The contractor responsible for St. Louis’ parking meters was involved in a series of scams, paying three ghost employees and the blackmailer who found out about it, federal court documents filed Monday claim. In all, Dannielle Welch-Benson and her company, Dankar Enterprise Inc., spent $339,000 on ghost employees or the blackmail, according to her guilty plea to a federal wire fraud charge Monday.
I guess my question would be how often do you think this happens. You are a subcontractor to a contractor who works for the city. You set up a scam to pay employees who don’t exist and deposit the money in your own account. How is anyone going to know?
If you aren’t greedy, this could go on and one. What if you worked for the city and simply set up a person who worked for you (but was a ghost) and had their payroll deposited directly into an account where you were a signatory.
Without an audit, this could go on and on. In the above case the someone on the crook’s staff found out about it and rather than turn her in, blackmailed her for an additional $60K. One bandit just doesn’t have a chance. Where is the honor among thieves.
There’s a simple way to solve this problem. One a year or so, have everyone come to the office to pick up their pay. They have to show and ID. If there are checks left over. You can begin to wonder.
But….No one did.
JVH
One Response
Crazy world!