- Authorities suspect the former manager embezzled nearly $1.7M using over 3,000 gift cards.
- The manager claims the stolen money was used to pay employee bonuses at Findlay Kia.
- Police arrested the manager’s girlfriend, charging her with similar embezzlement offenses.
A former manager at the Findlay Kia dealership in Las Vegas has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling $1.7 million over several years. Despite the charges, he plans to plead not guilty and is currently out on bail, awaiting a court hearing on February 20.
Local authorities say that after Mark Olson was suspended and later fired by the dealership after allegedly failing a drug test in late 2023, employees found he had been purchasing unauthorized gift cards from an outside vendor. Police tracked forty email addresses that each received more than $10,000 in gift cards and linked many of them to PayPal and other accounts belonging to Olson, his family members, and other employees from the dealership.
Read: Hackers Could Control Millions Of Kia Cars Using Only A License Plate
An internal audit reportedly found that Olson had allegedly embezzled nearly $1.7 million over several years, using more than 3,000 gift cards. Many of these were for gaming and Las Vegas Strip properties, 8 News Now reports.
He is facing felony charges of theft and laundering or attempting to launder money or property. According to court documents, Olson claimed the money had been used to pay employee bonuses. However, some employees reported that “they were sent money from Mark and asked to give it back to him for various reason[s] such as his account not working.”
Police arrested Olson on January 16, along with his girlfriend, who faces similar charges. The former Kia dealership manager posted a surety bond, and his attorney plans to conduct his own investigation into the police’s allegations.
If the allegations against the dealership employee turn out to be true, Olson wouldn’t be the first staffer at a US dealership to be caught engaging in some shady practices. In late 2024, a director at a Nissan dealer in Vermont was sentenced to 18 months in prison after using dealer funds to purchase OEM lift kits, only to sell them on Facebook Marketplace and pocket the money.
