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Man accused of stealing over $500K from Tidewater Barge Lines

California resident accused of using phishing scam against Vancouver business

By Jerzy Shedlock, Columbian Breaking News Reporter
Published: October 4, 2018, 8:03pm

A 61-year-old California man is accused of tricking Vancouver-based Tidewater Barge Lines into wiring him more than a half-million dollars as payment for construction projects he had nothing to do with.

Tien Sao Nguyen was arraigned Sept. 14 on four counts of first-degree theft and one count each of first-degree criminal impersonation and money laundering in Clark County Superior Court.

Judge Suzan Clark set Nguyen’s bail at $20,000, which was posted the same day, court records show.

The case against Nguyen was filed several months ago. Detectives with the Westminster Police Department in California arrested Nguyen on a Clark County warrant June 5, according to court documents.

Nguyen, through a personal attorney, filed a motion to overturn the warrant, but it was denied. He waived extradition to Washington from California on Sept. 13, and his case was heard before Clark the next day.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Nguyen opened a Bank of America account in November under his name, as the sole proprietor, and connected the business name JH Kelly. That name is used by a construction company with offices in Vancouver and Longview, and has projects associated with Tidewater.

Tidewater, with roots tracing back to 1932, has evolved from handling primarily wheat into a multimodal transportation business extending the length of the Columbia River. A spokesperson said Wednesday that the company had no comment about the alleged theft, citing the ongoing police investigation.

The theft from Tidewater totals about $568,000, according to Detective Sgt. Jack Anderson, with the Vancouver Police Department’s Property Crime Unit. Anderson said it’s likely the second largest case for the unit since its resurrection in January.

Phishing scam

An employee in Tidewater’s accounting department received an email Nov. 16 from what appeared to be a legitimate JH Kelly email account. The sender, Nguyen, represented himself as a financial controller for the construction company, which was not the case, according to the affidavit.

Nguyen requested Tidewater switch its payments to JH Kelly to go directly into his account, which the employee authorized. The first payment was made the same day the email was sent by Nguyen. That payment totaled $296,587. Two more deposits were made to Nguyen’s bank account in December for $31,656 and $5,712. A final deposit of $234,493 was made Jan. 2, according to the affidavit.

Neither the company nor police would say whether any of the money was recovered.

Two days after the final deposit was made to Nguyen, a real representative with the JH Kelly called Tidewater asking why it had not been paid money it was owed.

“Tidewater knowing they had paid began looking into the matter. They explained to JH Kelly they had paid them through automatic deposit into their Bank of America account,” the affidavit says.

The construction company responded that it “never sent an email, and they had never changed their form of payment and that the (Bank of America) account did not belong to them,” according to the affidavit.

That’s when the companies called police.

An investigator was granted a search warrant for the fraudulent account and determined it belonged to Nguyen, court records state.

“It appears that this account was opened on (Nov. 14, 2017) just prior to the email being sent to Tidewater asking for the change in payment to be made by their accounting department,” the affidavit says.

The bank account’s summary matched up with deposits reported by Tidewater, and surveillance equipment at a bank in Garden Grove, Calif., captured Nguyen withdrawing $10,000 from the account about a week after it was opened. Nguyen also wired $140,000 to a bank account in Baltimore, Md., on the same day he made the withdrawal. Two days later, he wired another $130,000 to a bank in Nigeria, according to the affidavit.

Vancouver police Officer Brian Billingsley traveled to Westminster, Calif., on June 7 and interviewed Nguyen, who was jailed in Orange County. During the interview, Nguyen said he set up the Bank of America account for a European man named Roberto Long, who wanted to open a business in California to order construction materials. He said Long told him to use the business name JH Kelly, court records say. Nguyen had reportedly never met Long.

The affidavit does not indicate whether police believe Long is a real person, but Anderson said investigators believe Nguyen was not acting alone.

Tidewater essentially fell victim to what Anderson called an email phishing scam. Scammers use fraudulent emails or texts, or copycat websites to get victims to share personal financial information: bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, login information and passwords.

The Federal Trade Commission offers tips for avoiding such scams on its website: www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0003-phishing.

Never respond to emails that request personal or financial information, the agency warns, and call the sender to follow up if an email appears suspect.

Nguyen’s next court date is set for later this month. Court records show he returned to California and was granted permission to participate in his hearings by phone.

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Columbian Breaking News Reporter