FBI launches Most Wanted Fraudsters list with 75-year-old alleged fake heiress, Mary Carole McDonnell accused of taking 14.7 million dollars from one bank and believed to be in Dubai

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Mary Cole McDonnell is wanted for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft (FBI) FBI

The FBI has launched a Most Wanted Fraudsters list — separate from its famous Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list — and its first headline name is Mary Carole McDonnell, 75, accused of posing as an heiress to defraud banks in Los Angeles and Orange counties out of millions of dollars. A reward of $150,000 is offered for information leading to her arrest and conviction. According to Patrick Grandy, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, McDonnell extracted roughly $14.7 million from a single bank, on top of what she took from other financial institutions. The FBI says she falsely claimed to be an heiress to the McDonnell aircraft family with access to an $80 million secret trust. A federal arrest warrant was issued in December 2018 in Santa Ana, charging her with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft; the bureau believes she is currently in Dubai, with personal or professional ties to Los Angeles, Montgomery, Alabama, and the Emirates. She has reportedly used at least five aliases. Before going on the run, authorities say, McDonnell ran Bellum Entertainment, a now-defunct Burbank television production outfit focused on true crime stories. The dedicated fraud list is itself an admission: the volume of financial crime now exceeds what ordinary field investigations can chase, so the bureau is outsourcing the search to the public and pricing tips. Grandy framed it as inevitability — "just a matter of time" — but the case he is publicizing has been outstanding since 2018.