For 13 years, John C. Beale, was pretending to be a CIA secret agent, flew around the world on first-class flights, stayed in high-end hotels and cost the taxpayers almost $900,000!
Here’s the story of the man whose life could only be compared with Frank Abagnale Jr., the man who was the inspiration for the movie Catch Me If You Can.
John C. Beale was a top official working on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While working there and in an effort to justify why he started skipping work, he started spreading the rumour that he was in fact, a CIA agent who was working on secret missions. Given he was a top administrative personnel in the organisation, no one really looked into it and this gave the chance to Beale to push the limits even further. (the article continues after the ad)
Claiming that he was working on an EPA research project, he drew almost $60,000 in travel expenses to Los Angeles, where he was flying on first-class and stayed in 5-start hotels. He didn’t even report to work but of course, continued to draw his salary from the EPA with the ‘CIA secret agent’ excuse.
Up until this point none ever really suspected anything and, if he had stopped here, he might have gotten away with it. But then greed came into place. In 2011 he retired from the EPA but for 2 more years, up until 2013, he continued to draw his salary. When this was discovered by an HR employee, Beale responded that he was still working with the CIA. But his boss, Gina McCarthy, started figuring out that something’s wrong with this CIA story.
She contacted a Homeland Security employee that worked as the liaison for the EPA to the intelligence community, only to find out that there have been no records of Beale ever working for the CIA. Beale was arrested and charged for felony theft of government property. He paid to the court a total of $1,393,393 and was sentenced to 32 months in prison, 2 years of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service.
If you like what you read, then you will definitely love this one: The Weird Story Of Mr. 880, The 1$ Counterfeiter
Photo: Huffington Post
Photoshop: I’m A Useless Info Junkie
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