SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California (KOLO) – Former South Lake Tahoe Mayor Tamara Wallace has been indicted on a single charge of wire fraud.
Wallace was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California on Tuesday.
The federal charge stems from allegations that, from around April 2019 to September 2025, while working as a bookkeeper for Lake Tahoe Presbyterian Church, Wallace embezzled about $390,000 through checks made out to herself and unauthorized electronic transfers.
The investigation into Wallace began in 2025 after she released an open letter admitting to embezzling funds from her employer and attempting to commit suicide.
Wallace now faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The El Dorado County DA’s Office said California’s lenient sentencing laws would likely have permitted very little prison time, or around a year at most, despite the nature of the…
THE TD BANK INSIDER “BRIBE-FOR-DATA” SCHEME (USA)
Date: February 17, 2026 Perpetrator: Edward Low (Former Bank Employee)
Case Description: In a high-profile case of “Insider Threat,” Edward Low, a former employee of TD Bank in New York, pleaded guilty in a New Jersey federal court to accepting bribes in exchange for confidential customer data. Between 2021 and 2022, Low leveraged his internal access to harvest the personal details of high-balance account holders. He then sold this “hot data” to external fraud syndicates for as little as $26,700 in personal kickbacks.
The external fraudsters used the information Low provided to conduct “Account Takeovers” (ATO), creating fraudulent checks and falsifying bank records to drain over $500,000 from unsuspecting customers. Low even went as far as helping co-conspirators open shell company accounts at a second financial institution where he was later employed. He now faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. This case has sent shockwaves through the global banking sector, highlighting that even the most robust external firewalls cannot protect against a “rogue insider” with administrative credentials.
Link to Original: US Dept of Justice – TD Bank Insider Plea