From this article in the Oscoda Press, which I believe is in Michigan.
Ousted Alcona treasurer arrested
by Holly NelsonHARRISVILLE – Thomas Katona, 56, the former treasurer of Alcona County and a resident of Harrisville, was arrested Tuesday, Jan. 16, for allegedly embezzling more than $1.2 million of county funds to invest in the Nigerian fraud scam, according to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.
Katona was arraigned in 81st District Court on Jan. 17 on eight counts of embezzlement by a public official and one count of forgery. If convicted, he will face a maximum of 14 years in prison.
According to the attorney general and court records, while Katona was vacationing in London, England, in November, employees of the treasurer’s office were notified by National City Bank that Katona allegedly made eight unauthorized wire transfers of county funds, totalling $186,500, during August and September.
Later on in the same news story:
A forensic audit of Alcona County records was conducted by the Michigan Department of Treasury in December, revealing a shortage of $1,236,700, according to Cox, who noted that Alcona County’s yearly budget is approximately $4 million.
So basically this guy not only fell for the Nigerian fraud scam, he embezzeled over 25% of the county’s public funds to do so. (The story indicates that he also “invested” around $72,000 of his own money.)
I can think of a dozen snarky things to say about the intelligence of this guy and even more about greed. But these sorts of stories hit a point of absurdity after which I start to feel sorry for the guy and I start to wonder, how awful was this guy’s life that he started to believe a) that this Nigerian thing wasn’t a fraud and b) that he’d get away with embezzling a quarter of the county budget?
As a matter of curiosity, remind me how the Nigerian scam works. I seem to recall it is basically a phishing scheme trying to get access to the victim’s bank accounts, supposedly so they can make deposits but actually so they can vacuum it out.
The news story mentioned “unauthorized wire transfers;” could those have been initiated at the other end? Remember that Katona also lost $72K of his own money. It is clear that he was misusing his access to the county bank account but it is less clear that he realized he was putting public funds at risk.
This is the best explanation of the Nigerian scam that I’ve seen
http://www.quatloos.com/scams/nigerian.htm