A $100,000 payroll fraud has been discovered at Wayne Farms, a leading Alabama poultry company, Farm Journal’s Pork reports.
Five employees of Wayne Farms in Dothan, Alabama, were arrested - and later charged - after their scam came to light. Clifton Rafael Frazier (35), Olivia Patrice Beard (29), Latoya Copeland (34), Tamilin Smith (38) and Robert Kenta Wade (41) have been all charged with first-degree theft.
Mr Frazier appears to have increased hours worked on payroll records for employees who compensated him. A Dothan Police investigator, Terry Nelson, told the Dothan Eagle “The employees allegedly involved in this scheme paid Frazier roughly $200 a week for illegally adding overtime to their pay.”
“After the company was made aware of the report regarding overtime, Wayne Farms began looking into the issue and discovered the overtime pay.” Nelson continues, “Wayne Farms contacted law enforcement stating they wanted all involved caught and prosecuted.”
According to Wayne Farms, its Dothan business employs 350 people. With a payroll of $300 million, annually. A spokesman for Wayne Farms, Frank Singleton, said the company regularly has payroll reviews to ensure system integrity, “It is one of those things that when we discover it, we take care of it.”
Mr Nelson estimates the profit from the fraud to have been around $100,000. He expects an additional arrest soon. Two years of payroll records are now under review, dating from January 2017. Wayne Farms is the sixth biggest (vertically integrated) processor and producer of poultry in America. Investigations will continue.
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A $100,000 payroll fraud has been discovered at Wayne Farms, a leading Alabama poultry company, Farm Journal’s Pork reports.
Five employees of Wayne Farms in Dothan, Alabama, were arrested - and later charged - after their scam came to light. Clifton Rafael Frazier (35), Olivia Patrice Beard (29), Latoya Copeland (34), Tamilin Smith (38) and Robert Kenta Wade (41) have been all charged with first-degree theft.
Mr Frazier appears to have increased hours worked on payroll records for employees who compensated him. A Dothan Police investigator, Terry Nelson, told the Dothan Eagle “The employees allegedly involved in this scheme paid Frazier roughly $200 a week for illegally adding overtime to their pay.”
“After the company was made aware of the report regarding overtime, Wayne Farms began looking into the issue and discovered the overtime pay.” Nelson continues, “Wayne Farms contacted law enforcement stating they wanted all involved caught and prosecuted.”
According to Wayne Farms, its Dothan business employs 350 people. With a payroll of $300 million, annually. A spokesman for Wayne Farms, Frank Singleton, said the company regularly has payroll reviews to ensure system integrity, “It is one of those things that when we discover it, we take care of it.”
Mr Nelson estimates the profit from the fraud to have been around $100,000. He expects an additional arrest soon. Two years of payroll records are now under review, dating from January 2017. Wayne Farms is the sixth biggest (vertically integrated) processor and producer of poultry in America. Investigations will continue.
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