Californian Man Stole $5 Million From Employer: Spent $1 Million On 'Game of War', Still Not Sentenced

A man in California embezzled around $5 Million from his employer, Holt after abusing his authority as the manager of the company's accounting department.

$5 Million is a big amount of money and anyone who gets that much money has lots of options to spend it on. The thief, Kevin Lee Co, chose to spend almost 1/5th of the amount on a smartphone game!

Kevin engaged in a fradulent scheme from May 2008 to March 2015 at his workplace, Holt, which is a heavy machinery company based out of California. Kevin was the accounting department manager and was able to conduct hundreds of unauthorised credit card transactions on the company's expense. He then fabricated records related to the credit card and misled the bank about the actual incidents. Kevin pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, as a part of a plea agreement.

Guilty as Charged!

He is supposed to pay $4,542,236.08 in order to escape financial liability. He also faces 20 years of prison for each charge leveled against him but has not been sentenced yet.

What He spent On?

Apart from the usual luxuries including high end cars and game tickets, he decided to spend a whopping $1 Million on a smartphone game called "Game of War". It is a freemium app which basically means that you don't need to [ay to download it but you have to pay lots of money to get ahead in the game. You can spend money on better weapons or abilities. The game calls itself "the world's largest multiplayer strategy game" and earns almost $1.6 million per day.

It recently spent $40 million on an attractive ad that was played during the 2015 Super Bowl featuring Kate Upton.

One article has described this game to be "like gambling, but with no possibility of winning." Have you played this game and have put considerable money in it? You think it is worth the investment?

Keep watching this space for more news and updates.