In the second such case in a week, an IT contractor for the city of Newark, N.J., was arrested for allegedly using his position to defraud Cisco Systems of more than $10 million.

Michael Kyereme, 40, of Piscataway, N.J., was arrested when an FBI search found more than $3 million worth of Cisco parts at his home. They had been ordered on behalf of Newark, according to a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court. The complaint says Kyereme would request replacement parts, and either not send back the supposedly broken components or send ones of lesser value. In one case, the complaint says, Cisco sent Kyereme a one-port optical card worth $260,000, and Kyereme sent back an eight-port adapter worth about $2,000.

Kyereme told agents he'd been running the scheme over a period of several years and that the money offered by an out-of-state reseller to fraudulently order and divert the parts was "overwhelming," the complaint says.

In late February, Michael A. Daly, 53, of Danvers, Mass., was arraigned for using false identities and private mailboxes in at least 39 states to commit at least 700 instances of fraud against Cisco.

FBI special agent Steve Siegel says the two cases aren't related. For Cisco, they must seem all too similar.