A man featured on “America’s Most Wanted” suspected of stealing millions of dollars meant for U.S. Navy veterans has been arrested in Portland.
Thompson was arrested on Monday evening and booked into the Multnomah Co. Jail, where he is being held without the possibility of bail. He is in federal custody of the U.S. Marshals Service awaiting an identity hearing, since his real identity is still unknown.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and U.S. Marshal Peter J. Elliott announced at a press conference in Cleveland on Tuesday that a tip led investigators to Thompson’s Portland home, where he has been under surveillance for the past week.
“We are relieved Bobby Thompson is now in federal custody after a nationwide manhunt and years of work within the Attorney General’s Office to track him down,” said Attorney General DeWine.
Investigators believe Thompson stole as much as $2 million from Ohio residents — and millions more from donors in 40 other states — through a charity that he founded, the United States Navy Veterans Association. He’s suspected of collecting the money for about five years beginning in 2005.
Agents with the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) are headed to Portland to continue their investigation. “We commend the teamwork with our federal partners in this case,” DeWine said. “This case sends a strong message that we will not tolerate scam artists in Ohio.”
U.S. Marshals said today they have found $1 million in cash in a storage locker rented by the recently captured fugitive known as Bobby Thompson.
The man accused of setting up a fake Navy Veterans charity and siphoning away millions of dollars was captured earlier this week by U.S. Marshals in Portland, Oregon, after nearly two years on the run.
Now, the Marshals said they have locked a stash of cash in a storage facility rented under the name Alan Lacey.
The name was on a fake Canadian identity card that the fugitive had on him at the time of his capture, according to Pete Elliott, the U.S. Marshal in northern Ohio who headed the fugitive task force that spent two years on the case.
The alleged con artist, who mostly went by the name Bobby Thompson, has continued to refuse to reveal his identity after Marshals took him into custody last night, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.
Investigators are still unsure of the true identity of “Thompson” and will be working on that as well as identifying his alleged ongoing criminal activity. Thompson was transported to the Multnomah County Jail where he will await extradition to Northern Ohio.
As detailed in an ABC News investigation, the mustachioed man known as Thompson was charged in Ohio in 2010 on counts of identity theft, fraud, and money laundering in connection with a bogus charity called the U.S. Navy Veterans Association that raised more than $100 million from unsuspecting donors around the country.
See also:
FUGITIVE, SHAM VETERANS’ CHARITY CREATOR BOBBY THOMPSON, MAY BE HIDING OUT IN NEW MEXICO
VETERANS CHARITY FRAUD: STOLEN IDENTITIES, MISSING MILLIONS – ELABORATE SCAMS
