The following opinion by Jeffrey Whalen, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, appears in the current issue of the Native Sun News. All content © Native Sun News.

White collar crime virtually exists everywhere you look in Pine Ridge. Native Sun Weekly recently reported on the fiasco within the Oglala Sioux Tribes Empowerment Zone where individuals were granted hundreds of thousands of dollars and were never required to pay it back.

We still have the question of unaccounted for Tribal Council member travel expenses from the Two Bulls/Brewer administration, the current administration is starting to look just as bad. We have questionable costs and payroll advances within the Public Safety Department. We have casino mismanagement issues within the hotel, food court and the gaming industry. I want to write something good for a change about the Oglala Sioux Tribe but can’t seem to find it yet. Everywhere I look I see fraud, corruption and waste.

The latest comes from an organization that was charged with keeping the peace between husbands and wives by preventing abuse. Cangleska’s style of keeping the peace was to ask no questions if suspected abuse occurred, throw the male into the slammer for a mandatory four days and go ask questions later. Their methods seemed like a clear violation of individual rights to say the least.

It seems like now the shoe is on the other foot with the former Cangleska management officials. Fraud to the greatest degree has been uncovered within that organization. How about throwing the entire former management in jail for a while and go ask questions in four or five days!! Seems only fitting.

In a recent report concerning Cangleska’s activities, a forensic audit revealed enough evidence to warrant turning documents and findings over to the feds. There are people who you would not believe who are allegedly involved in some very questionable purchases, contract negotiations, possible money laundering, setting up slush funds, and basically what looks like to me is outright theft from a Tribally Chartered Organization.

Does the Oyate have a right to know? In my opinion, they absolutely have every right to know what happened within this corrupt organization. I’m not going to reveal names in this editorial, but I will provide full details in next week’s edition of Native Sun Weekly. You will be surprised about who is involved and how much money they were taking. I hardly know where to start, there is so much corruption here that it is unreal.

The Two Bulls/Brewer administration revealed the fraud and mismanagement within Cangleska and after they received proof seemed to do nothing about it. Alternatively the Department of Justice, FBI, and the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services was notified and received the same proof but still did little to nothing about it. So who dropped the ball and who is allowing someone to steal millions of dollars and get away with it?

Because the Oglala leadership seemingly can’t understand finances, they still rely on the Shakopee’s to bail us out of all the trouble our leaders get us into. Well, Cangleska received $750,000.00 from the Shakopee’s to fund various construction projects.

But guess what? The construction projects were only 60% complete when they ran out of money and incurred cost overruns. Then they got a $1 million dollar loan from Native American Bank and the money went “poof” and it was gone. Cangleska was not generating any revenue to repay the loans. That money was probably well spent by some crooks.

The former Board of Directors formed several different Limited Liability Companies called Waegle LLC., Waegle Energy, LLC and Waegle Construction, LLC. The construction company was to be used to construct projects that were funded by the Shakopee loan. The sad part is that one of the board members, who is a very good friend of mine, is listed as 51% owner of Waegle Construction LLC.

One of the employees was listed as 64% owner of Waegle LLC. And Waegle LLC is listed as 55% owner of Waegle Energy LLC. Sound like a scam? Even worse, a current Oglala Sioux Tribal Supreme Court Justice helped set these LLC’s up. What was he thinking??

This Tribal Supreme Court Justice and a local Certified Public Accountant (CPA) received funds from Cangleska in the amount totaling over $100,000.00 without a contract and without a paper trail to provide valid reasons for the expenditures. This is pretty questionable stuff being done by the Cangleska staff, a Tribal Judge and a CPA. Like I said, white collar crime is right under the feds noses and they are too ignorant to sniff it out even when the evidence is handed to them on a silver platter.

The Cangleska management was charging off travel expenses to our local convenience stores and other entities in the total amount of $650,721.00. All of the expenses were undocumented as to the purpose and who the traveler actually was. Sound like outright theft to you?

Remember I’m always telling the tribal council to submit their travel reports? They can travel to the moon and back for all I care, but I want to see that they filled out their travel reports and got a hotel receipt from the Man on the Moon to prove they were actually there. How hard is it to get a motel receipt from their latest trip to Rapid City?

White collar crime is running rampant within the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Why are the feds constantly focusing on the drug dealers and bootleggers when they have a whole smorgas board of crime going on in terms of the people they are meeting with on a daily basis?

Every dollar someone steals from the tribe is a dollar that is being stolen from you and me and the rest of the Oyate. When someone steals from the tribe we should all be upset.

Why are the feds not demanding that the tribal officials submit complaints to them so they can look into these issues more clearly? Why are the feds not forming Grand Juries to prosecute this type of crime? When you see money removed from accounts labeled “essential services account” where there is no paper trail or justification as to why those expenditures were made, then why are we not questioning stuff like that?

When we see thousands of dollars just taken out for no reason at all, why are we not questioning that as well? Why are we not demanding that this white collar crime be prosecuted? Who are we afraid of? Do I always have to stand alone on stuff like this?

These people set up dummy banking accounts where no documentation exists for their purpose or activity. Was that going to be part of a larger money laundering scheme? There were 1,934 checks issued by Cangleska management totaling $1,755,524.00 that bounced! The banking fee alone for insufficient funds for those checks totaled $40,214.00!

Mr. Stanley Crooks (Shakopee Tribe) you are a very good man, but sheesh, quit allowing the Shakopee to grant the Oglalas money without first insuring that you strictly monitor every single dollar as to where it is being spent. We should be placed in the World Book of Records as the most corrupt tribal organization on the planet. Stay safe and be strong.

(Contact Jeffrey Whalen at jeffrey.waylon2@gmail.com)

Related Stories:
Jeffrey Whalen: A response from Oglala Sioux Tribe's 'hit man' (8/3)
Jeffrey Whalen: Oglala Sioux Tribe guided by uneducated leaders (7/22)
Jeffrey Whalen: Oglala Sioux in the dark about our tribal finances (7/15)