Adrian Pineda was employed at a Home Depot in Tempe, Arizona as the store's "vault associate," meaning he was in charge of transporting the money the store made to the bank.
Well this job presented an opportunity for Pineda to score some quick cash on the side. Or so he thought.
For the past four years, Pineda had been swapping the store's actual cash for counterfeit money he'd purchased on Amazon, taking the fake cash to the bank and pocketing the real stuff for himself.
Pineda had swiped nearly $400,000 from the store with fake packs of $100 bills he purchased on Amazon. For a pack of 100 fake bills, Pineda paid $9.00.
THe bank obviously wasn't fooled by the counterfeit bills, especially since the serial numbers on the fake bills actually said "PLAY MONEY!"
Pineda was caught on video slipping in the fake cash 16 times. He was arrested last week, admitted to his crime, and promised to pay it all back. He's current facing 20 years in prison.
Frank Boudreaux Jr., Special Agent In Charge with the U.S. Secret Service's Phoenix Field Office, told FOX 10 in Phoenix, "He was taking out the real money and replacing it with counterfeit, so if you had a thousand dollars of counterfeit that he brought in to work that day, he would take ten 100 dollar bills out of the stack for the bank deposit. There was a lot of coordination, and it was strategic in proving that this was knowingly and willingly committed."
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