Soldier smuggles $ million out of Afghanistan
Preston sends us a link to the Fayetteville Observer which tells the tale of 30-year-old Staff Sgt. Tonya Long who, in her job as a customs inspector in Afghanistan was able to smuggle out a million bucks that she and an unnamed cohort fleeced from the US government while it supported operations there;
Walker’s spokesman said Long and a co-conspirator, whose name is being kept secret, took the money in a double-billing kickback scheme. The co-conspirator collected the money and Long helped smuggle it to the United States in her customs inspector role, the spokesman said.
“Tonya Long betrayed her team and while other soldiers were fighting for our country, she was stealing money intended to support the mission,” Walker said in a news release. “Her conduct undermined her fellow soldiers and our nation’s reputation. This sentence demonstrates that conduct like this will not be tolerated.”
The UK’s Daily Mail reports that she “spent the cash on plastic surgery, a vacation and an 18-wheeler truck and trailer”.
Category: Shitbags
A semi? Really???
Boob job, tracter trailer, and vacation to the Gulf Coast … RED NECK TRASH!
5 years hard time! 3 years probe! 1 Federal conviction!
she needed the semi too haul around her new boobs!
At least she went for “big bucks” vice selling-out for peanuts. Hope she enjoys every minute of her well-deserved stay at the “crossbar hotel”.
If you’re gonna go, go big, I say.
She smuggled the money in VCR tapes? No wonder she needed a semi and trailer.
She was going to buy her way through infantry school. Bam!
A boob job, an 18-wheeler, and a vacation?
That must have been a hell of a boob job!
Whitey_wingnut: I think she was putting the cash in VCRs after removing the electronics, not putting it in empty tapes.
$1M in small bills is a surprisingly small volume. Based on current US currency dimensions (2.61″ x 6.14″ x 0.0043″) assuming an equal mix of small ($5/$10/$20) bills and allowing for some wrinkling (200 per inch in height when stacked/bound vice the maximum possible 232), a cubic foot of cash is somewhat over $250k. She’d thus only need about 4 cubic feet of volume for the money – about 3 “banker’s boxes” worth.
If a hollowed-out VCR had on average 0.25 cu ft of useful space, that means she’d only have needed to ship 16 of them.
You won’t get $1M in small bills in a briefcase or suitcase, but it’s not as big a pile of paper as you might think.
I cannot stop laughing over this.
See, this is what happens when you try something like this without the expert planning of Clint Eastwood, the leadership of Telly Savalas, the business mind of Don Rickles and the bold audacity of Donald Sutherland.
She has to pay restitution of a million. She’s 30, has a felony conviction, a prison sentence, a dishonorable discharge and, I’m guessing, isn’t too bright. Yep. She should be able to repay the million back in no time at all.
Well, 2/17 Air Cav, with those fake boobs, one pay day night of lap dances at Rick’s Lounge should get her a good part of the way there. She might as well put those puppies to work.
strippers do make some good money; damn genetics…
Hondo … way too much time on your hands!
What are the chances she actually is a looker? I mean, I know that some guys would poke the crack of dawn, if they could, but even dead drunk there are limits for most of us.
Boob Job and a Semi? Sounds like a Redneck’s Dream Girl.
Coming to a truck stop near you.
Seriously shame that poor excuse of a Soldier. Hope she gets Big Bertha, Bubba’s cousin, as her cell mate.
There’s a picture of her at the Daily Mail link.
Yep. Now I see why Tonya needed a boob job.
@18. Hmmm. I am surprised. Rick’s Lounge, you say?
She’s a deployment “8” at best.
They must have taken it down because all I see now are a couple of stock photos.
Yeah, five years in the federal pen ain’t gonna help her marketability when the time comes for scaring up $1M worth of lap dances and “buy me drinkee” shit.
I would have skipped the boob job and recommended a face job!
http://radaris.com/p/Tonya/Fagley/
That’s why the lights in strip bars are always way low, Master Chief. Besides, the only “face job” that would have helped her involves a 9-iron.
@9, Hondo, you’ve done a little thinking about this, haven’t you? 😛
Dear God-in-heaven. This woman bought a boob job just so men could talk to her without making eye contact. It was probably better that way.
And USMCE8Ret, she is only a deployment 8 if you’re drunk or took an undiagnosed TBI.
The picture of Tonya Long with her three kids is still up on the Daily Mail article. I don’t know who you guys are looking at, but she’s not too bad for a blonde.
Flagwaver: not really. But I do enjoy sanity-checking stuff sometimes, and I don’t mind doing some math.
I got to wondering one day about all those movies and TV shows where a robber or terrorist holding hostages demands “$500K” (or $1M or more) in “small bills” and they bring them a briefcase or small suitcase. That just didn’t seem right, but I wondered: was there any way that could be legit?
Turned out the math was pretty simple, and the answer is no – there’s no way that much cash in small bills could fit in a briefcase or small suitcase. That much cash in small bills is simply too big – and too heavy (think 1 to 3 cases of copier paper).
Since I’d already done similar calculations once before, doing this one was pretty easy. (smile)
She could do porn
Yeah, that pic is like looking into a doorknob. It’s not very flattering. I don’t think she’s bad at all. What are you guys, all Rock Hudsons–only straight?
Says the co-conspirator is a captain.
More charges to follow?
@11
Well played, sir. Well played!
Now she can apply for a job at Haliburton. They sure as shit stole millions in cash out of Iraq and Afghanistan too. KBR can always use a good corner cutter for their next heist as well.
http://terminallance.com/2010/10/07/terminal-lance-71-deployment-goggles/
Yep, she ain’t that bad looking for now. I imagine she’ll look a bit rougher after her extended stay in prison.
I can’t imagine how people think up such schemes, then continue tempting fate. I mean, I understand the temptation of scoring some easy cash. I can understand the urge to continue doing something wrong that you’ve gotten away with before. But to risk a career and freedom for even a million dollars in today’s world is foolish. Then to spend the money like there’s no tomorrow and leave a trail? I don’t condone stealing anything, but if you’re gonna do it, at least do it smart.
We had a SSG in my company get an Article 15 for trying to smuggle some bayonets home in VCR years ago. It’s funny how such obsolete equipment is still being used to hide things.