When Your Money Manager Becomes Your Money Thief

There’s a special kind of betrayal that happens when the person trusted to guard your wealth decides to treat it like their own personal ATM. That’s exactly what federal prosecutors allege happened to Nick Cannon, the creator of Wild‘n Out, at the hands of his former account manager Frank Musoke.

Over roughly four years—from December 2019 through June 2023—Musoke allegedly siphoned more than $2 million from Cannon’s accounts without permission. The scheme was methodical and brazen. With access to Cannon’s debit cards and PINs, Musoke withdrew approximately $1.7 million directly from ATMs, dropped $165,000-plus on Amazon purchases, spent nearly $192,000 on personal travel, and racked up another $160,000 in miscellaneous personal expenses. All while Cannon had no idea.

What makes this particularly damaging is the trust involved. Cannon had been a client at the Beverly Hills management and tax firm where Musoke worked for nearly 20 years. That kind of long-term relationship is supposed to come with accountability and oversight. Instead, Musoke allegedly leveraged his position managing the business and financial affairs of elite celebrities to systematically raid one of his most prominent clients. The firm fired him in July 2023 after discovering the missing money.

But the federal indictment—an eight-count charge that includes five counts of wire fraud and three counts of tax evasion—suggests Musoke’s deception didn’t stop at theft. Prosecutors say he went further, hiding more than $1.7 million in allegedly stolen income on federal tax returns filed between 2021 and 2023. It’s the kind of compounding dishonesty that transforms a financial crime into something even more calculated.

Here’s where the story takes a dramatic turn: authorities believe Musoke has fled to Uganda, where he reportedly holds dual citizenship with the United States. If convicted on the wire fraud charges alone, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison per count. The tax evasion charges carry up to five years each. Whether he’ll ever face that justice from abroad remains an open question.

For Cannon and other high-net-worth individuals, this case is a grim reminder that wealth attracts predators—sometimes from within your own trusted circle. It raises an uncomfortable question about due diligence, oversight, and the systems meant to protect people at the top from those they’ve empowered to manage their money.