A UPS employee and an Indianapolis contractor are accused of scamming Sandy Springs-based UPS out of more than $1.2 million.
They allegedly converted company money into gift cards to buy things like cars and flat-screen TVs.
The UPS employee, Mark Gleason, 48; and Dayton R. Sloan II, 60, of D&S Construction were arrested Friday and charged with wire fraud and money laundering, according to a statement by U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett.
The prosecutor said Gleason set up a maintenance contract with D&S in 2011. The company was hired to provide general contracting services for UPS at more than three dozen locations in Indiana and Illinois, Hogsett said.
Between January 2011 and December 2012, UPS paid D&S more than $1.2 million, the prosecutor said. The invoices allegedly were signed by Gleason, who was authorized to sign off on invoices up to $5,000.
The alleged scheme was said to work like this: Once Gleason paid D&S, Sloan would deposit the money in a D&S corporate account, then buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in prepaid Visa gift cards. Gleason and Sloan allegedly used the cards for personal purchases or gave them to relatives.
A bank D&S Construction used and a seller of the prepaid gift cards became suspicious and alerted authorities, prosecutors said.
An audit by UPS audit revealed many of the invoices were for “unorthodox” purchases and other invoices were fraudulent, Hogsett said. Some invoices Gleason filed had the names of other supervisors on them.
Gleason allegedly used the gift cards to buy more than $7,000 in jewelry and paid for nearly $3,000 for corrective eye surgery. He also used the cards, which were in denominations up to $100, toward more than $40,000 in automobile purchases.
Gleason and Sloan could face up to 20 years on each count of wire fraud and up to 10 years on each count of money laundering as well as fines and restitution, the prosecutor said.
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