County Treasurer Falls for Nigerian Scam
Tommy Kotona is an idiot. He sunk over 72,000 dollars of his own money into the Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Scam, and then when he needed more money to free up his promised millions, he started draining the county funds.
He shipped over one million bucks to the scammers. The people behind the counter at the bank kept telling Kotona that he was dealing with scam artists, but Kotona wouldn’t listen. He would show them- he would show them ALL! Once he got his millions in secret Nigerian oil money, he would finally be able to flee his podunk county in Northeast Michigan, buy that fancy sports car, and who knows? Maybe he could hook up with Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. And if he hurried, maybe no one would notice that he took all that money out of the county’s bank account.
From the Reg here:
A public treasurer in the Michigan county of Alcona, population 11,000, stands accused of embezzling tax payers out of more than $1.2m, at least part of which was used to cover costs he incurred falling for a Nigerian banking fraud.
Thomas Katona, the former Treasurer of Alcona County, was charged with nine felonies. According to the Michigan Attorney General’s office, the 56-year-old beancounter, who held his post for 13 years, also plowed $72,000 of his own money into the fraud.
County officials first suspected something was amiss late last year, when bank employees informed them Katona had sent eight payments totaling $186,500 to overseas accounts, six of which were associated with peddlers of the Nigerian scheme. He stepped down in November as authorities commenced an investigation.
They found that bank employees had warned Katona that the investment was a sham, but the treasurer ignored the warnings. An audit eventually showed that more than $1.2m was missing from county coffers. It remains unclear how much of that was paid to the scammers.
Last week a judge set Katona’s bail about $1m.
Maybe someone should get Kotona a laptop. Maybe he can email the scammers to see if they will pay his bail? At least no one was murdered over this one.
