Minnesota Timberwolves employee charged with stealing executive's hard drive
MINNEAPOLIS — Charges filed Wednesday accuse a Minnesota Timberwolves employee of stealing a team executive's hard drive that contained "strategic NBA information," among other things.
Somak Sarkar faces one count of third-degree burglary, according to the charges filed in Hennepin County.
The criminal complaint identifies the owner of the hard drive as "S.G.," an executive vice president for the Wolves. Sachin Gupta serves as the team's EVP of basketball operations, according to a media guide posted on the team's website.
The complaint states the EVP left a hard drive connected to his laptop in his downtown Minneapolis office Feb. 2. When he returned to work on Monday, the hard drive was gone.
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Investigators said surveillance footage showed Sarkar entering the EVP's office on Feb. 3. Sarkar was fired after the footage surfaced. He said he took the hard drive "to put some stuff on it" but forgot to return it, according to the complaint.
Another employee got the hard drive back from Sarkar, and the Wolves sent both the hard drive and Sarkar's laptop to be analyzed.
"They determined that Defendant's work laptop was used to open some of the files on the hard drive," the complaint said. "They also found that over 5,000 files had been accessed and downloaded onto another device."
On Monday, authorities searched Sarkar's home and found a storage device containing all of the information from the stolen hard drive. Police arrested Sarkar that day and he remains in custody.
Sarkar used to work under the EVP, but was transferred to the coaching staff in August 2023 "due to job performance," the complaint states.
In addition to basketball information, the hard drive also contained the EVP's social security number, tax details and bank account information, investigators said.