ DJI Technology, which discovered the corruption in an internal probe, said it has fired multiple workers who inflated parts costs for personal gain, and contacted law enforcement. The drone maker is still looking into the situation, which is “extensive” and involves a major sum, it said in a statement. The company did not say how many employees were involved in the instances of graft.

DJI, which employs 14,000 people around the globe, is the runaway leader in consumer drones with almost three-quarters of the market. The case exposes a lapse in internal controls at one of China's best-known consumer technology giants, a symbol of the rising global reach of a clutch of fast-growing corporations based in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen. Hong Yongxin, a company spokeswoman, confirmed the loss amount separately.

“We are taking steps to strengthen internal controls and have established new channels for employees to submit confidential and anonymous reports relating to any violations of the company’s workplace conduct policies,” the company said in a statement. “We continue to investigate the situation and are cooperating fully with law enforcement’s investigation.”

DJI in recent years has also begun tackling a still fairly wide-open enterprise arena. It has developed unmanned aerial vehicles for agriculture and surveying as dozens of competitors around the world flood the market with cheap drones, from US$10 toys to sub-US$100 camera-carriers. Its US$1,999 Mavic 2 is aimed squarely at an enterprise segment that accounts for more than half of a US$9 billion market.