SAVANNAH, Ga. — The manager of a Savannah business has been charged with creating fake invoices for vendors that didn’t exist to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from a building materials company.
John Laakso, 56, is charged in a federal indictment with four counts of wire fraud.
Conviction on each charge could land him in prison for 20 years, plus substantial fines, restitution, and a period of supervised release if he is convicted.
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According to the indictment, Laakso worked as a contractor, and later as engineering manager, with GAF Materials Corporation.
The indictment alleges that from 2021 to 2023, Laakso “assumed fictitious personas and created pass-through companies, hiding these activities from GAF.”
He would award contracts to fictitious companies, which would subcontract with an actual vendor to provide the product or service at a lower cost.
Laakso would then keep the difference in price.
The scheme resulted in GAF paying more than $1.3 million in fraudulent invoices, with Laakso keeping hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself.
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