Tag: fraud

This is what happens when you use your government credit card to pay a $1,100 bill at a Hooker Hill club in Seoul:

One of the Army’s most promising generals will be demoted to one star and retired following a scandal that involved sex clubs in Seoul and Rome, high-priced booze and indiscretions with young female troops, the Army announced Thursday.

Ron Lewis, who had been a three-star general and top aide to the then-Defense secretary Ash Carter, will also lose about $10,000 a year in pension payments due to the demotion.

The Pentagon Inspector General “substantiated allegations that Maj. Gen. Lewis misused his government travel charge card for personal expenses, made false official statements regarding his (credit card) misuse, and engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman on multiple occasions,” Cynthia Smith, an Army spokeswoman, said in a statement.  (……)

Army investigators found that Lewis spent more than $1,100 in April 2015 during a visit to the “Candy Bar” in Seoul. The bar, in the city’s red-light district known as “Hooker Hill,” had been deemed off limits to troops. When questioned about the charge, Lewis denied it was his, the Pentagon challenged the expense and got him a new card.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

This is basically a scam which I am not sure how the Korean government stops people from being stupid and wasting away money like this?:

Choi Eun-suck was lonely. The 39-year-old administrator at a high school in Seoul wanted to get married but women weren’t impressed by his job. In early 2014, Choi turned to a matchmaking agency that specialized in international marriages. It showed him a computer profile of an eligible girl. She seemed both sweet and sophisticated.

Within weeks, Choi was at Incheon International Airport holding his passport and a round-trip ticket to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. His father warned him not to be hasty.

He should have listened. Choi met the woman whose profile he liked. She was 13 years younger than him. A few days later, he showed for a ceremony that was supposed to seal their betrothal.

It turned out to be his wedding. Before he knew it, Choi was a married man.

Choi returned home in late April 2014 to start the legal procedure to bring his wife to Korea. In June, she called to say she had been raped by a taxi driver and was pregnant. She didn’t know who the father was: Choi or the rapist.

In March 2015, Choi’s wife changed her story. She knew who the father of the baby was – and it wasn’t Choi. She had never been raped. She wanted a divorce.

Choi tried to have the marriage annulled but failed. He is now legally divorced, which puts him in a bad place in terms of getting remarried in Korea, where divorce is still stigmatized.

“People tell me to marry a Korean woman next time,” says Choi, “but no Korean family will approve of me. They’ll assume that my ex-wife divorced me because I physically abused her.”

And he feels cheated. The Kyrgyzstani woman was never sincere and Choi paid his matchmakers 23 million won ($20,079), which doesn’t include the money he sent his wife every month for a year. He believes he’s owed the matchmaking fee back. He is awaiting a final appeal in the case.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but someone has actually started a International Marriage Victims’ Center to counsel and provide support to people burned by international marriages in Korea.

Here is a story that is likely to get the blood boiling for many people this morning:

Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war.

Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.

Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.  [LA Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but basically California National Guard personnel were illegally giving out federal reenlistment bonuses to personnel who did not qualify in order to meet their quotas:

In 2010, after reports surfaced of improper payments, a federal investigation found that thousands of bonuses and student loan payments were given to California Guard soldiers who did not qualify for them, or were approved despite paperwork errors.

Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution.

Instead of forgiving the improper bonuses, the California Guard assigned 42 auditors to comb through paperwork for bonuses and other incentive payments given to 14,000 soldiers, a process that was finally completed last month.

Roughly 9,700 current and retired soldiers have been told by the California Guard to repay some or all of their bonuses and the recoupment effort has recovered more than $22 million so far.

The way I look at it is if the personnel who were given the bonuses did not know they were improperly given then why should they be forced to pay it back when they fulfilled their end of the contract?  This looks like something Congress needs to take a hard look at and rectify.

Stories like this make me wonder how much more fraud is going on in regards to VA disability payments?:

An Army deserter from Morganton is accused of receiving tens of thousands of dollars in veteran benefits by faking war wounds and military honors.

Roy Lee Ross Jr., 64, faces up to 35 years in prison on charges of executing a scheme to defraud the Veterans Administration, making false statements in connection with the delivery of VA health care benefits, stealing from the VA and making a false claim for travel benefits from the VA.

According to a federal indictment released on Friday, Ross enlisted in the Army in 1973 and was stationed stateside and in West Germany.

But he never served in Vietnam or Korea, was not in the Special Forces and never was wounded as he claimed, according to the indictment.  [Charlotte Observer]

You can read more at the link, but this guy did not make just one claim with the VA, but went back three times for additional claims and was able to get his monthly disability check increased to $2,906 per month and then even after getting this money he went and filed for travel reimbursement.

I guess this guy felt like he had nothing to lose by committing another criminal act while serving time in prison already:

A former state correction officer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve was arrested Friday on charges that he collected wages from the state while serving a prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Dennis Dockery, 52, of Bloomfield, was charged Friday with first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community and two counts of second-degree forgery. Dockery, who worked as a correction officer at the Enfield Correctional Institution, was incarcerated for 17 months at Leavenworth after he was found guilty of assaulting a woman in Hamden while on active duty with the Army, according to the warrant for his arrest.

As a military reservist, Dockery was still on the state payroll and entitled to a portion of his state salary while activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He was not entitled to any salary while serving time in a military prison, but forged his orders so that it appeared he was serving at Fort Leavenworth rather than incarcerated, according to the warrant. The state requires employees activated for military service to submit his or her orders to the agency they work for to confirm they are entitled to any wages.

According to the arrest warrant, Dockery fraudulently received $5,182 in salary from the state.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

These African scammers sure are creative and their victims seem to get dumber and dumber:

African con artists have found another way to swindle Koreans, this time by selling pieces of regular paper that they claim are actually U.S. banknotes.

In this so-called “black money” or “money wash” scam, unsuspecting victims are persuaded that stacks of banknote-sized black pieces of paper are $100 bills that have been dyed black and smuggled from a U.S. relief fund for Africa. Wide-eyed victims then pay large amounts of money for heaps of black paper and a dye-remover machine or liquid, believing they have purchased U.S. dollars far below the exchange rate.

Last month, a 45-year-old Korean businessman was strolling through Itaewon, a popular neighborhood in Seoul known for its many cafes, bars and foreign restaurants, when a Liberian approached him and said he had a lucrative business proposal. After leading the Korean to a nearby parked van, he fed a piece of black paper into a small machine, and soon the device spit out a crisp $100 bill. The businessman took the bill to a bank, where he was told that it was genuine.

He paid 540 million won ($463,100) for the machine and a sizable portion of black paper. He borrowed the money from associates.

The machine was a simple paper dispenser previously loaded for the demonstration with a genuine banknote.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but it seems the victim is just as bad as the con artist if they though they were receiving stolen African aid money.

The President of the Korean state run English channel Arirang TV appears to have been enjoying some lavish meals on the Korean taxpayer’s dime:

The president of the state-run English broadcaster Arirang TV was accused Monday of fiddling his expenses on an overseas trip, including a lavish caviar meal.

Rep. Choi Min-hee of the main opposition Minjoo Party said Bang Suk-ho, president of Arirang TV, used a corporate credit card to pay for personal expenses during a business trip to New York City last September. Bang traveled to the United States to cover President Park Geun-hye’s address at the United Nations General Assembly, which Arirang aired live.

According to Choi’s office, Bang spent $930 at a restaurant specializing in caviar in New York City on Sept. 24, the first day of his trip, and later expensed the meal, saying it was a meeting with the head of the Korean Cultural Service in New York City.

On Sept. 27, 2015, Bang visited the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets shopping mall in Central Valley, New York, and used his corporate credit card for food. He expensed that meal saying that it was a meeting with Seo Sok-min, an official at the United Nations headquarters.

According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper, both officials denied sharing meals with Bang or even meeting him.

Arirang TV said Monday that Bang did not misappropriate corporate money during his New York City trip, but mistakes were made when the expenses were filed. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

What I am wondering about most with this story is why is the police department paying their officers for up to 30 days pay when they are getting a paycheck already from the military when on orders?  This is just another example of good intentions creating an incentive for people like this guy to cheat the taxpayer:

 

A former police officer with a little more than a year on the job has been arrested for going on a Hawaiian vacation with his girlfriend while he was receiving full pay from the department while he was purportedly on a deployment with the US Army Reserves, police said.

In a press release from Lt. Sean Cooney, commander of the Stamford police department’s Internal Affairs Division, recently resigned police officer Donald Chen, 30, has been charged with first-degree larceny and defrauding a public community and was released without bond.

“I’m extremely disappointed with what happened,” police Chief Jon Fontneau said Tuesday morning. Fontneau said that the department supports their military veterans in every way it can, including allowing them to go on deployments for up to 30 days a year with pay. “What we found to be was a case of fraud committed not only to the city of Stamford and its taxpayers and the U.S. Government,” he said.

Fontneau said that Chen, a former member of the US Army, resigned from the department before he could be fired. “He would have been fired,” Fontneau said. Chen will not receive a pension or any kind of a pay out. Fontneau said that the department will ask that prosecutors on Chen’s case apply for restitution of more than $2,000 that he was being paid for by the city for his military service.  [Stars and Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

With the amount of money this guy was able to fraud people out of, it seems it would be really easy for him to bribe people to fake his death:

The purported death of Cho Hee-pal, the mastermind behind South Korea’s largest-ever fraud case, returned to the spotlight as his close aide was arrested in China last week, with fresh testimonies suggesting he is actually still alive.

Cho is one of the most-wanted conmen in South Korea, having allegedly scammed up to 50,000 people out of an estimated 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in a pyramid marketing scheme.

The purported death of Cho Hee-pal, the mastermind behind South Korea’s largest-ever fraud case, returned to the spotlight as his close aide was arrested in China last week, with fresh testimonies suggesting he is actually still alive.

Cho is one of the most-wanted conmen in South Korea, having allegedly scammed up to 50,000 people out of an estimated 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in a pyramid marketing scheme.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but just think the $3.5 billion this guy swindled people out of is nothing compared to the $18 billion Bernie Madoff swindle people out of the in the US.  At least Madoff is sitting in jail unlike Cho who likely still living freely in China.

Who knew siphoning off school lunch food could be so lucrative?:

A private high school in Seoul allegedly served terrible meals to students, and 18 people, including the principal, are accused of embezzling about 400 million won ($343,000) from the lunch budget.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education revealed on Sunday the result of three inspections of Choongam High School’s school meal system from May to August this year.

“We’ve found problems in the school meal system and evidence of embezzlement that adds up to at least 410 million won,” the education office said. “We’ve reported 18 people, including the principal, administrative officer and school meal subcontractors, to the prosecution and requested some of them be sacked.”

The school has been criticized for terrible food, and its vice principal openly scolded students who did not pay for meals.

A teacher said in a radio interview that the school did not replace cooking oil until it turned black and fried dishes sometimes had black powder on them.

The school is suspected to have tried to cover up the facts when the education office was about to start its inspection in May.

According to an education office inspection report acquired by the JoongAng Ilbo, a subcontractor who delivered food to the school was told to “only talk about the business and tell nothing about other affairs when the education office calls” by a former executive of the school meal subcontractor.

“Employees of subcontractors did not properly answer questions,” an official of the inspector’s office said, “and they appeared to be hiding something.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.