The former employee of a moving company in Metro Detroit is charged with wire fraud in a federal criminal complaint for allegedly stealing over a quarter of a million dollars from her employer.

According to the complaint, filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Van Buren Police Department contacted Homeland Security Investigations in September 2023 about an ongoing fraud investigation. 

At the time, Rose Moving and Storage accused the employee of misappropriating over $215,000 by obtaining company cards, transferring business funds to the card and withdrawing the money for personal use.

On Oct. 5, 2023, federal investigators interviewed the company's chief financial officer, who reported that the company would order company debit cards to contracted truck drivers to cover expenses. 

According to the complaint, an investigation revealed that the employee, who worked as head of the financial department, allegedly ordered more than 60 company debit cards between 2017 and 2023, using different iterations of the company's name. 

The employee would then create "fictitious entries on company ledgers for expenses such as 'repairs,' and would allocate the monies she had appropriated from the company to these fictitious expenses," the complaint states.

Investigators found that the employee withdrew money from a variety of financial institutions, including Huntington Bank, where security cameras captured the woman withdrawing the funds from an ATM. Through Huntington Bank's cameras, investigators identified the employee linked to 55 withdrawals from 24 company debit cards, according to the complaint.