Authorities charge Liberian national with stealing $100,000 from Bergen County small business owners

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Liberian national swiped more than $100,000 from the bank accounts of several small business owners in Bergen County through an elaborate scheme before a group of law enforcement agencies combined to bring him down, authorities announced this afternoon.

Photo Credit: *Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR*

Jerry DeMarco

02/17/2015 10:04 p.m.

Miokar B. Wehye, who turns 42 this Sunday, changed victims’ mailing addresses, opened bank accounts in their names, used counterfeit checks to make illegal withdrawals from their bank accounts — and even applied for bogus names using their identities, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.

Molinelli said detectives from his White Collar Crimes Unit teamed up with police from Fairview and Hillside (in Union County) and the Bergen County Police Department, as well as the FBI and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, to nab Wehye after an investigation that lasted nearly a year.

Wehye, who lives with his common-law wife in Hillside, remained held on $250,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with computer-related theft, theft by deception and fraudulent distribution of personal identifying information of another.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR

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