Posted in: Movies | Tagged: AFTRA Retirement Fund, Enrico Rubano, entertainment, film, Nader Karimi, Shivanand Maharaj

3.4 Million Embezzled From AFTRA Retirement Fund

Published Sun, 22 Jan 2017 17:15:57 -0600

You've no doubt seen the initials SAG-AFTRA when it pertains to film making. The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is the union that looks out for actors and has set up the AFTRA Retirement Fund. The fund, which provides retirement benefits and is a separate entity from the SAG-AFTRA union, dealt with an embezzlement blow on Friday as a former executive of the fund and a vendor were arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Enrico Rubano, former co-head of information technologies for the fun, and Shivanand Maharaj, a vendor, are accused of two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the stealing of $3.4 million from the fun in a scheme that ran from 2009 to 2015. They allegedly used companies the owned or controlled to submit invoices for IT services that they did not perform, making kickbacks to Rubano. The fund found evidence of the crime during an internal review and contacted authorities.

In a separate case in 2015, former chief information officer for the Screen Actors Guild's Producers Pension and Health Plans. Nader Karimi, please guilty to filling a false tax return in connection with allegedly embezzling $700,000.

The AFTRA Retirement Fun claims that case will not have a material effect on benefits and released the following statement:

AFTRA Retirement has rigorous internal controls and strong fraud prevention procedures in place. We regularly conduct internal reviews of operations to protect our participants.

During one of these periodic internal reviews of operations, AFTRA Retirement found evidence that there may have been unauthorized expenditures in connection with a vendor relationship. AFTRA Retirement immediately undertook a careful review of the evidence and promptly notified federal law enforcement authorities. AFTRA Retirement has actively cooperated in this investigation and we have been informed that former AFTRA Retirement employee Rick Rubano and an outside vendor have been arrested in connection with the government's investigation.

AFTRA Retirement also promptly notified its insurance carrier of this situation and is pursuing recovery of any losses ultimately determined to have been incurred. AFTRA Retirement wishes to assure its participants and other concerned parties that the losses will not have a material financial impact on AFTRA Retirement and participants' benefits are not at risk. Our participants place their trust in us and we take this trust very seriously. We will continue to take the appropriate steps to protect our participants and their benefits.

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