SAGINAW, Mich.–A man charged with scamming a credit union here is arguing that he was scammed himself.
|According to police, Kenneth J. Plonski, 63, said he had been promised an enormous amount of gold by a man in Ghana for which he wired $70,000 to the African country. But to obtain the funds, police allege, Plonski opened a home equity line of credit in October of 2014 with Copoco Community Credit Union on which he initially made monthly payments. “Beginning in April 2016, Plonski began making "very large credits/payments" on the line of credit through an online bill pay system,” according to police, MLive.com reported.
"Almost the same day or within a day or two, very large cash advances were made on the line of credit," a trooper wrote in his report, contained in court files, reported MLive.com. "All of these payments were then reversed and not honored causing the (credit union) to be out the money from the cash advances."
In all, Plonski owed an estimated $72,413.67 to Copoco, court records state, MLive.com said.
“Police determined that when Plonski signed the mortgage papers in 2014, he misrepresented himself as a single man, when he was in fact married to a doctor, court records show,” MLive.com said.
Police said that approximately three years earlier Plonski started playing a farm game on Facebook through which he befriended a man who claimed he lived in Ghana and who said his father worked in African gold mines. That same man allegedly also said that because gold was so plentiful in Africa it wasn’t much valued and could be purchased for significantly less than in the U.S., and shipped to the U.S. for sale for sizable profits, according to court records as reported by MLive.com.
Plonski allegedly told police he began wiring money to an African bank, and his Facebook friend started asking for more and more cash, however, telling him more money was needed to insure the gold and to ship it to the U.S.
"Ken advised he never received anything for his payments except for promises," MLive.com quoted court records as stating. "Ken states that he allowed (the man) to 'take over' his computer and provided passwords and account numbers to him. He would utilize Ken's computer to make transactions and Ken, believing the transactions had been made, would be instructed to pick up the cash following the transactions. Ken advised he believed the transactions were legitimate because the banks allowed him to obtain the cash. Ken would then wire the cash back to (the man)."