0
0
Theft of Internal Files from Minnesota Timberwolves Leads to Arrest
A former Minnesota Timberwolves employee, Somak Sarkar, was terminated from his position and arrested on felony third-degree burglary charges for allegedly stealing thousands of confidential files, including sensitive NBA information, from a team executive. This information was revealed in a criminal complaint filed and acquired by ESPN.
Sarkar, aged 33, previously worked as a coaching analyst for the Timberwolves. He is currently in custody and is set to appear in court in Minnesota on Thursday afternoon. As of the filing of the complaint, no attorney had been listed for him.
The Minnesota Timberwolves issued a brief statement acknowledging the allegations but declined to provide further comment at this stage.
Details of the Incident
According to the complaint, on February 2, Sachin Gupta, an executive vice president of the Timberwolves responsible for overseeing the team’s analytics department, left a hard drive containing both personal and team-related information in his office at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. The drive went missing and surveillance footage indicated that Sarkar had entered Gupta’s office on February 3, twice, under the guise of secrecy.
Upon discovery of the missing hard drive, an immediate investigation was launched, leading to Sarkar’s prompt dismissal. Another employee was able to recover the hard drive from Sarkar, who had reportedly accessed over 5,000 files and transferred them to another device after conducting a forensic analysis.
Subsequently, Sarkar was taken into custody, and a search warrant executed at his residence uncovered multiple storage devices containing information from Gupta’s hard drive. During police questioning, Sarkar explained that he had intended to use the hard drive for work-related purposes but had forgotten to return it.
The complaint further disclosed that Sarkar’s reassignment from Gupta’s department to the coaching staff in August 2023 was based on unsatisfactory job performance.
As indicated by his LinkedIn profile, Sarkar joined the Timberwolves in August 2021, following stints in analytics roles with the New York Knicks and the New Orleans Pelicans. He also served as a basketball operations intern for the Houston Rockets between October 2012 and June 2013.
Image/Photo credit: source url
