Florida lady fakes her personal loss of life after stealing over $4 million from her employer | EUROtoday

A Florida lady faked her personal loss of life after being investigated for stealing over $4 million from her employer.

Madelyn Hernandez, 49, of Lee County, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for wire fraud and cash laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office mentioned.

Prosecutors mentioned Hernandez labored remotely for a textiles and attire firm for 20 years the place she positioned orders with distributors and managed transport, invoicing, and stock. She schemed the enterprise out of $4,199,498.42 between 2018 and 2024.

During the six-year interval, Hernandez submitted fraudulent invoices through electronic mail from purported cloth provide corporations and directed that fee be despatched to her financial institution accounts. Hernandez spent the cash on private bills and playing, in line with prosecutors.

It wasn’t till 2024 that the corporate, not named by prosecutors, discovered discrepancies in its monetary data tied to Hernandez. In June 2024, the corporate grew to become conscious that invoices, proof of supply data, and stock experiences that Hernandez had submitted had been fraudulent.

open picture in gallery

As the corporate was investigating and unraveling the fraudulent data, Hernandez despatched a message to her employer, pretending to be a member of the family. The message mentioned Hernandez died after an sickness and issues from surgical procedure.

The firm alerted the authorities after receiving the message, and the FBI and Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation executed a search warrant for Hernandez’s dwelling in October.

There, Hernandez admitted to brokers that she emailed pretend invoices to the corporate for fee and had used the cash deposited into her account, held in a fictitious firm title.

She additionally admitted to sending the message faking her personal loss of life to her employer.

Hernandez mentioned that she “did not think what she took was as high as $4 million,” in line with court docket paperwork. Prosecutors mentioned that she would often return a number of the funds she stole so the corporate wouldn’t discover out what she was doing.

Hernandez entered a responsible plea on January 28 and has been ordered to forfeit the $4 million as a part of her sentence.