Army captain charged with stealing $690,000

Army captain charged with stealing $690,000

www.msnbc.msn.com

PORTLAND, Oregon - An Army captain accused of stealing nearly $700,000 from the U.S. government while serving in Iraq pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including theft of government property and money laundering.

Capt. Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, is accused of stealing more than $690,000 entrusted to him as the battalion civil affairs officer in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, between April 2007 and Feb. 24. A federal grand jury indictment alleges Nguyen used some of the money to buy two new vehicles, along with computers, electronics and furniture.

Prosecutors said the funds were designated for commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan for urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs.

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Boy, this mess in Iraq just keeps getting uglier.

Now the Army has people on the take.

While this article is certainly shocking, does it really surprise anyone??

We are missing thousands of weapons over there. We supposedly missing a lot of vehicles as well. Do you think that those have been sold as profit for the Army and Marine soldiers??
I don't think that this is out of the realm of possibilities. It reminds me of the movies Air America and The Three Kings. Everyone in those movies had a scam to make profits for when they got home.

Couple this with the rumors of the cargo planes full of cash that mysteriously disappeared and a guy has to wonder....

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

That's like shop lifting compared to the real thieves...
You know who you are...

WHile it's no excuse, I want to point out that a Captain is a relatively junior officer in the Army (O-3).

I can't imagine the curcumstances under which you would entrust the fiscal authority over that much money to a junior officer. That's way out of whack!

If you ask me, his commander should lose his commission for poor judgement.

Chances of that happening: Virtually nil.

I always love how, when it's a soldier who says or does something in accordance with a parties position that these guys are called Patriots....


Can we please see the military for what it is... nothing more than a cross section of society?

The men and women in uniform, although doing a very dangerous job, are not all there due to their sense of patriotism... as a matter of fact, I think I ran into 1 solitary person during my 5.5 years in the military who was.

Most of the servicemen and women are there because they had no other options. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty to be said about the fraternity of servicepeople once they rank up a bit and lose the "junior mentality", as with anything. But most started out because they were on hard times. Not because they want to go defend freedom.


And as we can see in this story... hard times seems to follow them to the degree that they will steal.

When I was in the Navy, there was a guy who took the Ships Credit card and bought gold bullion from a store in the town adjacent to the base. It was an ex Masterchief who ran the shop, and he called in the base police.

Apparently the guy had a death threat on his life for gambling debts...

Yes... what happens in the service is no more outrageous than what happens in society... until we get to war... then it does become even more outrageous.




[edit on 6-3-2009 by HunkaHunka]

reply to post by wolf241e


I'm sure he wasn't alone in this.

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

Source

Shame-- Company Commanders are directly responsible for the money more often than not-- a claim that this level of officer can't be trusted with that amount of money is based purely on ignorance to how the Army works rather than fact. CO's become defacto mayors of Iraqi towns and directly work with local businesses and religious leaders-- they must have direct access to money, often times wholly unmitigated. Most are trustworthy, and some of the hardest working soldiers in the entire Army. The fact is, an O-3 has a lot of weight on his shoulders with relatively short experience considering you don't get your next command after that for as 5-10 years if ever. It didn't say whether this guy was a CO or not (he may have been working in a shop) and in that case, that level of officer is easily trusted with that amount of money.

I have heard rumors about drugs being flown on C-130s out of Iraq by COs, and even BN commanders-- but nothing with hard evidence like this-- especially direct thievery. This is the equivalent of a single mother who sells her food stamps to buy alcohol and lets her children go hungry-- its irreprehensible.

This man, if he can even be called that, should NOT be tried as a civilian, but be given a proper court-martial and locked up in Leavenworth like the traitor he is.