Here is the first installment of the story in case you missed it.
After reading an article in the New York Times about a successful international operation to arrest the leaders of a drug cartel, John turned the page of the newspaper and saw something that caught his eye: a photograph of himself, although it was not.
The caption under the photo said Thomas Applebee shown after he was arraigned on embezzlement charges in Los Angeles Superior Court. He continued to read the article, which noted that there was a $10 million discrepancy in the endowment fund at Pepperdine University, and, in an unhappy coincidence, a mysterious $10 million had been deposited in the New York Amalgamated Bank account of this Thomas Applebee, the man who looked just like John – and for good reason, for Thomas was better known to John as his identical twin brother Tommy
The twins John and Tommy grew up together in Southern California in and around Malibu; every spare minute they would surf at the local beaches. Even in their college days at Pepperdine University, Tommy would hang out at the beach catching waves instead of going to class many days. John joined him occasionally – but only occasionally, being the more studious one.
Upon graduation from Pepperdine, John with a degree in corporate finance and Tommy with a degree in art history, they went their separate ways on opposite sides of the country. John secured a job at the Northern Suburban Bank in New York City. Tommy took a gap year and travelled to Europe and returned to the surfing scene in California for a while as he earned his Masters in Fine Arts, and ended up securing an adjunct professor position at Pepperdine.
After about ten years John became the CFO of Northern Suburban Bank and Tommy was a tenured professor and Director of Pepperdine’s Endowment fund. John married Abigail, a civil engineer who worked for the state transportation authority, while Tommy remained a bachelor.
John began to think of his brother in a prison. How could that happen? John had been busy with his life in New York, working in Manhattan and living in Chappaqua, New York and planning an ad campaign to gain market share from the New York Amalgamated Bank. His mind flashed back to the times surfing on the Malibu coast while in school with his brother. How many years agowas that?
John thought something did not sound right, and he called Tommy, who told him immediately that he knew nothing about what he was being accused of, and nothing about the account the money was found in.
“I don’t even have an account at that bank. Why would I? Aren’t they your biggest competitor?” He went on, “I contacted a private investigator but he has not given me a report yet.”
John said he would reach out to a few contacts to see what he could find out. He called Steve Smith, the long-serving head of security at the bank.
Steve said, “I can put you in touch with a firm we use for tracking money laundering and missing funds.”
When John spoke to Alex Hart, a senior analyst at the firm of Peach and Company, the security firm that Steve Smith had suggested, Alex indicated he could help his brother – for a $25,000 retainer. After talking with Abigail about the situation John wired the $25,000 to the Peach and Company account.
The next day John was on a plane with Alex, headed for the Los Angeles airport.
After landing in Los Angeles they met Tommy, who had made bail by borrowing from his pension fund, at a hotel near the airport. Alex explained that he had put the wheels of investigation in motion and already received some relevant information.
“I need you to sit down for this,” Alex said, gesturing to three wicker chairs surrounding a table.
“All of the funds were withdrawn from the college endowment three weeks ago by Sigma Corporation, a shell organization connected to a Central American drug cartel. The money was moved to a fictitious account, created in Tommy’s name, but with someone else’s Social Security Number and address. I’m not sure how the authorities missed that, but they did.”
Alex continued. “This was done by hacking into Pepperdine’s payroll system through a phishing email that fooled a member of another department.. They got deep enough to determine that Tommy was an alumnus and a faculty member in a senior position with access to the endowment. They pulled your personal information, searched online to figure out your connection to the endowment, and then they hit the endowment fund using your credentials and depositing the funds in Tommy’s fictitious account that they created using stolen information.”
“Based on similar cases, I would expect that anyone who was actually laundering the money would have fully moved it out of the account by now. There was some movement before the account was frozen, though no more than $1 million before the authorities were alerted. Plus, that shell corporation is affiliated with the cartel whose leaders were arrested recently. They probably were going to blackmail you, Thomas, but had to abandon their scheme.”
Alex said he had alerted the New York Amalgamated Bank of this scam, and so the account was frozen and any activity to withdraw funds, including the $1,000,000 that had already been withdrawn would be traced by the FBI field office.
“After we finish here, I’ll be calling Pepperdine. They might have to name buildings after both of you for all of this trouble,” Alex half-joked.
The next day Tommy appeared in court, and his attorney called Alex to the stand as part of a motion to dismiss the case. Alex explained how the Pepperdine systems had been hacked and how the Sigma Corporation controlled by the South American drug cartel was able to transfer the $10 million to the fictitious account they set up in Thomas Applebee’s name.
The judge was a little skeptical so asked some questions around the hacking and what happened to the $1,000,000 that was withdrawn. Alex noted that the FBI could independently verify the withdrawal of that money, and could confirm that the account was set up with Thomas’s name but not his Social Security Number or address.
The prosecutor objected suspiciously accusing the twins of being the master minds behind this crime. The judge denied the prosecutor’s objection and after a few moments, the judge asked Thomas to stand.
Tommy stood nervously before the judge who banged his gavel and said, “Based on the information supplied, I dismiss this case.”
John hugged his brother and decided to stay with him in California for a few weeks.
John thought would this Tommy crisis be different, could they become close again?
