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What an idiot. He didn't even bother to try and launder the money.
PORTLAND, Oregon - An Army captain accused of stealing nearly $700,000 from the U.S. government while serving in Iraq pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including theft of government property and money laundering.
Capt. Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, is accused of stealing more than $690,000 entrusted to him as the battalion civil affairs officer in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, between April 2007 and Feb. 24. A federal grand jury indictment alleges Nguyen used some of the money to buy two new vehicles, along with computers, electronics and furniture.
Prosecutors said the funds were designated for commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan for urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs.
The indictment said Nguyen mailed bundles of stolen $100 bills home before he returned from Iraq and that he opened bank accounts in his home state of Oregon and elsewhere. The individual deposits were less than $10,000, but he sometimes made numerous deposits on the same or consecutive days, according to the indictment.
U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut said an investigation began after Internal Revenue Service agents spotted a su ious pattern with the deposits.
She said the charges indicate a "flagrant and reprehensible disregard" for military honor.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak set a May 5 trial for Nguyen, who will be tried as a civilian.
Nguyen was released to return to Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Washington, where he is stationed.
"Fort Lewis has and will continue to cooperate with the investigation in this case as necessary," said Joseph Piek, a Fort Lewis spokesman.
A federal public defender assigned to represent Nguyen at the arraignment had no comment.
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What an idiot. He didn't even bother to try and launder the money.
The US Postal Service scans everything, wonder why they didn't catch this money being mailed back?
not surprised the dude is vietnamesehe knows from the best, learn from the best...vietnamese
You'd be surprised at the stuff that makes it to iraq and back from iraq.
Also you are supposed to be screened super duper well at the airports after 9/11 and i managed to bring a steak knife with a 4 or 5 inch blade right through the xray machine a few months ago.
How in the world did he think he was going to get away with stealing 600k from the US government of all people and they wouldn't notice. It's not like he was a politician or anything.
All of this was pure cash given with no oversight whatsoever.
There were BILLIONS given out in this manner.
If this dude had been a smidge smarter, he would not have gotten caught.
Best way to have done this:
Would have been to keep the cash in a safety deposit box, then create a phony "consulting firm" of some sort.
Work your normal day job, and then pay yourself from invoices you generate to phony clients over the course of about 5 to 10 years or so. Keep the transactions to relatively small amounts under 4 or 5 thousand.
Pay normal income taxes on that and do a little bit of real traveling here and there to generate some real expenses.
Or simply start a regular business and pad your income slightly over time with some faked invoices in a similar manner.
The trick is to do nothing that seems unusual, and keep the amounts to relatively small dollar amounts.
Sure you have to pay income taxes on it, but as long as you have some legitimate seeming business, you would never get the type of scrutiny that would get you caught.
isnt there supposed to be a privacy act for the banks so they cant disclose the money you deposit? So the IRS also looks into people's bank accounts now huh?
large or unusual deposits are reported all the time.
There was never a privacy act for banks.
Any transaction over $10,000 has to be reported to the IRS. Banks also have to report certain other kinds of transactions as well. You will note that the good captain in the story never went over this limit for this reason.
This is how they catch organized crime and tax cheats.
As I said before, he had cash, free and clear from the Iraq sinkhole, and could have easily gotten away with it if he had been a tad smarter.
Yeah, the guy was an idiot. He already had it in cash and out of the country. Simple enough to just park it in a Swiss bank no questions asked or answered. Once you have it there it's easy to move anonymously and he probably could have had full use of it without even having to launder it and pay taxes.
no doubt he got paranoid with it lying around.
Except for the fact that the IRS has successfully sued the big Swiss bank to make them turn over their records.
Swiss banks aren't going to cut it for tax dodgers much longer.
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