Former worker charged with embezzling $900K from family-owned trucking company

A North Carolina woman has been indicted on multiple charges related to a scheme to defraud her trucking company employer of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Michelle Wilshire, 48, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Charlotte on multiple counts of wire fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering, according to an August 16 announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of North Carolina.

According to court documents, Wilshire was employed by a small, family-owned trucking company from  2016 to 2021 and was in charge of the company’s Comdata account.

Wilshire is accused of issuing multiple Comdata prepaid debit cards in her own name and in the name of others, “including former employees, fictitious employees, and current employees who were not aware the cards existed,” and then withdrawing funds form the debit cards using an ATM. Authorities say that this scheme netted Wilshire more than $528,000.

Additionally, the indictment alleges that Wilshire used Comdata’s Comchek and Comchek Mobile services to issue checks to herself and to wire money transfers to her personal bank account in another scheme that cost the trucking company $315,000.

Authorities also say that Wilshire made an illicit transfer of $58,000 from the trucking company into the account of a former employee.

The indictment also accuses Wilshire of failing to report the embezzled funds in her income tax returns.

Wilshire is facing six counts of wire fraud, which carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count; five counts of making and subscribing a false tax return, which carry a statutory maximum term of one year in prison per count; and two counts of money laundering which carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction.