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The U.S. Department of Justice says a bank manager drained hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from an American lender.
The DOJ says a jury has convicted 35-year-old Arizona resident Brooke McDonough of one count of embezzlement by a bank employee, six counts of transactional money laundering and five counts of structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements.
McDonough served as a bank manager at a Wells Fargo Mesa branch from 2020 to early 2022, reports the Phoenix Business Journal.
Between June 2021 and February 2022, McDonough used her position as manager to steal cash from ATMs and the bank’s vault inside the branch she managed.
She subsequently deposited most of the money she embezzled into her personal bank accounts, using different ATMs and breaking down transactions into smaller amounts to avoid filing Currency Transaction Reports for deposits of over $10,000 in cash.
Throughout the period, the DOJ says McDonough stole $655,000 from Wells Fargo while managing to deposit $645,000.
Says U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine,
“Significant trust is placed in business leaders in our community. When those individuals take advantage of their leadership position to embezzle large amounts of money from the business they were entrusted to lead, our Office will hold them accountable.”
