Life has to be tough enough being deployed overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan without worrying that you are being ripped off at home. I can only imagine the stress each soldier faces on a daily basis.

Being away from home for months at a time can leave your valuables vulnerable to thieves. So just what happened in this case? As reported in www.utsandiego.com.

A former military credit union employee who processed fraud claims is accused of deploying her own fraud scheme against clients, including deployed troops.

Schrelle Lachae Malone is accused of stealing and secretly activating the ATM cards of customers, then siphoning approximately $20,000 from their accounts.

The 35-year-old Malone who plead not guilty to 18 charges, was thrown in jail. She faces more than 14 years if convicted of all charges.

Malone was a fraud clerk at an Oceanside branch of Pacific Marine Credit Union, which serves military members. The credit union sends its members a new ATM card when their old card is about to expire. If the customer is a deployed military member, the cards often get mailed back to the bank where they are stored in a vault.

It is even more deplorable because Malone is married to a Marine and lives at Camp Pendleton. She is accused of stealing and activating 14 of the ATM cards stored in the vault.

As a fraud claims clerk, Malone worked on the fraud reports of three of the victims. In one case, she altered the report to say the ATM withdrawals took place in Indio instead of North County San Diego.

So, why do you think she committed such a heinous crime against our troops? Drugs of course! Malone told investigators she had used the money to support an addiction to prescription drugs.

It looks like she will need more than an educational anti-stealing course so I would highly recommend an online drug course as well. I want to believe that she wouldn't have committed these crimes if she hadn't been using drugs.