A North Carolina man was the third person to plead guilty to devising and executing a scheme to defraud the Nutrien Ltd. legacy company, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (PCS), by conspiring to fraudulently obtain matching charitable contributions for the Boys and Girls Succeed (BAGS) organization, according to a March 5 announcement by Michael Easley, US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The news came after US District Judge Terrence W. Boyle accepted the plea.
Dwayne Moorer West, 60, faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced later this year. Two of West’s co-conspirators pled guilty to the same charges on Jan. 23, 2024, and are also facing up to 20 years behind bars.
“Many companies encourage their employees to support local charities by matching their employees’ charitable contributions,” said Easley. “This defendant recruited PSC employees to make fake donations to his charity so he could fraudulently secure over a half-million dollars in matching funds from PSC. He then paid kickbacks to the employees. This defendant was driven by greed to take advantage of a charitable program meant to help those in need.”
According to documents and information presented in court, West owned BAGS, an organization that provided services to boys and girls in Wake County, N.C. Between 2010 and 2018, West conspired with Michael Lavern King, a PCS employee, and Martin Fareed Abdullah, a BAGS employee, to fraudulently obtain matched charitable contributions from PCS. To carry out this scheme, King and Abdullah solicited multiple PCS employees to aid and assist in the fraud.
West obtained bank checks that fraudulently showed large charitable donations from each PCS employee to the BAGS foundation. The fraudulent checks were then used as donation receipts for submission to PCS as part of their matching charitable program. The PCS employees never made charitable donations to BAGS. Instead, they received a quarterly kickback from West, Abdullah, and King for the use of their employee information. In total, PCS matched nearly $600,000 in fraudulently obtained contributions to BAGS.
The US Attorney’s office told Green Markets that some 13 PCS employees participated in the scheme. It said they all cooperated with the investigation. They were not prosecuted, except for King. All 13 were terminated by PCS, according to the office.
“We conducted an
internal investigation into this matter and took all appropriate action,
including cooperating with the US Attorney’s office,” a Nutrien spokesperson
told Green Markets. “The details of that investigation and the actions
taken by the company remain
confidential; however, we can confirm the individual named in the article is no
longer employed with the company.”