A former Takeda Pharmaceutical Company executive was sentenced Thursday to nearly four years in federal prison after admitting to embezzling $2.5 million and using the stolen money for a down payment on a condo, a wedding deposit, etc to have purchased an engagement ring and a luxury car, the office of acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said.

Priya Bhambi, 40, and her then-boyfriend Samuel N. Montronde were arrested on January 11, 2023 on charges that they planned and carried out a scheme to defraud the multinational company.

Bhambi, who lives in Brookline, pleaded guilty in June in U.S. District Court in Boston to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and three counts of bank fraud.

At her trial, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor handed down a 46-month prison sentence, followed by two years of supervised release. Saylor also ordered $2.5 million in restitution and seized Bhambi’s Mercedes-Benz Model E, a diamond ring, a Seaport condo, a $49,985 wedding venue deposit and more than $1 million U.S. dollars that resulted from their theft, Levy’s office said in a statement.

Bhambi’s “egregious breach of trust” was due to “pure greed,” Levy said in the statement.

“The verdict sends two strong messages: first, there are very serious consequences for executives who exploit their positions to line their own pockets, and second, law enforcement is prepared to do whatever they can to recover the stolen funds, when companies fall victim to embezzlement of funds and hold individuals accountable for fraud against their employers.”

“Fraud is never the answer,” FBI Special Agent Jodi Cohen said in the statement.

“Priya Bhambi apparently felt that her nearly half-million-dollar salary at Takeda was not enough, so she orchestrated a complex financial fraud scheme to steal millions more to pad her paycheck,” said Cohen, head of the FBI’s office in Boston. “(Bhambi) will now pay for her crimes through restitution and prison sentences.”

Montronde is scheduled to appear in court on December 2nd. He and Bhambi are no longer a couple.

According to a criminal complaint, in 2022, while working in the company’s technology operations group, Bhambi and Montronde founded a fake consulting firm they called Evoluzione Consulting LLC.

Bhambi hatched the plan via text message in late January 2022, telling Montronde that the wheels were in motion for “a little hustle lol… I can’t be honest though.”

“Doing a little paperwork, opening a few accounts, deciding on a brand and coming up with a name was all,” she wrote.

A week later, they fantasized about their lives as millionaires, according to text messages in the criminal complaint.

They set up the fake company in Brockton and designed a website for it, complete with made-up blog posts to make it seem like a legitimate business, prosecutors said.

Bhambi then coordinated the implementation of a master services agreement between Takeda, whose US headquarters is in Cambridge, and Evoluzione. Takeda awarded the fake company a $3.542 million purchase order for consulting services, the complaint says.

Evoluzione later submitted five invoices totaling $460,000 for services not provided.

The company became suspicious but settled the bills after questioning Bhambi, who explained the problems away, the complaint says.

Tonya Alanez can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @talanez.