An employee with the BECU Lakeway branch has been arrested on suspicion of first-degree theft, first-degree identity theft and unlawful production of a payment instrument.
The Bellingham Herald reports that 25 year-old Blaine resident Cherie Vaetoefaga LaFoga is suspected of making a duplicate debit card for a vulnerable adult they had assisted in the branch, and using it to illegally withdraw a total of $7,400 from the account of the victim over a period of two weeks in June.
The victim’s family noticed the unexplained withdrawals, and after claiming fraud through the BECU system, an investigation showed surveillance photos of the transactions being made by a woman credit union employees identified as LaFoga.
The suspect was booked into Whatcom County Jail Thursday August 19 and was released the following Friday on $500 bail.