A Texas woman is accused of stealing more than $100 million from the U.S. Army that was reserved for children of military families.
The U.S. Justice Department charged Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, in early December with five counts of mail fraud, four counts of involving in a monetary transaction over $10,000 using criminally derived proceeds, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
The San Antonio-area woman – a former civilian financial program manager at Fort Sam Houston – is accused of creating a shell company to siphon $103 million from the army, which she said used to fund a lavish lifestyle with million-dollar homes and fancy cars.
The Justice Department says the company she managed, Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development (CHYLD), claimed it was delivering services to military members and their families. In reality, authorities allege the entity did not provide any services.
Court filings, as reported by the San Antonio Express-News, the Internal Revenue Service discovered the alleged fraud when Mello stopped filing her taxes after 2017 and lived an opulent lifestyle that didn’t come close to her salary.
She was paid $130,000 in 2022.
Court records revealed the last property Mello bought was a 60-acre estate in rural Maryland while she was stationed in Washington, D.C., on temporary duty last August.
“Mello has not filed any subsequent income tax returns for CHYLD on a personal nor a business entity income tax return,” states a lawsuit, which aims to collect more than $18 million stashed away in bank accounts tied to her name.
The IRS, which teamed up with the U.S. Army during its investigation, alleges Mello owned expensive real estate and condos, had a collection of vintage and high-performance motorcycles and cars, went on trips around the world, dined at the finest restaurants, and bought expensive jewelry and designer clothes between 2017 and 2023.
Mello is accused of benefiting from the poor supervision at the army’s Installation Management Command and stealing the money intended for the 4-H program.
“It speaks to the nonchalant-ness of the command and its lack of internal controls,” one person familiar with the investigation told the Express-News.
By agencies
