NCUA Bans Two Former CU Employees Convicted of Fraud

After he pleaded responsible to at least one felony depend of economic establishment fraud, he was sentenced in April. He additionally was ordered to pay $2,132,517 in restitution, based on court docket paperwork.

In 2019, Prado-Valero was approached by co-conspirators seeking to launch a plan to defraud FCFCU and steal cash from member accounts. The co-conspirators, who weren’t recognized in court docket paperwork and weren’t credit score union workers, promised to pay Padro-Valero kickbacks for his participation within the scheme.

He agreed to entry member account data previous to offering personally identifiable data to his co-conspirators to make sure that there have been adequate funds within the focused accounts to assist the fraudulent transfers.

From Feb. 14 to Aug. 16, 2019, Prado-Valero and his co-conspirators transacted 34 fraudulent ACH transfers to themselves out of FCFCU member accounts, and Prado-Valero acquired greater than $100,000 in money kickbacks. Courtroom paperwork didn’t point out what number of co-conspirators had been concerned within the scheme or whether or not they have been arrested and charged.

Beginning in April 2019 by way of February 2021, she used VVAFCU’s bank card processing software program, and with out authorization, opened and issued a bank card in her title, court docket paperwork confirmed.

She manipulated the processing software program to grant herself privileges corresponding to eradicating greenback limits on her bank card balances, excusing herself from late charges and curiosity penalties on overdue balances, and eliminating necessities that she make a minimal fee towards any unpaid balances, based on the indictment. Thibodeau additionally manipulated the credit score union’s inside cardholder journal experiences to hide the fraud from her supervisors.

VVAFCU detected the fraud and fired her in April 2022.

The credit score union was merged into the $402 million 802 Credit score Union in Barre, Vt., final yr.