Gilberto Escaramilla works for the Juvenile Justice Department in San Benito, Texas, which is about ten miles from the border.

He took a day off to go to the doctor and, just by luck of the appointment date, it was discovered that Gilberto has moonlighted with a taxpayer-funded fajita business for the past nine years.  He would order loads of fajitas priced anywhere between $2,500 and $30,000 for the Juvenile Justice Department and sell those fajitas on the open market, pocketing the money.

In case you are considering a money-making side business, please allow me to inform you that stealing fajitas is far more lucrative than you suspected.

After Labatt Food Service and the County Auditor’s Office provided more shipping documents in the form of invoices, vouchers and purchase orders, the unit concluded that Escaramilla had stolen $1,251,578 worth of fajitas, the Brownsville Herald reported.“

[Escaramilla] would literally, on the day he ordered them, deliver them to customers he had already lined up,” Saenz told the publication. ‘We’ve been able to uncover two of his purchasers, and they are in cooperation with the investigation.”

The Juvenile Justice Department announced that they would review and establish “procedures, controls and safeguards to avoid a recurrence of this type of situation.”

Awwww … a day late and $1.2 million short.

Thanks to Pia for the heads up.