Husband And Wife Scientists Working For American Pharmaceutical Company, Plead Guilty To Illegally Importing Potentially Toxic Lab Chemicals And Illegally Forwarding Confidential Vaccine Research to China – May 19. 2022
Chenyan Wu and Lianchun Chen, a married couple who worked as research scientists for a major American pharmaceutical company, pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from their efforts to gather confidential mRNA research from that company to advance the husband’s competing laboratory research in China.
The couple has been married since at least 1993. During his career, Wu had worked for multiple pharmaceutical companies, including the major one identified in court records only as Company A, where his wife also worked. In 2010, Wu moved to China, and in 2012, he opened a laboratory there, which he named TheraMab. TheraMab focused on mRNA vaccine research.
While her husband was in China, Chen remained in the United States, working for Company A in San Diego from at least 2012 through September 9, 2021. During that time, her research for Company A focused on mRNA vaccines.
From as early as November 2013, through at least June 2018, Chen repeatedly accessed Company A computers and copied confidential Company A materials. Chen emailed those confidential Company A materials to her husband in China over her personal Hotmail account. These confidential Company A materials included PowerPoints and Word documents with DNA and mRNA sequencing data, marked Company A Confidential. By 2013, Wu was no longer employed by Company A. He had started TheraMab, a competing laboratory in China focused on mRNA research.
U.S. Postal Employee & Son Charged With Conspiracy Involving Stolen Postal Money Orders Worth Over $5 Million – May 23, 2022
Dewayne Morris Sr., was a supervisor for post offices in Venice, Playa Del Rey, and Marina Del Rey. He ordered and received 10,000 blank Postal money order forms. A subsequent audit revealed that approximately 5,100 of those 10,000 money order forms were missing. With a maximum value of $1,000 per money order, the potential value of the missing money order forms is $5.1 million.
Morris Jr., distributed the missing money orders to co-conspirators. The money orders Morris Jr. distributed to co-conspirators were materially altered to appear as if they had been paid for and lawfully issued by a post office, when in fact they had not. Morris Jr. also provided co-conspirators with counterfeit driver’s licenses bearing fictious identities. The co-conspirators used those counterfeit documents to open checking and savings accounts at financial institutions throughout the country, deposited the stolen money orders into the accounts, and withdrew the cash proceeds before the financial institutions detected the fraud.
Union Financial Secretary Charged With Embezzling $112,00+ Of Union Funds – May 19, 2022
NEW ORLEANS, – BRIAN GERALD, age 50, a resident of Franklinton, Louisiana, was charged today in a one count indictment for embezzling assets of a local labor union in violation of Title 29, United States Code, Section 501(c), announced United States Attorney Duane A. Evans.
Brian Gerlad was the Financial Secretary of United Steelworkers Local 13-189. From on May 25, 2018 and continuing through on or about September 8, 2020, Gerald embezzled $112,594.18 from the union account.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/union-financial-secretary-charged-stealing-union-funds
State Employee Charged In Role In $1 Million+ Unemployment Fraud Scheme – May 18, 2022
3 woman have been charged in a criminal complaint for their alleged role in a $1.6 million dollar unemployment insurance fraud scheme aimed at defrauding the State of Michigan and the U.S. Government of funds earmarked for unemployment assistance during the COVID19 pandemic.
Charged were Antonia Brown, Kiannia Mitchel and Angela Johnson
According to the criminal complaint, Antonia Brown was employed by the State of Michigan as an Unemployment Insurance Examiner assigned to the Benefit Payment Control Unit. Part of her duties included reviewing, approving and adjudicating various Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Unemployment Insurance Assistance (UIA) claims.
Starting in March 2020, Kiannia Mitchel and Angela Brown fraudulently filed and / or accessed over 123 PUA claims, resulting in the disbursement of approximately $1.6 million in federal funds earmarked for PUA and UIA benefit payments. The complaint alleges that Brown acted outside the scope of her authority by electronically accessing, altering, and approving approximately 101 of the fraudulent claims which were all associated with Johnson and Mitchell’s residences. Mitchel and Johnson are alleged to have received money from third parties to assist them with the claims and paid Brown for her assistance in processing the fraudulent claims.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/state-employee-charged-over-1-million-unemployment-fraud-scheme
Former School District Finance Director Sentenced To Prison For Embezzling $94,000 Of District Funds – May 18, 2022
In 2006, the Christopher Gehris was hired as a controller for the Phoenixville Area School District (PASD).
PASD’s Business Office and later promoted to business manager. In 2018, he was appointed to serve as the Director of Finance. From 2013 until 2019,
Gehris cashed checks made payable to himself and to cash, received checks and direct deposits into his personal checking account for start-up money for student activities, stole cash from school programs, and obtained gift cards for personal expenditures, all in furtherance of his embezzlement scheme. He also admitted that he hid his thefts by altering receipts and falsifying reports submitted to the Board of School Directors.
Gehris pleaded guilty to embezzling from a program receiving federal funding and admitted that he stole approximately $94,613 from the PASD.
Ft. Bragg Employee Sentenced To Prison For Receiving $773,000 Of Bribes – May 18, 2022
Calvin Alfonza Jordan was a Procurement Agent assigned to the Operations and Maintenance Division, Directorate of Public Works (DPW), at Fort Bragg, NC. To obtain services, a Ft. Bragg facilities user submits a request for a repair or service of a facility, such as a roof leak, damaged floor, or plumbing issue to the DPW. The request creates a Demand Maintenance Order (DMO) that is forwarded to the appropriate commodity section. The DMO is assigned to a DPW technician that specializes in a certain trade, such as roofing, flooring, plumbing, or carpentry.
From 2011 into 2019, Jordan used his position as a Procurement Agent to receive bribes of approximately $200 per DMO from various vendors contracting with DPW, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, in return for increasing the number of federal contracts given the vendor. It is estimated Jordan received $773,600 in illegal bribes.
Disgruntled IT Administrator Wipes Employer’s Databases / Causing Severe Impacts – Sentenced To 7 Years In Prison – May 15, 2022
Han Bing is a former Database Administrator for Lianjia, a Chinese real-estate brokerage giant. He has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for logging into corporate systems and deleting the company’s data.
Bing allegedly performed the act in June 2018, when he used his administrative privileges and “root” account to access the company’s financial system and delete all stored data from two database servers and two application servers.
This has resulted in the immediate crippling of large portions of Lianjia’s operations, leaving tens of thousands of its employees without salaries for an extended period and forcing a data restoration effort that cost roughly $30,000.
The indirect damages from the disruption of the firm’s business, though, were far more damaging, as Lianjia operates thousands of offices, employs over 120,000 brokers, owns 51 subsidiaries, and its market value is estimated to be $6 billion.
According to documents released by the court of the People’s Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing, H. Bing was one of the five main suspects in the data deletion incident.
Bing had repeatedly informed his employer and supervisors about security gaps in the financial system, even sending emails to other administrators to raise his concerns.
However, he was largely ignored, as the leaders of his department never approved the security project he proposed to run.
This was confirmed by the testimony of the Director of Ethics at Lianjia, who said Bing felt that his organizational proposals weren’t valued and often entered arguments with his supervisors.
McDonald’s Employee Arrested For Stealing Customer’s Credit Card # From Drive-Thru By Taking Pictures – May 14, 2022
Police in Alabama have arrested a fast-food restaurant employee after a customer said their debit card information was stolen.
The investigation started when a customer told them that someone was using their debit card information to make purchases at various businesses.
Detectives narrowed down who had access to the person’s information and determined it happened when the card was used at an area McDonald’s drive-thru.
The employee, identified as 20-year-old Shytavious Davis, took pictures of the person’s debit card before giving it back. Security video confirmed Davis did take pictures of the card.
Wells Fargo Bank Employees Recruited To Hep Stea $120,000+ From Bank Customer Accounts – May 13, 2022
Michael Drummond admitted to orchestrating a scheme that was carried out in 2017 in which Drummond recruited Wells Fargo bank employees who would make unauthorized withdrawals from Wells Fargo customer accounts. The bank employees used the bank’s internal systems to check the account balances of customers without the customer’s knowledge. Those employees then told Drummond the customer’s name and account balance.
Drummond then sent another accomplice into the bank to pose as the customer and to withdraw the funds, unbeknownst to the actual customer. The conspirators used this scheme to steal $124,000 in cash.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/stealing-over-120000-bank-customer-accounts
Former Chief Financial Officer Pleads Guilty To Embezzling $433,000+ For 6 Years To Pay Off His Credit Cards – May 12, 2022
David McManus was the Chief Financial Officer for a Hartford-based company for nearly 14 years.
Between 2012 and 2018, McManus embezzled approximately $433,584 from the company by using company funds to pay off his personal credit card expenses, and by issuing reimbursements to himself for personal expenses unrelated to the company.
Insurance Company Executive Sentenced To Prison For Embezzling $5.8+ Million From His Employer / Used Funds To Purchase Mercedes, Audi, Diamonds, Gold Bars – May 11, 2022
From October 2018 to June 2020, Kevin Mix authorized approximately 42 wire transfers totaling more than $5.8 million from Insureon to his personal bank accounts and the accounts of shell companies that he created.
Mix was Insureon’s Accounting Controller and responsible for managing the company’s accounting operations. Mix attempted to conceal the fraudulent transfers by making false entries in the company’s records, creating fake emails, and making false statements to company representatives and the company’s bank.
Mix used the stolen money to purchase, among other things, several real estate parcels in the Chicago area and Ohio, Mercedes-Benz and Audi automobiles, multiple diamonds and gold bars, and membership for a private charter jet service.
Former Bank Teller Pleads Guilty To Embezzling #349,000+ – May 11, 2022
From January 2013, to November 2016, Karen Tigler was employed as a multi-service banker with the Hancock Whitney Bank.
From February 9, 2015, to October 28, 2016, Tigler embezzled approximately $349,556 from a client account by using 100 counter checks to debit funds from the clients account.
Tigler forged the signatures of the client and various others on the counter checks to conceal her embezzlement scheme.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edla/pr/former-bank-teller-pleads-guilty-federal-fraud-charges
Former U.S. Golf Association Employee Sentenced To Prison For Role In Stealing 23,000+ Tickets Worth $3 Million+ And Then Selling Them Over 7 Years – May 11, 2022
Robert Fryer was employed by the United States Golf Association (USGA) in its Admissions Office.
Beginning in 2013 in connection with the U.S. Open held at the Merion Golf Club, while working for the USGA in their admissions office, Fryer realized that he could exploit a weakness in the USGA’s ticket tracking protocol and steal tickets to the U.S. Open without the knowledge of the USGA.
Rather than notify his employer of this flaw, Fryer admitted that he stole thousands of U.S. Open tickets in connection with the U.S. Open at Merion. Fryer arranged to sell the stolen tickets to Jeremi Conaway, who at the time worked for another ticket brokerage in the area. Fryer continued to steal and sell tickets to Conaway for every subsequent U.S. Open through 2019, and he would have stolen tickets to the 2020 U.S. Open except it was held without fans that year due to the pandemic. Fryer admitted to stealing more than $3 million worth of U.S. Open tickets and selling them for approximately $1.2 million to his two co-conspirators, who themselves sold the tickets for a profit.
Former Labor Union Secretary-Treasurer Pleads Guilty To Embezzling $30,000 To Pay For Personal Expenses – May 11, 2022
From April 2013 through April 2019, Anthony Jordan worked as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
Jordan embezzled funds from the union by writing unauthorized checks to himself from unions checking account, and by making unauthorized direct debits, ATM withdrawals, and cash back transactions from the unions checking account.
Jordan embezzled $30,519.76 from the union. He used the union’s funds to pay for personal expenses, such as for veterinary services, utilities, cell phone service, internet and cable, groceries, personal tax returns, convenience store transactions, and more. (Source)
General Manager Of Restaurant Embezzled $20,000+ / Had Prior Criminal History With Another Restaurant – May 4, 2022
The restaurant owner Jason Webb says this is just the beginning when it comes to the damage George West has done.
He said the records of the embezzled $20,552 are just what he was able to get quickly to investigators from the past few months. Webb believes the true total will end up being around $100,000 as Webb said most of it came from the money the restaurant received through the Paycheck Protection Program to help offset pandemic setbacks.
West worked on the restaurants food truck at first for about a year. Webb said west was trustworthy and hardworking. Webb say’s he trusted West enough to become his general manager.
A few months ago, when Webb started taking a closer look at the financials, suddenly West stopped showing up to work saying he was dealing with his dad’s death. After West left, Webb’s four employees left too leaving him without a staff.
According to previous reports from The Charleston-Gazette Mail this is not West’s first go-around. He worked at the now closed Quarrier Diner in Charleston in 2015, coming from a work-release program on parole after facing fraudulent schemes charges.
He later was accused of writing bad checks and ultimately was blamed for the diner’s closure.
Former Chief Financial Officer Charged With Embezzling $2,7 Million – May 5, 2022
Vicki Berka used her position as the Chief Financial Officer and bank account login credentials to embezzle approximately $2.7 million from Bader Rutter & Associates for over three years. Berka used her authority to initiate numerous ACH transfers from Bader’s corporate accounts into a bank account she controlled and then made false entries in Bader’s general ledger to disguise her embezzlement.
https://www.fox6now.com/news/hartford-woman-charged-wire-fraud-money-laundering