AER Scam Exposed

The Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by donations from soldiers.  I contribute money into it every month.  The AER program uses the money to offer money to soldiers for emergency reasons.  The most often reason in Korea is for money for soldiers to buy a plane ticket to fly back home due to death or illness in the family.  AER will then decide whether to give a soldier a loan or an outright grant depending on the income status. 

As usual one scumbag has found a way to ruin a good program:

An Army staff sergeant was sentenced to one year of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday after admitting he helped scam an Army relief program and soldiers under his command out of $6,000.

Staff Sgt. Shane R. Martin, 40, admitted in a general court-martial that since fall of 2005 he had helped three soldiers get money from Army Emergency Relief, an organization dedicated to helping soldiers in need. Then, he asked each of the three soldiers for a cut, he said under oath.

This guy was in cahoots with an AER employee to get soldiers to apply for a loan for reasons such as because a family is suffering from Hurricane Katrina related problems and then the AER official would give out the money and cut it three ways.  I have to wonder how long this scam has been going on and how many more people have been getting away with it?  There is obviously very little checks and balances in place if such a fraud could so easily take place.