NEW YORK, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Four consultants hired to eliminate waste and fraud in New York's municipal payroll system allegedly bilked the city out of $80 million, prosecutors said.
Dmitry Aronshtein, Victor Natanzon, Scott Berger and Mark Mazer -- along with Mazer's wife, Svetlana, and his mother, Larisa Medzon -- allegedly used phony time sheets, payments to dummy shell companies and money laundering through Chinese and Latvian banks to buy expensive cars and two multimillion-dollar suburban homes, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
All six face charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud, money laundering or both, the prosecutor said.
"In an ironic twist, a project intended to prevent payroll waste, fraud and abuse was itself allegedly bilked in part by fraudulent time-keeping," the New York Post quoted him as saying.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the alleged theft "a major fraud perpetrated on city taxpayers." When asked how the scam lasted so long under his administration's watch, he said he couldn't comment because of an ongoing city investigation.
"We will do everything possible to ensure that we get that money back," the Post quoted Bloomberg as saying.
