LISTEN: Milwaukee Tool Thief Gets 5 Years

Last year, an employee at Milwaukee Tool was arrested for stealing more than $1 million in tools from the Wisconsin tool maker. Matthew Yang worked in the company's IT department and manipulated the Milwaukee Tool ordering system to send tools to multiple addresses, including his own. On Friday, 32-year-old Yang was sentenced to five years in prison, which will be followed by five years of extended supervision. Yang must also pay Milwaukee Tool $1.08 million in restitution and will be on probation for nine years, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The sentence was part of a plea deal that saw Yan plead no contest to five felonies to have nine other charges dropped. Police were contacted in April 2025 after Yang had some 9,000 pounds of tools sent to his apartment complex, which is unordinary. The freight company reached out to Milwaukee Tool’s customer service to confirm the address, but the tool maker couldn’t find the order in its system, according to the local Fox affiliate. Yang would create the orders, have them shipped, but then delete the order before payment processing. He did this for some 115 orders. Milwaukee Tool caught six of them, which means 109 made it to their destinations. Yang had a unique knowledge of Milwaukee Tool’s operation. He worked with the company for about eight years, starting in the supply chain department before he moved to IT. During the investigation, law enforcement also found that Yang visited a local casino at least 140 times and sustained some significant losses.