The DoD does a “complete”audit of itself annually. And magically, despite publicly admitting the misplacing of tens of trillions over the last 25 years ($3.8 trillion in discrepancies just last year), they have found themselves free and clear of all blame.
What a crazy story! Accounting computers should 'announce' when something is awry.. Then they release her??? If she gets in one of those Aston Martin's, she can just push a button to create a smoke-screen, and they'll never find her! 😮
@@markw.8455: "When something is 'arry' ". The word is: "awry". Only the Astin Martins modified in the "MI6" shop run by "Q" (aka "Major Boothroyd"), in the "007" movies ever produced a smoke screen at the push of a button, or the flip of a toggle switch. 😁😁 I doubt very much that any of "hers" was ever anywhere near the movie set of ANY of the "James Bond" films, however, I could be mistaken about that. 😁
This story puts a special sting into all the Army vets who had to guard everything the Army ever owned all hours of the night, in the rain and cold and whatever else.
I remember marching around a most likely empty building between 2 and 4 AM in the middle of Feb back in 68 with an empty M14 Rifle during basic training at Ft. Dix, NJ.
On the news recently, they reported that just in the U.S. alone 9 billion dollars was lost to scammers in 2022. We have to start treating scammers as a threat to national security.
@@freethebirds3578Not all scams are abroad? There has been several stories about "pop-up" call centers based in TX (and elsewhere). I think even Steve has done a video on TX call centers (could be wrong about Steve....)? I'll go look😬 *I didn't find it on Steve's channel, twas probably another of the few hundred channels I sub to...
@@jcman240 That is the official number. But yes, a lot goes unreported for various reasons. So let's say the actual amount was $40 billion. That's still just 0.16% of America's GDP in 2022. That's like someone making $50,000 a year, losing .22 cents per day. For the individuals it sucks, but to the country as a whole, the money lost isn't really noticable. We spend a lot more trying to prevent and stop fraud, than fraud costs us. But if we didn't spend that money, fraud would be sooo much worse....
They always forget to bribe the ones that got them into the scam in the first place. She just had to pay her dues and it would have just been another missing hundred million for the DoD , which to them, is nothing considering they've failed every audit *EVER*
Namely, if you listened to the story, the IRS. She failed to pay Taxes, so the IRS probably investigated her business and found out it was fraudulent. I bet if she had paid her Taxes in full, the IRS would never have investigated, cause why the fuck would they care if the money is criminal or not as long as they get paid. And she probably never would have been caught.
@@Jirodyne The other option would be to be less greedy, actually set up the supposed charities, pay 60% of the funds where it was supposed to go and file taxes on both. Still a healthy profit and probably way less likely to get spotted. Just as well this type of person is not just greedy but also lazy and inpatient. Makes you wonder if there are a few smart, patient types out there creaming it.
Your lead in was perfect; it's what I always wondered - why these people didn't stop when they had enough. The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responded - “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . enough.”
Well there are some crazy stories out there, of people getting away with crazy things. One story of a guy who found a broken ATM, stole lots and lots of money over time, but basically felt guilty in the end, and told on himself. I remember a scam of one person who basically sent an invoice to some company on some sort of monthly basis or something, the company paid it for a long time, and only found out when the guy stopped sending the invoice. XD That story is a bit hazy, and would be harder for me to track down, but its crazy how much some people can get away with.
I was removed from a position for questioning the contracting system at a large Army Hospital. If you have the temerity to challenge them...make sure you are in a power position to withstand the retaliation! 😮
CO's transfer in and out of departments like teenagers working at McDonald's. One goes out and tells the new one, "here's the monthly invoices." Doesn't explain anything about them. The new one just signs away...
LOL, the VA, DOD and the government in general would NEVER truly help struggling veterans! I've got a lot of medical issues and I only have VA "healthcare," I'm honestly just waiting to drop dead one day from something the VA isn't treating. And people wonder why the military is having a hard time getting people to enlist? HA!
The answer to your question @ 7:55, Steve...because it's the US Army, that's how. Military spending itself is full of fraud, waste, and abuse. I spent 20 years in the AF and as I progressed in rank and became 'responsible' for budgets within my authority later in my career it just blew my mind in regards to spending. One year I almost got paperwork (in trouble) because I didn't spend all of my allocated monies; I had purchased all we needed and was forced to buy stuff we really didn't need, still didn't spend it all so the remaining monies were 'allocated' to a different entity. The real kicker is there's a 'Fraud, Waste, & Abuse" program that makes sure we spend the funding we receive 'appropriately' and some of the rules for spending were just insane. I could go on and on about this subject but I've already typed enough and now my BP is up re-hashing this subject...lol.
I saw the same thing in the Army and National Guard. If you did not spend all of your money than you did not get it next year. The dumbest part was that they would "fence" money that could only be spent on certain things. We would have no money for aircraft parts and they would be grounded, but we could not use money we did not need for computers/ furniture etc for aircraft parts. Just wasteful and we could not reason with anyone to move the money from one fund to another.
Yes, I was actually in the Army, and if you don't spend it all, the next year you get less budget. So one year they actually gave everyone steaks in the field. I only even knew why because I asked, "Why are we getting steaks?" My next comment was along the lines of are we going somewhere or is there something I need to worry about? I asked these together. Then it was explained to me.
Her problem was she did not do this through a string of LLC's registered at a few locations, and used them to buy the stuff. Nobody in the US military would look at under $100 million and care, especially if she kept it under the line budget minimum of $10 million, which simply gets put on the local budget as a single line of "Misc. expenses, total", and then ignored. That would have allowed her to continue for 10 years, get herself all the money she needed to retire on, then go on early pension. Pay the taxes for the LLC's, run them with barely a profit with creative accounting, and pay the IRS a few thousand a year, and the DOD would never have found out.
The DOD gets audited every year. The problem is they fail it every year because their financial and inventory systems are so old/broken you can't actually track everything properly. Each branch of the military has it's own financial system. They aren't designed to work together so you have all of these various crosswalks to try matching transactions between them. The intergovernmental transactions alone are a mess.
@@nfurber2Additionally, the DoD performs its own audits. Because that’s totally how upright and law-abiding organizations do business. $3.8 trillion in discrepancies just last year alone. But nobody got fired, imprisoned, censured, or even sternly admonished. Shocking.
This really shows just how ineffective our government is with managing funds. Could you imagine if for just one or two years that our tax dollars went towards actual needs?
AKtuAlly... considering the unimaginable amount of money that passes thru the government, it is remarkably effective and corruption free compared to many other places on Earth. They did catch her. What you consider an "actual need" is not the same as someone else, and the government has to balance that.
I used to work in IT accounting support. Going in and out of quite a few company accounting offices. The accountant who never took a holiday all ways gained are attention as we knew the accountant was fiddling the books. The account fear was someone would come into the company and take over their job for their holiday and find out how the account was fiddling the books.
Some people can be so smart and stupid at the same time. I am smart enough to know that I am not smart enough to ever get away with something like this.
I once heard someone allegedly asked J.D Rockefeller how much money is "Too much money" and he smiled and replied, "more than you currently have". In essence he thinks that too much money doesn't exist. I have always said it's not how much you have but what you do with it. John Wesley said, "Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can," which is a theology I try to live by.
Just when I thought I heard it all, by the way, American Greed is one of my favorite shows also. I just don't get how a person's spirit gets so corrupted that they can't control their urges from buying things that don't make no sense.She could've given away 99 million to the needy and kept the rest for herself Thanx for another great article.
I can only imagine how much wounded veterans could have benifited from this money! This shows the deep lack of proper care medical care for our wounded veterans and family that need help!
Indeed. There is no caring or heart in our government machine. All they care about is power & money. I'm sure there are a few good souls within that try to help but not much they can do...
The Army is lucky Schumer and Johnson reached a deal and the military is getting $886 billion. Since the military cannot pass an audit whats $100 million.
While I was in the service,we had one incident where a young airman in accounting, was busted for stealing. He got caught because he was buying cars that were way out of his pay grade. What he was doing, he modified the computer system to round off contracts to the nearest one thousand, and depositing the rounded off portion into his account.
Not the craziest use of stolen funds I heard Mr Lehto. There was this CN central bank manager who had an entire building for his mistresses and their kids. When he got arrested for corruption and they seized his properties, there were 94 women lined up at the police station because they were going homeless. He was executed within 7 days of his sentence to prevent coughing up important people.
We found at the other end of a CFO's fraud - three homes with "ladies" being kept. The ladies all had long police records but had nice cars and houses by any standard. The work & skill needed to keep this all up in the air - he could have ran any company out there. It all went south when he was found passed out (from drugs) in the parking lot - in the car was $35k in cash and nearly 500 pills and a ledger book.
The people paying these disbursements are enlisted army personnel between 18-22 and are doing it the way they are trained to. They aren't doing audits of the invoices as they come in. What got her caught was her continuing greed.
I'm taking a day off work I can't afford. Had a frozen pipe burst and am taking a quick break from an all nighter cleaning up the small flood before doing some plumbing repairs. I'm too tired and stressed out to get mad at this woman. Rather, I'm thinking that despite my aversion to stealing, I'm in the wrong business.
This is actually a story as old as 1775. As someone who is not only an Army vet I’m also a Navy vet and honestly even though the military might move slow they always catch up with the people who do these things. It’s sort of the reverse of hurry up & wait because once they are caught they move with lightning speed. I actually remember when I was in the Army in 02 or 03 there was this huge investigation into a bunch of Army & Marines for using official credit cards to buy TVs, stereos, vacations & in some cases ladies of the evening (we were in Europe where it’s legal). I can’t remember what the outcome as far as jail time was but I believe they were dishonorably discharged. Even before this though I just kept my credit card in a safe in my office because when they gave me that card all I could hear was that fish headed Admiral from Star Wars saying “it’s a trap.”
@@Mullins23 yeah my dude, you don’t have a f’ing clue how this works. The IRS played a small role in catching her. I can tell you with 200% certainty how this went down but first let me point this out, all of the information we got would only come from a military investigation. Here’s what happened, the IRS flagged one of her returns & it usually takes time for them to get to it because at the time they were understaffed. Once they saw the money coming from the Army they forwarded their information onto Ft. Sam Houston. The Commanding General’s office would’ve had then contacted whatever section she worked in. That section would’ve done an audit then it would’ve been forwarded back up to the CG’s office where JAG would’ve gotten involved & they would’ve contacted CID & then CID would’ve done their own investigation. After all of that between the CG’s office, JAG, CID, & federal authorities they would’ve decided who was going to prosecute her. Lastly, let me tell you how military, he’ll even federal budgets in general work. There is an overall budget in this case the Army. The Army then approves budgets for each let’s just say base to keep it simple. Then each base approves budget request from each company then the company approves budgets from each section. When I was in the Army I worked in G-5 and wrote up our budget request. Then my colonel would go to the DCG to submit our budget request and it got forwarded upward. There’s nobody sitting in DC looking at what someone at a base in Texas is doing, there’s someone at that base in Texas looking at what that company is doing though.
@@jasoncarter4343 how do you think things get paid for when someone goes TAD? Not everyone gets a credit card & it depends on your job. There are times where you have to travel so instead of paying out of the military personnel’s own pocket then submitting for reimbursement they are given a credit card & they submit their receipts.
"Intentional" is a new one for corporate gobbledygook mission statements. Before I retired, "holistic" was the sine qua non of every corporate mission statement.
I was formerly employed by the VA. It does not surprise me at all that someone was able to steal that much money and go unnoticed. People would lapse into seizures if they knew the corruption on every level that happens ALL THE TIME.
If she had been smart she would have purchased only one home (that she lived in), one car (that she drives), and had the rest of the money stashed in a country without an extradition treaty, and ran as soon as the heat started coming down.
And this was only one person that took this long to be noticed and caught, which makes me wonder, how many others are out there doing this same thing, especially with the free-money train we operate via the military in this country?
Plenty enough, you do not think the militasry pays $500 for a hammer. Though here by me the state is paying $500 for a broom you can buy for $1, and $30 each for garbage bags, you buy for 50c per pack of 100. Gotta pay for those party kickbacks somehow.
You said that the IRS began investigating her when her scamming company stopped paying taxes. Which leads one to believe that she would have been caught at $50M, too. Perhaps she could have avoided it if she decided to live off her ill-gotten gains and close her company while filing the appropriate paperwork.
Essentially, yeah. Money always gets things done. That’s how Capone was taken down, and a lot of the modern politicians that do get arrested are arrested for money related stuff too
31 homes is 1 to live in and 30 to rent, you turn them over to a property management company and collect profits. All those ridiculous car auctions are like art auctions they are just money laundering and tax evasion.
Just started the video, noticed the title. Didn't we leave more than $100 million worth of equipment at a particular country location we tried assisting? Like left it and didn't even take time to pack up anything
Q: "Who doesn't notice $100M being syphoned off?" A: An 'organization' that receives $900B in funding annually. Let's face it, for a defense contractor executive, $100M is just their monthly yacht-and-soft-cheese budget.
When a lawyer tells you something written down is "gobbledygook" you should believe them. I think 75% of what corporations and executives at said corporations say is pure "gobbledygook".
I worked for a company that prior to my employment had a bookkeeper rob the place blind. The primary way she did it was by getting her daughter hired with the same company and then paying the daughter and herself double paychecks. Her plan to cover her tracks was to drive the business bankrupt and then go get a new job somewhere else and do it again (she had apparently used the plan with the prior business she had worked for). The glitch in her plan was that the owner of the company I eventually went to work for had enough separate capital and investments to continue to finance the company past the point when it should have gone out of business.
I see on further study that she was a civilian Army employee in charge of distributing the kinds of funds she stole. That kind of makes it a little easier!
Our County Council is supposedly bankrupt or soon to declare, one of our neighbours used to work for one of their contractors that they used to repair the roads. They quit after they were told to submit the bill for work done multiple times with a days gap between them so they would be paid multiple times for the same work they said it was the norm submit a low bid rather than cost and a bit then send it in multiple time and get paid more for the same work.
@alli3219 I used to use correct punctuation.. before I had a car crash and had to learn to reas and write again from scratch.. Take a look in the mirror and figure out what mistakes your making...
This is why aggressive oversight should be a thing. There should be corporations whose sole business is investigating charities and other businesses. It probably would have taken sending someone to the business address to find out she was not legitimate. If I had the money I would start one I think a person could honestly make a lot of money in such an honest venture.
Sure, they'll pay out on $100M of fraudulent claims but submit a $3.00 rebate form, wait 6-8 weeks and then it's *DENIED* for not putting a period after your middle initial. Yup, that's fine....
1.1... 3 trillion maybe .. do you trust the official numbers... Kind of like the jobs report every month; but I appreciate your input. Still waiting for a still shot of that plane.. I worship the Oozlefinch what do I know... Start laughing when you search engine Oozlefinch...🤗
Released without bail? She's the epitome of a flight risk. She faces life long imprisonment and may have millions of dollars secretly stashed away somewhere. Another data point suggesting bail is more about punishment without due process rather than reducing flight risk.
@@equallawandorder5393 No. No it didn't. I didn't pay close attention to the prosecutions however, I know of no defendent who one has access to tens of millions of dollars and (not "or" but AND) was facing a 100+ year sentence.
I sold a rare car to a guy a few years ago. During the transaction I started talking about some the cars quirks and the guy said...."that doesn't matter, I don't think I will ever drive it, I just warehouse them and sell them down the road". Come to find out, this was the 59th car in his warehouse. He stacked them 4 high on racks.
"She was released without bail"
If she stole a loaf of bread, she'd be denied bail.
SMH Steal 100 Million and No bail. She could have hidden millions more and flee the country.
I've heard a loaf of bread can get you 19 years hard labor.
She is NOT some lone wolf, the government accounting system is ripe for this type of abuse. NONE of the services have done a complete audit is years!
What are you talking about? We've investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong.
The DoD does a “complete”audit of itself annually. And magically, despite publicly admitting the misplacing of tens of trillions over the last 25 years ($3.8 trillion in discrepancies just last year), they have found themselves free and clear of all blame.
What a crazy story!
Accounting computers should
'announce' when something is awry..
Then they release her???
If she gets in one of those
Aston Martin's, she can just
push a button to create a
smoke-screen, and they'll
never find her! 😮
You are absolutely correct. The theft and corruption is mind boggling.
@@markw.8455:
"When something is 'arry' ". The word is: "awry".
Only the Astin Martins modified in the "MI6" shop run by "Q" (aka "Major Boothroyd"), in the "007" movies ever produced a smoke screen at the push of a button, or the flip of a toggle switch.
😁😁
I doubt very much that any of "hers" was ever anywhere near the movie set of ANY of the "James Bond" films, however, I could be mistaken about that.
😁
Released without bail? Did the court buy her a plane ticket to Argentina as well?
Exactly!
I couldn't get that for just tickets had to sit in jail
They likely confiscated her passport but I imagine coyotes work in both directions.
wonder who was on her list of "payees" - maybe the judge?
she probably has money hidden and they wanted to let her go, so she could lead them right to it.
Bumper sticker I saw many years ago - " Don't steal , the government hates competition ".
😂
I had a license plate with that on it.
😂😂😂😂😂
This story puts a special sting into all the Army vets who had to guard everything the Army ever owned all hours of the night, in the rain and cold and whatever else.
The only time I've ever wanted to wear the marshmallow suit was watching a container at 2am.
I remember marching around a most likely empty building between 2 and 4 AM in the middle of Feb back in 68 with an empty M14 Rifle during basic training at Ft. Dix, NJ.
I remember many times having to pull guard duty to prevent theft.
@@WayneClarke-e2s Permission to load, sir? Why? Too late-I'm dead!
We're all government property after all.
On the news recently, they reported that just in the U.S. alone 9 billion dollars was lost to scammers in 2022. We have to start treating scammers as a threat to national security.
Because they are. Many are from nations that don't always love the US.
@@freethebirds3578Not all scams are abroad? There has been several stories about "pop-up" call centers based in TX (and elsewhere). I think even Steve has done a video on TX call centers (could be wrong about Steve....)? I'll go look😬
*I didn't find it on Steve's channel, twas probably another of the few hundred channels I sub to...
9 Billion is way way too low
@@jcman240
That is the official number. But yes, a lot goes unreported for various reasons.
So let's say the actual amount was $40 billion.
That's still just 0.16% of America's GDP in 2022.
That's like someone making $50,000 a year, losing .22 cents per day.
For the individuals it sucks, but to the country as a whole, the money lost isn't really noticable.
We spend a lot more trying to prevent and stop fraud, than fraud costs us.
But if we didn't spend that money, fraud would be sooo much worse....
The military can't account for half their budget in recent audits. First look inside.
Imagine stealing that much and not having to pay bail to get out
Just like trump.
Apparently she got too greedy and failed to payoff the correct people.
More likely Biden heard about it and had them come down on her because he wasn't getting his 10%.
They always forget to bribe the ones that got them into the scam in the first place.
She just had to pay her dues and it would have just been another missing hundred million for the DoD , which to them, is nothing considering they've failed every audit *EVER*
Namely, if you listened to the story, the IRS. She failed to pay Taxes, so the IRS probably investigated her business and found out it was fraudulent. I bet if she had paid her Taxes in full, the IRS would never have investigated, cause why the fuck would they care if the money is criminal or not as long as they get paid. And she probably never would have been caught.
@@Jirodyne The other option would be to be less greedy, actually set up the supposed charities, pay 60% of the funds where it was supposed to go and file taxes on both.
Still a healthy profit and probably way less likely to get spotted.
Just as well this type of person is not just greedy but also lazy and inpatient.
Makes you wonder if there are a few smart, patient types out there creaming it.
The Army didn't catch this; the IRS did.
I already commented that if she’d paid the taxes she would have gotten away with it.
I know lots of people who steal from the USA
I bet someone in the army knew, approved of and got a cut.
@@pansepot1490 No Doubt.
If she had set it up as a church the IRS might not have been looking.
"A million dollars, here, a million dollars, there, pretty soon you're talking real money."
Your lead in was perfect; it's what I always wondered - why these people didn't stop when they had enough. The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responded - “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . enough.”
Can you imagine how much more of this is going on with other scammers right now?😂🎉
except you have military executives/high ranking officers spending millions on dead end programs. Millions of dollars on the NGSR for example
This is the tip (so small you'd need a microscope to see it) of the iceberg!
The whole thing is a grift/scam
@@MavHunter20XX. Well they can access your phone and camera anytime they want with out a warrant!
Sure. That doesn't mean what I imagine matches reality.
I can't even imagine stealing that much money then thinking that you were actually going to get away with it
She needed to move to Russia asap when she still had that money. USA government couldn't do shit about it
@@AlienX511better have all of it in cash then. Otherwise it’s all getting seized no matter if you’re on the moon.
I don't get why they never have an escape plan to a country that doesn't extradite to US.
Well there are some crazy stories out there, of people getting away with crazy things.
One story of a guy who found a broken ATM, stole lots and lots of money over time, but basically felt guilty in the end, and told on himself.
I remember a scam of one person who basically sent an invoice to some company on some sort of monthly basis or something, the company paid it for a long time, and only found out when the guy stopped sending the invoice. XD
That story is a bit hazy, and would be harder for me to track down, but its crazy how much some people can get away with.
@@jonboy9734 they'll civil asset forfeiture it at the airport then the government has to sue itself to get it's own money back
I hope that the Army’s Contracting Officer was also put under investigation.
It is their job to scrutinize the invoices and services provided.
Lol. Lmao even.
I was removed from a position for questioning the contracting system at a large Army Hospital. If you have the temerity to challenge them...make sure you are in a power position to withstand the retaliation! 😮
CO's transfer in and out of departments like teenagers working at McDonald's. One goes out and tells the new one, "here's the monthly invoices." Doesn't explain anything about them. The new one just signs away...
@@cindyhammack68those invoices are usually handled by civilians and my experience, the contracting officer is usually a civilian
@@garyalabama I know.
I know it's not the same accounting department, but imagine how many struggling veterans could have been helped with those taxes.
Now imagine before knowing about this, those veterans still werent getting helped.
You are correct but it is a different pot of money.
lmao you don't know how that money or programs work do you? They hate paying those programs out. You are REALLY luck if you get paid.
I used to work for the VA. The Vets are getting shafted big time. I could tell you stories that would set your hair on fire.
LOL, the VA, DOD and the government in general would NEVER truly help struggling veterans! I've got a lot of medical issues and I only have VA "healthcare," I'm honestly just waiting to drop dead one day from something the VA isn't treating. And people wonder why the military is having a hard time getting people to enlist? HA!
The answer to your question @ 7:55, Steve...because it's the US Army, that's how. Military spending itself is full of fraud, waste, and abuse. I spent 20 years in the AF and as I progressed in rank and became 'responsible' for budgets within my authority later in my career it just blew my mind in regards to spending. One year I almost got paperwork (in trouble) because I didn't spend all of my allocated monies; I had purchased all we needed and was forced to buy stuff we really didn't need, still didn't spend it all so the remaining monies were 'allocated' to a different entity. The real kicker is there's a 'Fraud, Waste, & Abuse" program that makes sure we spend the funding we receive 'appropriately' and some of the rules for spending were just insane. I could go on and on about this subject but I've already typed enough and now my BP is up re-hashing this subject...lol.
The Pentagon has been failing audits for years. Considering the size of the budgets, this is a drop in the ocean.
Yeah, I heard someone who was in the navy say basically the same thing. They even rolled ammunition off board because they had to buy new stuff.
I saw the same thing in the Army and National Guard. If you did not spend all of your money than you did not get it next year. The dumbest part was that they would "fence" money that could only be spent on certain things. We would have no money for aircraft parts and they would be grounded, but we could not use money we did not need for computers/ furniture etc for aircraft parts. Just wasteful and we could not reason with anyone to move the money from one fund to another.
Yes, I was actually in the Army, and if you don't spend it all, the next year you get less budget. So one year they actually gave everyone steaks in the field.
I only even knew why because I asked, "Why are we getting steaks?" My next comment was along the lines of are we going somewhere or is there something I need to worry about? I asked these together.
Then it was explained to me.
Her problem was she did not do this through a string of LLC's registered at a few locations, and used them to buy the stuff. Nobody in the US military would look at under $100 million and care, especially if she kept it under the line budget minimum of $10 million, which simply gets put on the local budget as a single line of "Misc. expenses, total", and then ignored. That would have allowed her to continue for 10 years, get herself all the money she needed to retire on, then go on early pension. Pay the taxes for the LLC's, run them with barely a profit with creative accounting, and pay the IRS a few thousand a year, and the DOD would never have found out.
That's probably what the other hundreds of scammers that don't get caught, do.
And people wonder how the Pentagon "loses" two trillion dollars... $100 million here, $100 million there... It's ridiculous!!
Where were the auditors?
Yes, Mr IRS, this guy right here 😂
@@CCB249 Arthur Anderson was doing the audits.......
Imagine how much is wasted by not auditing the pentagon or the fed.
The DOD gets audited every year. The problem is they fail it every year because their financial and inventory systems are so old/broken you can't actually track everything properly. Each branch of the military has it's own financial system. They aren't designed to work together so you have all of these various crosswalks to try matching transactions between them. The intergovernmental transactions alone are a mess.
They have just up and lost billions at least once, twice I think.
Or trump!
Well, when they audited the defense department just before September 11th, 2001... 😮
@@nfurber2Additionally, the DoD performs its own audits. Because that’s totally how upright and law-abiding organizations do business. $3.8 trillion in discrepancies just last year alone. But nobody got fired, imprisoned, censured, or even sternly admonished. Shocking.
The most surprising thing is she actually got caught. The government wastes so much money I'm surprised they noticed.
Biden just hired 90,000 IRS agents and they wanted them to know how to shoot. So let that sink in. IRS agent with a gun.....
This……. Is the problem with our over fed, leaping gnome government. There is no accountability
a friend of mine was in the air force and after years of bringing overcharges to the attention of superiors he was told "just shut up and pay it"
This really shows just how ineffective our government is with managing funds.
Could you imagine if for just one or two years that our tax dollars went towards actual needs?
It seems our government is gonna ride us till the banks repossess the country. Then it will probably be a dictatorship. What a shame.
AKtuAlly... considering the unimaginable amount of money that passes thru the government, it is remarkably effective and corruption free compared to many other places on Earth. They did catch her. What you consider an "actual need" is not the same as someone else, and the government has to balance that.
Look how long it took them to finally wake up.
I used to work in IT accounting support. Going in and out of quite a few company accounting offices. The accountant who never took a holiday all ways gained are attention as we knew the accountant was fiddling the books. The account fear was someone would come into the company and take over their job for their holiday and find out how the account was fiddling the books.
Why would the army care? They just notice they need a bigger budget, so congress gives it to them.
And here I am, just about to buy my *first* home. I'm obviously a hopeless amateur.
Steve lives in Michigan. Everyone there needs a summer home someplace else
@@gcanada3005 Growing up, we had a summer home.
It was our winter home with the windows open and the snow shovels put away.
You have 30 more homes to buy
Some people can be so smart and stupid at the same time. I am smart enough to know that I am not smart enough to ever get away with something like this.
Ask the DoD how much Ukraine money has disappeared without accounting. That total would make this woman look like a complete amateur.
That's way too many bathrooms to clean. No thank you! 😸
Long time fan Steve. The stories you find and your insight never disappoints. Keep up the good work!
When greed rules...no amount can ever be enough! 😢
This also happens with many many companies - they don't report it because it would affect the stock value.
$100 million seems like small change when compared to the graff that's inherent in the military-industrial complex.
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose their soul?"
I once heard someone allegedly asked J.D Rockefeller how much money is "Too much money" and he smiled and replied, "more than you currently have". In essence he thinks that too much money doesn't exist. I have always said it's not how much you have but what you do with it. John Wesley said, "Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can," which is a theology I try to live by.
Just when I thought I heard it all, by the way, American Greed is one of my favorite shows also. I just don't get how a person's spirit gets so corrupted that they can't control their urges from buying things that don't make no sense.She could've given away 99 million to the needy and kept the rest for herself Thanx for another great article.
If she wasn’t greedy she would never have had the $100 million to begin with.
She needs to be put away for life. White collar crime is worse than blue collar crime.
This is a case that warrants having her assets taken and accounts frozen to get as much back as possible. It's weird she was released without bail.
That is probably less than the military wastes every year throwing out perfectly good equipment.
I can only imagine how much wounded veterans could have benifited from this money! This shows the deep lack of proper care medical care for our wounded veterans and family that need help!
Indeed. There is no caring or heart in our government machine. All they care about is power & money.
I'm sure there are a few good souls within that try to help but not much they can do...
The Army is lucky Schumer and Johnson reached a deal and the military is getting $886 billion. Since the military cannot pass an audit whats $100 million.
Just a reminder that the DOD has not pass an audit in the last 10 years and routinely can account for 40% of its budget.
I think with only $100M stolen it should be time served. She should probably be an auditor next.
⚓️ Thanks Steve 🌈 I’ve heard the NAVY hasn’t passed an audit ever 🤠
How can this go unnoticed? Big gov is too big and just cuts a check at the taxpayers expense.
While I was in the service,we had one incident where a young airman in accounting, was busted for stealing. He got caught because he was buying cars that were way out of his pay grade. What he was doing, he modified the computer system to round off contracts to the nearest one thousand, and depositing the rounded off portion into his account.
I must've put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. Shit, I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.
She still wouldn’t have gotten caught if she had filed her taxes properly.
Not the craziest use of stolen funds I heard Mr Lehto. There was this CN central bank manager who had an entire building for his mistresses and their kids. When he got arrested for corruption and they seized his properties, there were 94 women lined up at the police station because they were going homeless. He was executed within 7 days of his sentence to prevent coughing up important people.
How uncivilized
Something like that would never happen here in the states
We found at the other end of a CFO's fraud - three homes with "ladies" being kept. The ladies all had long police records but had nice cars and houses by any standard. The work & skill needed to keep this all up in the air - he could have ran any company out there.
It all went south when he was found passed out (from drugs) in the parking lot - in the car was $35k in cash and nearly 500 pills and a ledger book.
“First time offender” 🤣🤣 After years of running a repetitive scam. That alone, comprises a loophole.
The people paying these disbursements are enlisted army personnel between 18-22 and are doing it the way they are trained to. They aren't doing audits of the invoices as they come in. What got her caught was her continuing greed.
I'm taking a day off work I can't afford. Had a frozen pipe burst and am taking a quick break from an all nighter cleaning up the small flood before doing some plumbing repairs. I'm too tired and stressed out to get mad at this woman. Rather, I'm thinking that despite my aversion to stealing, I'm in the wrong business.
Didn't the Pentagon recently say they "lost" or don't know where a TRILLION $ went? Yeah. A trillion $ evaporated into the air. Smdh.
This is actually a story as old as 1775. As someone who is not only an Army vet I’m also a Navy vet and honestly even though the military might move slow they always catch up with the people who do these things. It’s sort of the reverse of hurry up & wait because once they are caught they move with lightning speed.
I actually remember when I was in the Army in 02 or 03 there was this huge investigation into a bunch of Army & Marines for using official credit cards to buy TVs, stereos, vacations & in some cases ladies of the evening (we were in Europe where it’s legal). I can’t remember what the outcome as far as jail time was but I believe they were dishonorably discharged. Even before this though I just kept my credit card in a safe in my office because when they gave me that card all I could hear was that fish headed Admiral from Star Wars saying “it’s a trap.”
Military didn't catch her, the IRS did.
Admiral Ackbar. Giving people credit cards? What did they think would happen?
The military does not catch up to people like this, the budget is so big and the fed/pentagon can't even do a proper audit. The IRS caught her.
@@Mullins23 yeah my dude, you don’t have a f’ing clue how this works. The IRS played a small role in catching her. I can tell you with 200% certainty how this went down but first let me point this out, all of the information we got would only come from a military investigation.
Here’s what happened, the IRS flagged one of her returns & it usually takes time for them to get to it because at the time they were understaffed. Once they saw the money coming from the Army they forwarded their information onto Ft. Sam Houston. The Commanding General’s office would’ve had then contacted whatever section she worked in. That section would’ve done an audit then it would’ve been forwarded back up to the CG’s office where JAG would’ve gotten involved & they would’ve contacted CID & then CID would’ve done their own investigation. After all of that between the CG’s office, JAG, CID, & federal authorities they would’ve decided who was going to prosecute her.
Lastly, let me tell you how military, he’ll even federal budgets in general work. There is an overall budget in this case the Army. The Army then approves budgets for each let’s just say base to keep it simple. Then each base approves budget request from each company then the company approves budgets from each section. When I was in the Army I worked in G-5 and wrote up our budget request. Then my colonel would go to the DCG to submit our budget request and it got forwarded upward. There’s nobody sitting in DC looking at what someone at a base in Texas is doing, there’s someone at that base in Texas looking at what that company is doing though.
@@jasoncarter4343 how do you think things get paid for when someone goes TAD? Not everyone gets a credit card & it depends on your job. There are times where you have to travel so instead of paying out of the military personnel’s own pocket then submitting for reimbursement they are given a credit card & they submit their receipts.
Steve USMC Camp Pendleton DESTROYS over $100 million in weapons/ammo every year
"Intentional" is a new one for corporate gobbledygook mission statements. Before I retired, "holistic" was the sine qua non of every corporate mission statement.
There's no bloody wonder the Pentagon can't ballance their budget.
No Bail?!!! Guarantee The vehicles are for her husband and her male family members
How could they tell?
The Pentagon "loses" $100 million every other month.
I was formerly employed by the VA. It does not surprise me at all that someone was able to steal that much money and go unnoticed. People would lapse into seizures if they knew the corruption on every level that happens ALL THE TIME.
If she had been smart she would have purchased only one home (that she lived in), one car (that she drives), and had the rest of the money stashed in a country without an extradition treaty, and ran as soon as the heat started coming down.
No one has every accused criminals of being smart.
The smart criminals do not get caught. The really smart criminals go into banking.
anddddd now youre on a watchlist for this comment 😂😂😂
And this was only one person that took this long to be noticed and caught, which makes me wonder, how many others are out there doing this same thing, especially with the free-money train we operate via the military in this country?
Plenty enough, you do not think the militasry pays $500 for a hammer. Though here by me the state is paying $500 for a broom you can buy for $1, and $30 each for garbage bags, you buy for 50c per pack of 100. Gotta pay for those party kickbacks somehow.
@@SeanBZA Not just party kickbacks but no-bid contracts and the ever popular government-industrial revolving door.
The army could use that to buy a couple Apaches, or a toilet.
You said that the IRS began investigating her when her scamming company stopped paying taxes. Which leads one to believe that she would have been caught at $50M, too. Perhaps she could have avoided it if she decided to live off her ill-gotten gains and close her company while filing the appropriate paperwork.
Essentially, yeah. Money always gets things done. That’s how Capone was taken down, and a lot of the modern politicians that do get arrested are arrested for money related stuff too
31 homes is 1 to live in and 30 to rent, you turn them over to a property management company and collect profits. All those ridiculous car auctions are like art auctions they are just money laundering and tax evasion.
Just started the video, noticed the title. Didn't we leave more than $100 million worth of equipment at a particular country location we tried assisting? Like left it and didn't even take time to pack up anything
I want to say it's the location where we built an airport for some reason the name Iraq pops in my head but that doesn't sound right
Q: "Who doesn't notice $100M being syphoned off?"
A: An 'organization' that receives $900B in funding annually.
Let's face it, for a defense contractor executive, $100M is just their monthly yacht-and-soft-cheese budget.
Military intelligence. I cannot fully believe they didn't realize this or were not aware.
This level of thief can not be taken likely. Giving her the maximum sentence is a no brainer.
No bail? She may likely have money squirreled away. Bet she’s a no show for her court date.
How is it possible to be smart enough to pull off a stunt like this but too dumb to get away with it?!
I work for a public school district. The amount of incompetence and monetary waste is astounding.
When a lawyer tells you something written down is "gobbledygook" you should believe them. I think 75% of what corporations and executives at said corporations say is pure "gobbledygook".
It's a polite way of saying they are talking BS.
I worked for a company that prior to my employment had a bookkeeper rob the place blind. The primary way she did it was by getting her daughter hired with the same company and then paying the daughter and herself double paychecks. Her plan to cover her tracks was to drive the business bankrupt and then go get a new job somewhere else and do it again (she had apparently used the plan with the prior business she had worked for). The glitch in her plan was that the owner of the company I eventually went to work for had enough separate capital and investments to continue to finance the company past the point when it should have gone out of business.
The greedy downfall of criminals. Stealing lots of money and then buying things people know you could ever afford
I see on further study that she was a civilian Army employee in charge of distributing the kinds of funds she stole. That kind of makes it a little easier!
Ben is between the LAW4NYC number plate and the inner edge of the bookcase.
Our County Council is supposedly bankrupt or soon to declare, one of our neighbours used to work for one of their contractors that they used to repair the roads. They quit after they were told to submit the bill for work done multiple times with a days gap between them so they would be paid multiple times for the same work they said it was the norm submit a low bid rather than cost and a bit then send it in multiple time and get paid more for the same work.
You have to wonder if she'd be away clean if she'd stopped at 10m. THEN you have to wonder how many people have got away with 10m...
That's 100 million that could have been used for accommodation renovation for servicemen and women...
...used for accommodation, renovation for servicemen, and women 👠...
Reads differently with commas like that 😂
@alli3219
I used to use correct punctuation.. before I had a car crash and had to learn to reas and write again from scratch..
Take a look in the mirror and figure out what mistakes your making...
This is why aggressive oversight should be a thing. There should be corporations whose sole business is investigating charities and other businesses. It probably would have taken sending someone to the business address to find out she was not legitimate. If I had the money I would start one I think a person could honestly make a lot of money in such an honest venture.
Seems like it was an issue with the laundering that actually got her caught. Stealing was the easy part.
The crime is easier than the cover up.
There are thousands of people in the past 20 years who committed fraud and stole money and said ill stop before I get caught and never did.
Mr. Lehto with a $816.7 billion budget for Y2023 for the Department of Defense, $100 million is chump change.
How in the world did she have time to invoice for that much while she was spending all that $?
One of my favorite movies uses a version of the quote at the end of the video:
"A life lived in fear is a life half-lived." -Strictly Ballroom
Wow! Great job by the army and GAO. How stupid is our government.
I hope Angry Cops covers this 😂. That will be a great video.
Should keep an eye open for those govt. auction sites. Maybe get a deal on her ill gotten collections.
Sure, they'll pay out on $100M of fraudulent claims but submit a $3.00 rebate form, wait 6-8 weeks and then it's *DENIED* for not putting a period after your middle initial. Yup, that's fine....
The pentagon does this every year with the military industrial complex. Billions
What catches people in criminal enterprise more than anything is time, because they are too greedy to stop.
Those smarter scammers, who stop before they're caught, I guess we'll never know about them . . .
the defense department has not passed an audit in years
Thats nothing compared to how much the Army wastes every year 😂
Rumsfeld lost like 3 trillion.... then Sept 11 happened and destroyed the accounting division of the pentagon with no video of the event..
Things that make you go hmmmmm.
I think the unaccounted amount was 1.1 Trillion, in 2001.
1.1... 3 trillion maybe .. do you trust the official numbers... Kind of like the jobs report every month; but I appreciate your input. Still waiting for a still shot of that plane.. I worship the Oozlefinch what do I know... Start laughing when you search engine Oozlefinch...🤗
Well, according to them, we owe tax on pocket lint and anything else they can tax.
I'm not really buying that subscription anymore.
Released without bail? She's the epitome of a flight risk. She faces life long imprisonment and may have millions of dollars secretly stashed away somewhere.
Another data point suggesting bail is more about punishment without due process rather than reducing flight risk.
J6 come to mind⁉️🙈
@@equallawandorder5393 No. No it didn't.
I didn't pay close attention to the prosecutions however, I know of no defendent who one has access to tens of millions of dollars and (not "or" but AND) was facing a 100+ year sentence.
I think she knew she was going to get caught and wanted to live as large as possible before the inevitable end.
The army pays 100$ a bullet but no one notices.
No wonder the DOD cant keep their books straight and pass the vrious audits .
No one "verifying "
OK, they need to start checking her friends and relatives.
Yeah that was my first thought as well because 31 houses, she's giving them away to relatives
you get a car, You Get A Car, YOU GET A CAR, *Everybody Gets A Car*
I sold a rare car to a guy a few years ago. During the transaction I started talking about some the cars quirks and the guy said...."that doesn't matter, I don't think I will ever drive it, I just warehouse them and sell them down the road". Come to find out, this was the 59th car in his warehouse. He stacked them 4 high on racks.