CHARLESTON, S.C. – Two former employees of South Carolina FCU this week confessed to siphoning as much as $400,000 from inactive accounts that belonged to a dead woman, deployed military personnel and others.
Robert Tam, 42, a risk analyst, and Jason Kizer, 31, found accounts with little or no activity, then issued credit/debit cards in the names of those members, according to prosecutors. Kizer used those cards to withdraw cash from automated teller machines not equipped with security cameras, and split the money with Tam.
The fraud was carried on from 2005 until last fall, when the two workers were fired from their jobs at the credit union’s Summerville branch.
One member had died in 1999 and, unknown to her family, continued receiving monthly pension checks from the federal government for $1,600. Tam and Kizer embezzled more than $130,000 from that account through 545 ATM withdrawals, prosecutors said.
As part of his work with the anti-fraud department, Tam credited accounts for losses.
The FBI conducted surveillance and, in October, agents caught Kizer withdrawing $500 from an ATM and immediately afterward meeting Tam in the parking lot.
The credit union fired the men that day, and the next week the FBI served a search warrant on Kizer's safe-deposit box, which contained about $50,000 in cash.
No member lost any money as a result of the scheme, the credit union said.
