My Philly Daily On Crime Column: Former Department Of Defense Employee Pleads Guilty To Laundering Millions Of Dollars For Overseas Scammers

 Philly Daily ran my On Crime column today. 

You can read the column via the link below or the following text:

Paul Davis: Former Department of Defense employee pleads guilty to laundering millions of dollars for overseas scammers – Philly Daily  

Many workers with the Defense Department, now called the War Department, as well as other federal agencies, legally moonlight in other jobs to supplement their income.

Prior to my retirement from the Defense Department in late 2007, I served as the civilian administrative officer for a DOD command that oversaw defense contractors in the tri-state area for the military’s major procurement commands. The contractors, ranging from mom & pop firms to major corporations, provided the Defense Department with such diverse items as cruise missiles, combat boots, special operations parachutes and orange juice, to name but a few.

Our offices were located for many years at the Defense Personnel Support Center in South Philadelphia, known locally as the “Quartermaster,” until we moved to the naval base on Tabor Road in Northeast Philadelphia in 1999.

One of my many security tasks was briefing our military and civilian employees on the “dos and don’ts” of outside employment, especially if they possessed a security clearance.

One situation that never came up in my time was a Defense Department employee working a second job as a money mule for Nigerian fraudsters.

Which is exactly the case of Samual D. Marcus, a former Defense Department employee who worked a few buildings down from my building at the naval base, albeit long after I retired.

Marcus was a logistics specialist for DLA Troop Support, a major subordinate command of the Defense Logistics Agency. The DLA Troop Support command is responsible for four supply chains which provide the nation’s military and government partners with: food and feeding equipment; clothing and textile items; construction and equipment materiel ranging from lightbulbs to bulldozers; and medical materiel and pharmaceuticals.

DLA Troop Support provides more than $25B in support to 77k global customers through a network of 2.7k suppliers, delivering optimal, global supply chain solutions with a focus on world-class performance and strong partnerships in support of national defense, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Marcus is no longer a DLA employee.  

United States Attorney David Metcalf announced on July 7^th that Samuel D. Marcus, 33, of Oreland, Pennsylvania, entered a plea of guilty before United States District Judge Joel H. Slomsky to one count of concealment money laundering.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Marcus was charged by indictment in February, arising from his role as a money mule for a group of Nigeria-based scammers, in which he received, concealed, and laundered millions of dollars in fraud proceeds.

As detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, after falling victim to a romance fraud scheme in late 2022 and early 2023, Marcus then knowingly served as a money mule for the same group of fraudsters that initially victimized him. 

“From approximately July 2023 to December 2025, while employed as a Logistics Specialist with the U.S. Department of Defense, Marcus was in direct and regular contact with this group of Nigeria-based fraudsters, who operated under the aliases “Rachel Jude” and “Ned McMurray,” among others. These fraudsters engaged in a variety of wire fraud schemes that targeted victims based in the United States, including romance fraud, cyber fraud, tax fraud, financing fraud, and business email compromise schemes, to which victims lost millions of dollars,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated.

“The fraudsters employed a network of money mules in the United States to help launder the fraud proceeds and instructed victims to transfer funds to financial accounts opened and operated by various money mules, including Marcus.

“At the direction of fraudsters, Marcus and other money mules conducted a series of rapid financial transactions to convert fraud victim funds deposited into their accounts into cryptocurrency and to move those funds into foreign accounts. Marcus personally deposited and transferred millions of dollars of fraudulently obtained money into and through his personal and business accounts, while fully aware that “Rachel Jude” and “Ned McMurray” were scammers who carried out sophisticated fraud schemes. Marcus also affirmatively misled and lied to his financial institutions and law enforcement officers about the laundered funds, to include sending fraudulent invoices to make the transactions appear legitimate. In fact, Marcus continued to work as a money mule for the fraudsters after being informed by FBI agents that the money passing through his accounts had been stolen from other people and that his monetary transfers were consistent with money laundering.”

Marcus is scheduled to be sentenced on October 16 and faces a maximum possible term of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

This case was investigated by FBI Philadelphia’s Fort Washington Resident Agency, with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Samuel S. Dalke.

Paul Davis’s On Crime column appears here each week. He is also a contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached via pauldavisoncrime.com.