Links in “Financial Crime”

Imagine you get an email from your CFO on vacation in Florida authorizing you to make an urgent wire transfer to a vendor. The email contains enough personal detail that it seems legitimate, and the vendor is one you know your company uses. So you pull the trigger. The next day, when the CFO gets back, you mention it, but get just a blank look. You contact the vendor, who never received the wire transfer. You've just fallen victim to a "whaling" scam, which are on the rise, according to security vendors. [12/24/15]

It seems like we’re seeing more and more of these kinds of news stories. Jacqueline Ray, a 30-year President/CEO of the former New Orleans credit union, Ochsner Clinic FCU, has been charged with embezzlement. Ray created 149 fictitious loans and 71 fictitious member accounts over a six-year time frame in order to steal $1 million. [12/22/15]

Cheryl Vickers, a retired vice president, from Houston Police Federal Credit Union has been charged with embezzling $1.2 million over a period of 18 years. Vickers, who was in charge of accounting and IT, had outstanding checks reissued to herself rather than escheating the funds to the state. Vickers had pled not guilty to the charge. [12/21/15]

Former credit union board attorney and former state senator, Tommy Robertson, has pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement. Robertson stole $375,000 from a residential construction loan that he was handling for the $194 million Singing River FCU in Moss Point, MI in order to pay his own debts. [12/15/15]

The former head teller for Essential Federal Credit Union in Louisiana is going to prison for stealing $508,000 from her cash drawer, most of which was deposited in an account at another credit union. The theft was ongoing over the course of four years before it was detected.

The now liquidated Helping Other People Exceed Federal Credit Union (insert joke here), which was one of New Jersey’s smallest credit unions, has now been tied to a massive criminal enterprise that led to a large bank data breach.  A senior executive at the credit union was allegedly paid $175,000 in bribes to allow money to be laundered through a bitcoin operation. The $290,000 asset credit union was conducting $30 million a month in ACH transactions. [12/10/15]

Two mortgage lenders find out the hard way that originating home loans that don't meet HUD guidelines can be a bad idea. A Tennessee lender has agreed to pay $70 million and a much smaller lender in Utah has agreed to pay $1 million. [12/8/15]

A bank teller in Georgia cashed fraudulent tax refund checks for several individuals in return for a fee, even going so far as to documenting on the check that identification had been checked, even though no identification had been offered. She has agreed to pay restitution of more than $780,000 and faces up to five years in prison. [12/7/15]

Theodore Longust, former Business Relationship Manager at the $1 billion Scott Credit Union in Illinois, has been indicted on nine counts of fraud, misapplication of funds, and money laundering involving millions of dollars. This follows on the heels of a lawsuit filed against the credit union and other parties in April by former NFL star David Butz and business partner, Eugene Schill, that claimed consumer fraud and negligence. If convicted Longust could face up to 240 years in prison and restitution of $4.5 million. [11/24/15]

A small cattle-breeding business that had about $50 a month coming in suddenly had an influx of $7 million and eventually shuttled nearly $60 million through the account. Banamex USA didn't file a suspicious activity report. Here's a sometimes gruesome look inside a money laundering scheme that this Citigroup bank overlooked for years. [11/20/15]