A hotel operations manager of a resort on the Las Vegas Strip is accused of stealing more than $773,000 from the establishment between July 2022 and July 2023 and is now facing several theft and money laundering charges.
On September 1, Las Vegas, Nevada resident Brandon Rashaad Johnson, 38, was detained on suspicion of stealing, computer fraud, and money laundering.
When an alert coworker mentioned that he had seen a noticeable lifestyle change in the former hotel operations manager at Aria Resort & Casino, others began to take notice. The coworker informed authorities that after investigating Johnson’s business dealings, he found several odd transactions and promptly alerted his manager.
Johnson is accused of issuing 209 false refunds back to a single Chase debit card, with the money going into a checking account, according to documents from the Clark County Detention Centre and a police report acquired by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
He was allegedly transferring money across a number of other Chase accounts, according to the police.
“It is common for criminals to move money between accounts to make the fraudulent funds harder to track and also make the stolen money appear legitimate,” a police investigator wrote in Johnson’s arrest report, reviewed by the Review-Journal.
The 38-year-old is accused of spending the stolen money on pricey dinners, trips on a private plane, and shopping extravaganzas at designer outlets like Versace and Louis Vuitton.
Prior to his preliminary hearing of the evidence or an indictment, Johnson is scheduled for a court appearance on Monday, September 11, where he must post a $100,000 bail and be released with GPS monitoring.
