The owner of a Maryland-based tire importer faces charges filed in Mississippi that he swindled a major tire distributor out of millions of dollars. 
According to reports, Sanjeet "Sonny" Veen, owner of Orteck Global Supply and Distribution Co., based in Rockville, Md., is free on $1 million bond after a federal indictment charged him with theft of an estimated $7 million from Batesville, Miss.-based Dunlap & Kyle Co.
The 70-count indictment, filed in Oxford, Miss., could put Veen in prison for 20 years.
Federal prosecutors say that between March 2009 and February 2910, Veen sent false invoices to Dunlap & Kyle for tires the distributor never received. "At Veen’s direction, fictitious shipping container numbers were used on the deceptive invoices, to create the appearance that particular tire orders were being shipped, or would be shipped, by the factories in the identified shipping containers," the indictment stated.
Every time Dunlap & Kyle would complain, the indictment said, Veen would blame the overseas manufacturer, and would tell the company that he would handle the issue personally.
Veen, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, has refused to comment on the case. The case is presently scheduled for trial in Mississippi on Sept. 26.
