Orco's Chief Executive Is Detained in Croatia in connection with Resort development

Jean-Francois Ott, chief executive officer of east European developer Orco Property Group SA was questioned by police in Zagreb in connection with a criminal investigation into a luxury island resort development.

Two officers took Ott from a Zagreb hotel this morning after he finished a briefing with reporters, company spokeswoman Petra Zdenkova said by phone today. The shares sank 4 percent to 178.96 koruna in Prague, the lowest in more than a month. Zdenkova said Ott cooperated with police before his late- afternoon release.

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Court detains three in hotel fraud

 (Hospitality Business News) December 30, 2010 - - - According to reports a Nigerian court has ordered three persons remanded in custody for their alleged involvement in a failed deal to construct a 5-star hotel in Minna.

The accused persons, Tanko Angulu, Mohammed Balaba, and Musa Wara, through SOCACIC West Africa Ltd, signed an MOU with the Niger State government to build a 5 star hotel with a total cost of N25 billion (US$ 165,000,000).

The Commissioner of Justice stated that once the MOU was signed the Government released it’s portion of the “counterpart fund” to the contractor. An amount of N500 million (US$3.3M). The Commissioner further explained that the contractors failed to start the project.

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Manhattan restaurant owner pleads to tax charge

NEW YORK — An 80-year-old Manhattan restaurant owner has pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns by hiding $4.9 million overseas.

Ernest Vogliano entered the plea in federal court in Manhattan Wednesday. He agreed to pay a civil penalty of $940,000. Sentencing was set for March 24.

Vogliano owns Il Vagabondo, a legendary midtown restaurant. He said during his plea that he knew what he was doing was wrong and illegal when he failed to report the money from 2003 through 2007.

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Shell Vacations Investigating Credit Card Breach

Shell Vacations, a company that operates a chain of resorts across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, is currently investigating a possible security breach that resulted in credit card details being compromised.

An announcement posted on the Shell Vacations Hospitality and Shell Vacations Club websites, the company’s two subsidiaries, reveals that the suspected incident occurred between June 2010 and October 2010.
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President of RAI Hotel Acquisition, Inc., charged with fraud

(Hospitality Business News)  NEW YORK December 2 2010 - The President of RAI Hotel Acquisition, Inc., ("RAI, Inc."), was arrested and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud in connection with a $1.5 million scheme in which Robert McDonald falsely told an investor that the investor’s funds would be used towards the purchase of more than $100 million worth of hotels. Instead, McDonald spent the investor’s funds on, among other things, a variety of personal expenses. McDonald was arrested Wednesday morning in Brooklyn, and appeared before a U.S. Magistrate in Manhattan federal court.

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Foreign Hacker Suspected in Seattle Restaurant Data Breach

Federal authorities now say the recent Seattle cyber attack was a much bigger crime than first believed. A U.S. Secret Service agent says more than 1,000 credit and debit cards may have been compromised.
The attack happened in late October, and the forensic trail leads overseas, officials say. Card data was stolen on Oct. 22 in a one-day attack by what authorities say for now was one hacker. The Seattle Capitol Hill area restaurant, Broadway Grill, appears to be ground zero for the attack. Secret Service agent Bob Kierstead of the Seattle Electronic Crimes Task Force says the overseas hacker who was able to access the network through Broadway Grill's system appears to have been able to leapfrog from the restaurant's access to a critical server in the transaction process, where account information was available.

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£52k hotel fraudster facing jail after court hears of lavish lifestyle

A CROOKED book-keeper fleeced a family-run business of s52,500 to help fund a lavish lifestyle of holidays abroad, flash cars and even a personal chef.
Lesley Rafferty, 44, whose home in an exclusive seaside street is worth around s500,000, stole so much from the business, it had to go to the bank for an overdraft.

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Pub landlord is jailed for forging signature

A PUB landlord and parliamentary candidate for the British National Party has been jailed for forging a signature to assist the sale of a Northumberland hotel.
Peter Mailer, 54, had used his former manager’s signature to push through the £245,000 sale of the Hen and Chickens Hotel, in Berwick.

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Wealthy hotel developers convicted on tax charges

A father and son who developed hotels in New York and Florida have been convicted on federal tax charges in Fort Lauderdale.


The U.S. Attorney's Office reports that 77-year-old Mauricio Cohen Assor and 46-year-old Leon Cohen-Levy were found guilty Wednesday of conspiring to defraud the United States and filing false tax

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Prison time for $6.3M fraud

PHILADELPHIA — An East Norriton man who admitted embezzling $6.3 million from his former employer over nearly a decade was sentenced to six years in federal prison Monday.


In March, Michael G. Spada, 50, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, bank fraud, filing a false tax return and making a false statement to federal investigators.

Spada stole the money from Scannapieco Development Corporation, in New Hope, and hid the fraud from a bank that extended him a $3.2 million line of credit and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to federal prosecutors.

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Boston Blackie’s closing some locations

Chicago-area restaurant chain Boston Blackie’s is closing some of its locations almost a year after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


An employee who answered the phone at the chain’s River East location said it was closing effective immediately. He declined to comment further. The Boston Blackie’s next to the Doubletree Hotel in Skokie also closed on Sunday, according to a hotel employee. Phone numbers listed on the company’s Web site for locations in Lincoln Park, Glencoe and Naperville were disconnected or out of service on Tuesday afternoon.

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New York man sentenced in $18 million hotel fraud case

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) – A New York man on Monday was sentenced to 2 years and eight months to 8 years in state prison for his theft of over $18 million as part of a fraud scheme, U.S. District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced.


Adam C. Hochfelder, 39, pleaded guilty to six counts of grand larceny in the first degree, six counts of grand larceny in the second degree, three counts of grand larceny in the third degree, and three counts of Scheme to defraud in the first degree on May 21.

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`Web of Lies' Hid Assets of Florida Father-Son Hotel Developers, U.S. Says

A father and son who built hotels used a “web of lies” to hide income and assets including Miami Beach mansions, luxury cars, a yacht and a helicopter from U.S. tax authorities, a Florida federal prosecutor told jurors.

Mauricio Cohen Assor, 77, and his son, Leon Cohen Levy, 46, concealed their wealth behind nominee owners of companies in tax havens while reporting annual income of no more than about $46,000 a year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Neiman said today in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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Sacramento area Restaurants targeted by hackers

Roseville police are warning people eating out in Roseville to avoid using their debit cards and to pay with cash or use credit cards.


The warning is in response to a recent rash of credit card thefts connected to a multitude of Roseville eateries.
 
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Hotel exec gets 40 months for embezzling $1.4M

For more than six years, Angela I. Borrelli used her position as an assistant corporate controller of a Philadelphia-based hotel-management company to steal almost $1.4 million from her employer.
Borrelli admitted yesterday in federal court that she stole money 182 times from June 7, 2001, to November 2007.

U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis sentenced Borrelli to 40 months in a federal lockup and ordered her to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on Nov. 15.

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Worker charged with stealing $100k from W Hotel

A former payroll employee at a luxury downtown hotel has been charged with stealing over $100,000 from the business through a fraudulent check writing scheme, authorities said today.

Vincent Gordon swiped $122,228 from the W Chicago-Lakeshore Hotel in a scam that took place in 2007, between May and December of that year, said Andy Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.

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International credit card fraud syndicate busted

KUALA LUMPUR: City police have smashed an International credit card fraud syndicate with the arrest of three suspects on Monday.

In the bust, police also seized credit cards with a load value of RM23 million and several items believed to be used to produce the fake cards.

The success came after the Brickfields commercial crime police department received a report from a hotel following a fake credit card transaction on July 13.

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Florida Inmate scams Hotel Guests out of Credit Card information

By: Eric Hertha

Hospitality Business News – Bahamas Desk
August 21, 2010

Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Department of Corrections announced Friday the arrest of five Orlando residents on charges of fraud. Those arrested include Daimion Goldsmith, 40, Kendra Hodge, 22, Lavonda Goldsmith, 45, Geneva Legrier, 18, and Levell Jones, 64. One additional suspect, Edison Filer, 48, is currently at large.

Damion Goldsmith who was previously convicted of credit card fraud, fraud and grand theft is an inmate at the Suwannee Correctional Institution in Live Oak Florida. According to arrest documents Goldsmith had friends help him call hotels and ask room-service employees for the numbers of rooms they had just delivered to. When speaking to room service employees he claimed to be a hotel employee from security and the room service workers would routinely supply the guest room information.

Once Goldsmith obtained the guest room number he or one of his accomplices would contact the guest and pretend to be a hotel employee. They would claim that the computer system was down and that they needed the guest’s credit card information. Although many guests did not supply the information the FDLE has identified eight victims who agents said lost more than $10,000.

Orlando hotel guests were not the only ones targeted. Tourists in Alabama, North Carolina and other states also were victimized in incidents going back to August 2009, the FDLE said.

Prior to this incident Goldsmith was scheduled to be released in April 2015. Not that his incarceration makes Florida, or any other state, safer.

Hotel worker who stole $114,000 spared jail

A hotel worker who defrauded her employers of more than £76,000, which she "frittered away", has been spared jail.

Jill Calder was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service, having pleaded guilty to embezzling the money while working as a purchase ledger manager at North British Trust Hotels in Edinburgh.

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Frequent diner faked seizures to skip out of restaurant bills

He ate buffalo wings and drank nine Blue Moon drafts at Burke's Cafe. At Shucker's, he washed down a pound of steamed shrimp with three glasses of Tanqueray Gin, two Coronas, a Heineken and a Johnny Walker Black Label scotch.

Day after day, year after year, Andrew Palmer dined at restaurants all over Baltimore and beyond, including Anne Arundel, Baltimore and St. Mary's counties. He even traveled as far south as Florida and sampled restaurants there.

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