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Dedicated to Christi, Laura, Kimberly and Hayes!!!
PREFACE
Ruger Crain is a professional crook catcher who catches crooks for the corporate world. This book is a compilation of stories based on cases that Ruger Crain has worked.
Who is Ruger Crain? Ruger grew up not far from White Rock Lake in Dallas Texas. He played football, basketball, baseball and was involved in martial arts. He started his college career in Oklahoma. He was placed on permanent probation his third day on campus having something to do with the use of a fire extinguisher but that is a story to be told another day. Ruger completed his BA in Criminal Justice at National University in San Diego California (while serving on an Admiral’s Staff in the U.S. Navy). He served in the Navy for eight years doing personal protection, physical security and counterterrorism work. After leaving the Navy he worked as an adult probation officer in Dallas (supervising 175 convicted felons) before going to work in the corporate world. Once Ruger became immersed in the world of corporate security and loss prevention he became known as a fixer. He was someone who had the ability to analyze a problem or situation, and set a path to correct the problem.
Join Ruger as he provides you a glimpse of crime cases featuring crooks and showcasing the problems that these crooks create and some possible “solutions” to the problems at hand. These pages are filled with crooks that are both internal (employees) and external (non-employees) to the workplace. Take a ride and experience armored car robberies, cargo theft, embezzlement, fraud and other internal theft cases.
Chapter 1 Don’t Lie to Me
Ruger Crain is an executive with a private security company. The company performs executive protection work, investigations, surveillance, security consulting, training and other security related functions. It was a Friday afternoon and Ruger was having lunch with his friend Paul at the Legacy West destination venue in Plano Texas. Paul and Ruger worked out together at the gym on a weekly basis and had become good friends over the years. Paul had just finished telling Ruger the details of Paul winning the state amateur tennis tournament when Ruger’s phone began to ring. Normally Ruger would ignore a call at lunch and let the call go to voicemail but the caller ID indicated that the call was coming from the United States Bureau of Prisons. Ruger had a friend who was the warden at the federal prison in Morgantown West Virginia. Ruger knew that his friend, Ben, would not call during the day unless it was a problem so Ruger took the call. When he finished the call he must have had a dazed look on his face because Paul asked Ruger what just happened? Ruger told Paul that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had just notified Ruger that an inmate was being released from her successful twenty-year prison sentence. The BOP also informed him that she had make multiple comments to other inmates about getting even with the guy, Ruger Crain, who had taken her son away from her, destroyed her life and put her in prison for twenty years.
Paul found this situation to be exhilarating as he had never seen or heard of this situation with anyone that he knew personally. Paul asked Ruger if he would tell him what had happened, why this person was in prison and why after twenty years she would still be making threats against Ruger’s life? Ruger told Paul this story would take a little while and did not want Paul to be late getting back to work. Paul said that it was not a problem, he wanted to hear the story. Paul knew that Ruger had been a security and loss prevention executive for several national companies. Paul also knew that Ruger had worked some major cases but had not heard many of the stories so this was an opportunity to get a firsthand play by play on a very unique situation. Paul was also the department manager and knew that his team would enjoy the time without the boss in the office. Ruger and Paul reordered their standard drinks. Paul decided on a Crown and Coke and Ruger ordered his regular Dr. Pepper before getting started on what happened in this case.
Ruger told Paul that the case occurred twenty-two years ago. Ruger was the Director of Asset Protection for a multi-billion-dollar company. Ruger had been responsible for all internal investigations, executive protection, supply chain loss prevention, direct oversight for the safety program and in charge of security and safety for the corporate jet. He split his time between the corporate office in Grapevine Texas and corporate support facility in downtown Dallas. One day when he was at the Dallas location an anonymous phone call came into the facility. The call first went from the company operator to the Gabriella Hernandez Vice President of Facilities. Ruger and Gabriella worked closely together and she realized that Ruger should take the call so she found Ruger and set in while he spoke to the person on the phone.
Ruger listened as the man, Jon, tell him that Jon’s ex-wife worked for the company. Jon told Ruger that his ex-wife had been stealing from the company and shared with Ruger the items that he knew she had stolen. Most importantly Jon informed Ruger that the ex-wife, Stacy, was the administrative assistant to the Chief Financial Officer. Ruger told Jon that he did know Stacy and that Ruger was the right person for Jon to be talking to about the situation. Ruger asked Jon what was it that Jon wanted from the company and what was the outcome that Jon desired once the investigation was complete? Jon told Ruger that Jon was tired of Stacy getting away with everything and that he wanted custody of their daughter. Jon said he felt that Stacy was not being a good mother and it was his job to fix the situation. Ruger finished the phone call by taking Jon’s contact information and told Jon that he would be in touch.
Once Ruger was finished with the phone-call he began an official investigation into Stacy. Ruger knew that just because someone claims that someone else did something that does not mean anything necessarily happened. Ruger also knew that ex-spouses sometimes will say things just to make the other one look bad and to create a negative situation for the other person. Additionally, an ex-spouse can provide incredibly accurate information in an investigation. Ruger knew that he had to be very careful in his investigation. Stacy was known to be very vindictive and did not mind using her bosses authority to get things done or to get even with people. Ruger also knew that he had just been placed into the middle of a political mine field and Ruger was not very good at internal politics. Ruger was real good when it came to right and wrong but politics were not his game. Under normal circumstances Ruger would have turned the investigation over to his senior investigator. Ruger decided that given the sensitivity of the situation and due to the potential internal political issues that he should handle this investigation himself. The first part of the investigation was to verify if anything that Jon had shared with Ruger was true. What were the pieces that could be proven? What pieces were uncertain? What pieces were untrue?
The initial investigation revealed that everything that Jon had shared with Ruger appeared to be true including a critical piece related to Stacy’s home. It turns out that just prior to Jon and Stacy’s divorce they had filed for bankruptcy. Shortly after the divorce Jon remarried. Jon earned $160,000 a year and his new wife earned $174,000. It was interesting that with a combined income of $334,000 Jon and his new wife were not able to purchase a new home without a third person co-signing on the loan – all of this because of the bankruptcy. Stacy earned a salary of $54,000 and had been able to purchase a new home. Ruger did not know initially how this fit into the equation but something did not seem right to him about how Stacy had been approved to purchase the home. Ruger put the home information to the side and continued to investigate. He spoke with a couple of close friends who worked in finance and was able to attain a number of important files related to the CFO’s (Steven) expenses as well as other important company documents.
Since Ruger was in charge of executive protection he had full access to the Steven’s calendar. Ruger went unannounced and met Steven at the airport hangar. Ruger and Steven sat alone inside the company G5 and Ruger shared what had been revealed in the investigation. Steven told Ruger that given his travel schedule as CFO that Steven had given Stacy full access to all of his company and personal credit card information as well as his personal checks. Steven said that he needed Stacy to assist him in taking care of some personal issues while he was on the road. Steven gave Ruger his full authority to fully investigate the matter. Steven told Ruger to contact Ryan, the Senior Vice President
