What would you do if you’d just stolen millions from your employer? First of all, don’t do that. You could light $1 million of it on fire immediately, or, you could spend it playing Game Of War on your phone.
A California man pleaded guilty [PDF] last week in federal court on charges that he stole $4.8 million from his employer over a span of seven years, Ars Technica reports. He managed the company’s accounting department and oversaw its commercial credit account, and abused that position to make a slew of unauthorized credit card transactions, among other things. He now owes the company $4,542,236.08 in restitution, and could be facing several decades in prison.
In his guilty plea, he admitted to spending “approximately $1 million” on Game of War, a mobile game where players spend money on troops and other battle paraphernalia to attack other players’ empires. It’s a game that’s notoriously easy to spend money on, with VentureBeat estimating that players spend $550 a year on average on the game. And Cracked.com describes it as “like gambling, but with no possibility of winning.”
Along with all those virtual soldiers, he also used some of his ill-gotten gains to get plastic surgery, buy season tickets to San Francisco 49ers and Sacramento Kings games, luxury cars, furniture, and a golf membership.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist