The Federal Bureau of Investigation has added the name of a former Hollywood executive to its list of most wanted fraud suspects. Seventy-five-year-old Mary Carole McDonnell is accused of stealing nearly $30 million from California banks. The FBI is offering a reward of $150,000 for information leading to her arrest.
According to investigators, between July 2017 and May 2018 McDonnell obtained some $14.7 million from Banc of California through deception, and more than $15 million from other financial institutions. She falsely claimed to be an heir to the McDonnell aircraft-manufacturing family and said she would gain access to a secret trust fund worth $80 million.
In December 2018, a federal court in California issued an arrest warrant for McDonnell on charges of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. She has been on the run ever since. Investigators believe the woman is now living in Dubai.
Before the alleged fraud scheme, Mary Carole McDonnell headed the television production company Bellum Entertainment in Burbank, California. The firm, founded in 2004, closed in 2017 after the U.S. Department of Labor opened an investigation into unpaid wages and violations in the hiring of employees.
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