Exec steals $9M from CA company, buys 300 luxury bags and visits Paris, feds say

Miami Herald

6 hours ago

A former executive of a San Francisco seafood company was found guilty of stealing more than $9 million from the Bay Area wholesaler, according to federal prosecutors, who said she used business funds to live lavishly, vacation and pay college tuition fees.
Antonietta Nguyen, 57, defrauded ABS Seafood and her business partners for more than six years, from January 2014 to about May 2020, as the company's chief financial officer, prosecutors said.
Now the Brisbane resident faces decades in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said in a June 13 news release. Brisbane is about a 10-mile drive south from San Francisco.
In a statement to McClatchy News on June 16, Nguyen's criminal defense attorney Christopher F. Morales said they 'are very disappointed in the verdict and will appeal.'
Morales wrote via email that Nguyen 'has repaid the money already' and that they 'are hoping for a fair sentence.'
In court filings, prosecutors wrote Nguyen's alleged deceit unraveled during the early COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when one of her partners took a closer look at ABS Seafood's finances and hired a forensic accountant who 'uncovered Nguyen's embezzlement through credit cards.'
In a six-year span, Nguyen spent more than $2.7 million using an ABS Seafood credit card, splurging on luxury designer handbags, vacations and paying her property taxes and private college tuition for her children, according to a trial memorandum, which says authorities 'seized over 300 designer purses from (her) primary residence' in connection with the fraud.
To pay for a trip to Paris and purchases at Hermes and Louis Vuitton stores, Nguyen charged about $150,000 on the card, prosecutors wrote in the memo.
Nguyen also paid off more than $2.6 million in expenses made on her personal credit cards from ABS Seafood's checking account, according to prosecutors.
Separate from Nguyen's credit card scheme, prosecutors said she defrauded ABS Seafood further in a $4.8 million 'invoice inflation scheme' involving a major company vendor owned by her brother and sister-in-law.
On June 12, Nguyen was convicted of several counts of wire fraud; aiding and abetting wire fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; conspiracy to transport monetary instruments for the purpose of laundering; and tax evasion 'in connection with a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars,' according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Jurors returned the guilty verdicts at the end of a two-week trial, prosecutors said.
Nguyen held a 'minority' stake in ABS Seafood, according to prosecutors. The company did not immediately return McClatchy News' request for comment.
U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian said in a statement that Nguyen 'devised multiple ways to defraud her business partners of several millions of dollars and got away with it for over six years.'
'She exploited her position of trust in order to fund a lavish lifestyle for herself and her family members,' Missakian added.
ABS pays 'double' for imported tuna
In Nguyen's invoice scheme, her brother's Philippine-based tuna company, Pescaderia Pacifico International, submitted inflated invoices that Nguyen 'clandestinely paid' between January 2016 and March 2020, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
At the time, prosecutors said the tuna vendor was the 'main source for tuna imported into the United States.'
Nguyen's scheme resulted in ABS Seafood paying more than 'double' what the imported tuna purchased from her brother's business was worth, defrauding the company of $4.8 million, according to prosecutors.
She 'hid' the inflated invoices from her business partners at ABS Seafood and 'split' the millions in 'proceeds, with some of the money being wired back to bank accounts in the United States in the names of Nguyen's husband and daughters,' prosecutors said.
During the government's investigation, federal authorities also learned Nguyen and her spouse avoided paying income taxes for 2018 and 2019, according to prosecutors.
Nguyen is facing up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for every wire fraud charge as well as the wire fraud conspiracy charge, up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for the count of conspiracy to transport monetary instruments for the purpose of laundering, and five years in prison and $100,000 on the tax evasion charges, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Nguyen is out on bond and is due in court for sentencing, which is set for Oct. 10, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.