Fruitcake Fraud is a special documentary about how a bakery making red canned cakes for over 125 years and shipping them around the world stole $16 million in eight years.
Director Celia Aniskovic interviewed bakery managers and employees:
Like some better-informed Corsicans, a long-established oil city with lots of old money and a chatty social hierarchy. He also spoke with Christine Edson, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.
Through this interview, we learned more about the bakery’s history and that the bakery has approximately $30 million in annual sales. But between 2005 and 2013, the bakery did not appear to be making any money despite steady sales.
A young accountant, Semetric Walker. It is hired to find the missing money; He finds a check made by the company’s controller, Sandy Jenkins, a down-to-earth guy who makes $50,000 a year and is in a bank that doesn’t do business with the bakery. Soon discovered that Jenkins had embezzled nearly $17 million from the bakery over eight years.
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But the story goes much further. When the FBI investigated Jenkins and his wife, Faye, they discovered that the couple had taken the money and spent it generously on jewelry and watches, cars and private jet trips, and a vacation home in Santa Fe.
Despite the couple’s looks, neither has raised a red flag at the bakery this entire time. Edson and his colleagues followed the pair to Austin, where for some reason they threw dozens of watches and gold bars (!) into a lake near the city.
Fruitcake Fraud somehow felt rushed and bribed at the same time.
Although the implementation time is relatively short, namely 98 minutes. He felt rushed because he seemed to ignore the reasons why Jenkins. And his wife decided to steal all the money and why Jenkins committed suicide.
At the end of his ten-year federal sentence for the crime (Faye received five years in prison, never admitting that he knew where all the money came from. it comes from).
We wanted to learn more about this story and how someone who earns $50,000 a year can line up in an expensive car and expensive watch and enjoy a luxury vacation instead of raising red flags.
McNut and other bakery executives seem to show little introspection. How did you not realize that the bakery was losing money. And that your controller was running it despite all logic? Did everyone think he inherited it? Is it something else?
Not that what we got was a popular glimpse into the history of the fruitcake on Colin Street and the ominous nature of Corsican gossip. But we feel Aniskovic is trying hard to keep the show’s tone consistent.
Yes, it’s a fruitcake bakery (obviously very good; they blame Johnny Carson’s constant fruitcake jokes for ruining the solid Christmas cake image). But $16 million is no joke, nor is Jenkins taking the money.
And doing the exact opposite of what we learn about hiding stolen money. From Breaking Bad and other shows like this. And they’re doomed to get away with it.
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We want to learn more about how Jenkins plays the system:
Family-oriented companies have done the books and changes. Hell, we even want to hear Walker. Who is now, if not mentioned, bakery supervisor – be rewarded for knowing it. Less folk stuff and more facts might have made the particular move a little more consistent.
The Fruitcake Fraud makes you wonder how could spread an entire $30 million business for so long and so much money. But the actual story of how the Jenkins was arrested. And how he and his wife illegally spent their money is pretty funny to make it happen.