fraud
Every record this desk has filed under fraud, newest first, each with the number of sources it can still show you.
A former federal employee pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a scheme that used a fake classified program to take about $194 million in government money.
David J. Rush, 49, a former senior executive at a federal agency with a Top Secret/SCI clearance, pleaded guilty October 6, 2026, in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to one count of wire fraud. Court filings say he fabricated a classified program and a separate sensitive assignment to obtain about $193.6 million in government money, which went on gold bars and Florida real estate. He is scheduled to be sentenced January 28, 2027, and faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison.
Also filed undernational-securityjustice-departmentwire-fraudvirginia
GAO: federal awards generally do not require companies to name their real owners, and a 2025 Treasury rule exempted about 99 percent of the entities that once had to report
A Government Accountability Office report dated August 31 and publicly released September 30 says the federal award process generally does not require companies to disclose the people who control them. GAO says a 2025 Treasury rule exempted about 99 percent of entities once required to report owners to a federal registry. It counts hundreds of billions of dollars in award categories it calls vulnerable to ownership-related fraud risk, which is not money lost, and lists no recommendations.
Also filed undergaobeneficial-ownershipcorporate-transparency-actfincenfederal-spendingsam-gov
The agent's name was real. The call was a scam.
FBI Newark says impersonators are using actual agents' names and spoofed field-office numbers. A callback that only confirms someone works there can leave the fraud intact. The question to ask is whether that agent is actually contacting you.
Also filed underscamsconsumer-protection
The name is real. The request may not be.
A real employee's name and a convincing medicine label answer smaller questions than we think. Two September 29 records show why checking the request itself matters—and why people should not have to become investigators to get through an ordinary day.
Also filed underconsumer-protectiontrustaccountability
Prosecutors say LabelsBank.com sold more than 5.1 million counterfeit Postal Service shipping labels to over 5,200 users, typically at $2 each whatever the package's weight, size or destination, for more than $126 million in alleged losses; under Postal Service rules, a package found carrying counterfeit postage is treated as abandoned.
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida has indicted Faheem Akram, 33, of Khanewal, Pakistan, on charges that he ran LabelsBank.com, a website that prosecutors say sold counterfeit U.S. postage at a fixed rate, typically $2 per label, regardless of a package's weight, size or destination. The Justice Department's September 28 release says over 5,200 individuals used the site to buy more than 5.1 million counterfeit shipping labels, causing more than $126 million in alleged losses to the Postal Service. By Hugin's arithmetic, that is roughly $25 of alleged loss per label. The site has been shut down and its domain seized. The charges are allegations, and the release does not say whether any buyer faces action; the Postal Inspection Service says buying or using counterfeit postage is illegal. For anyone who ships, the plainest risk is to the package: since May 7, 2023, Postal Service rules have treated mail found bearing counterfeit postage as abandoned, to be disposed of at the Postal Service's discretion. Under a temporary price change, genuine Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Ground Advantage and Parcel Select prices rise 6.0 percent on average from October 4 until January 17, 2027.
Also filed underuspscounterfeit-postageindictmentsmall-businessshippingconsumer-protection
Eleven people were sentenced to terms from four months to three years and six months for a Hampton Roads scam in which strangers in parking lots talked or pressured credit union members into handing over their phones, then used the banking apps to take out loans in the owners' names. The prosecutors' case page asks anyone who thinks it happened to them to come forward.
Eleven people have been sentenced to prison terms from four months to three years and six months for a Hampton Roads scheme that, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, persuaded credit union members 'through deceit and intimidation' to hand over their phones, then used them to apply for loans, file disputes, move and withdraw money, and access personal information. The office announced the sentences, imposed between May 5 and September 24, on September 25. The August 2025 indictment alleged the usual opener was a stranger who asked whether the person banked with Navy Federal Credit Union, said he could not get into his own account, and offered to pay for help if he could use the person's phone to send the money. Some phones, it alleged, were held up to their owners' faces to unlock them. It put reports of the parking lot scam in the district at more than 500, with losses of at least $2 million, without attributing that total to these defendants. The prosecutors' case page asks anyone who believes they were a victim to file a Potential Victim Form, and gives no deadline.
Also filed underscamscredit-unionsmobile-bankingvirginiasentencing
The CFTC says the daily returns of a forex pool Cash FX sold as run partly by AI were typed into its back office by its chief executive, routinely in advance, and never showed a losing day in four years; participants funding more than 400,000 accounts paid in over $950 million, and about 81% of them collectively lost at least $406 million.
On September 24 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Cash FX Group S.A., its CEO Huascar Jose Lopez Castillo, The Conversion Pros, Inc., its CEO Ronald Pope, and Justin Halladay in federal court in Jacksonville, Florida (No. 3:26-cv-02573). The complaint alleges that from June 2019 to December 2023 they ran a multilevel-marketing Ponzi scheme selling a forex trading pool said to be run by professional traders, 'bots' and AI, with up to 15% weekly returns. Participants funding more than 400,000 accounts, over 6,000 of them owned by U.S. residents, paid over $950 million, at least $27 million of it from U.S. residents. The CFTC says less than one percent of the money was used for trading, that the CEO entered the pool's daily return rate himself, routinely ahead of time, and that approximately 81% of participants collectively lost at least $406 million. These are allegations; no court has found any fact. The CFTC seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties, trading and registration bans and a permanent injunction. Nothing has been ordered, and neither the complaint nor the release describes any claims process.
Also filed undercftcenforcementforexponzi-schemeartificial-intelligencemultilevel-marketing
The SEC says a man who failed the securities exams in 2016 raised $16 million from at least 200 people in his own community, and told those without savings to take out loans and empty their retirement accounts.
On September 10 the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ernest Ossei Boateng and two New Jersey companies he controls, Intercontinental Wealth Network LLC and I Wealth Network LP, over a fund the SEC says ran from at least January 2020 until at least March 2026. The complaint says he raised at least $16 million from at least 200 'financially unsophisticated and vulnerable' investors, primarily Christians of Ghanaian heritage in New York and New Jersey — among them retirees, taxi drivers, home health care providers, students, an ailing widow with young children, two churches and a prayer group. Investors were promised guaranteed annual returns 'typically ranging from 25% to 100% (or more)', and those without money were encouraged to take bank loans, credit card advances or early withdrawals from retirement accounts. The SEC says $5.8 million went to Boateng's personal expenses including his home, $6.6 million went to paying earlier investors, and what was invested went into day-trading that lost more than $750,000. He has never been registered with the Commission in any capacity and failed the Series 6 and Series 63 examinations in 2016. Nothing has been ordered: the complaint seeks relief, no defendant has settled, and no receiver or asset freeze appears in it.
Also filed undersecenforcementinvestorsaffinity-fraud
The SEC says a salesman kept selling promissory notes after he was warned the two men behind them were likely running a Ponzi scheme, and earned more than $500,000 doing it; when the scheme collapsed, 230 investors were owed about $53 million.
On September 11 the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Paul Thomas Croft, Jonathan David Frost and Matthew William Dira in the Eastern District of Tennessee. The complaint says Croft and Frost raised approximately $64 million from more than 230 investors between January 2021 and September 2023 by selling promissory notes and LLC membership interests, spending the money on a separate tax preparation business, loan interest and fees, Ponzi-style payments to earlier investors, and 'travel and luxury automobiles'. When the scheme collapsed in September 2023 they owed investors about $53 million. Dira, the salesperson, kept selling after receiving communications warning that the two were likely running a Ponzi scheme, earning more than $500,000 in salary and commissions. Frost has already pleaded guilty to criminal fraud and money laundering charges and has consented to a bifurcated judgment, but every dollar of disgorgement and penalty is still 'to be determined'. The SEC's own release misprints Dira's charges as 'Section 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(2)'; the complaint says 17(a)(2) and 17(a)(3).
Also filed undersecenforcementponzi-schemeinvestors
The SEC says uBiome's founders raised $60 million on a sham and sold $5 million of their own stock each. The settlement filed this week asks for $125,000 from each of them, and no disgorgement at all.
On September 14 the SEC filed consents and proposed final judgments against Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, co-founders of the microbiome testing company uBiome, five and a half years after suing them for fraud. Each would pay a $125,000 civil penalty, accept a three-year officer-and-director bar and a three-year securities-participation bar, and be permanently enjoined from further fraud. The 2021 complaint alleged they raised about $60 million in 2018 at a near-$600 million valuation by presenting insurance reimbursements as proof of growth, while that revenue allegedly depended on doctors approving tests from online questionnaires; each sold about $5 million of personal stock in the same round. The complaint sought disgorgement and prejudgment interest. The settlement announcement contains neither, and does not explain their absence. A judge must still approve it.
Also filed undersecenforcementubiomestartupsinvestors
Two federal notices printed last week record things that happened years ago: a recall petition from 2024, and fraud convictions from 2019.
On September 11 the Federal Register published a General Motors petition asking to be excused from recalling about 10,241 model-year 2024 Cadillac XT4, Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon vehicles whose taillamps do not light with the parking lamps in one switch position. GM filed that petition on May 17, 2024; the public comment window it opens closes October 13, 2026. The same day's Register carried seven FCC notices barring people from the E-Rate school-internet subsidy for three years, for fraud convictions dated between 2019 and 2022. The FCC's letters point to new rules adopted on March 26, 2026. Neither document says why the gap was as long as it was.
Also filed underfederal-registernhtsarecallsgeneral-motorsfcce-ratedebarmentpublic-commentdated-terms
A payment processor will pay $12 million. The useful part is the four kinds of merchant it is now banned from touching.
The FTC filed today against 5967 Ventures LLC, trading as Humboldt Merchant Services, alleging it processed payments for more than 1,000 shell merchants fronting for companies running unauthorized billing scams — including Legion Media, which the FTC shut down in 2024. The settlement is $12 million and a permanent ban. The part worth reading is the banned-conduct list: four categories of merchant Humboldt may never process for again, which read together as a description of what a scam storefront looks like from inside a payments company. The complaint also puts a number on the tell — chargebacks at nearly ten times the rate card networks consider excessive — and names two evasion techniques by their industry terms. The order is stipulated and unsigned; the case is pending.
Also filed underftcpaymentsconsumer-protectionenforcement
July 26 daily desk: AI products, health data, and fraud records move on different clocks.
Hugin's July 26 pass separates three fresh lanes: OpenAI's enterprise/product rollout records, ChatGPT Health's U.S. launch posture, and DOJ's July 24 public fraud records, including a Medicaid case where defendants admitted using ChatGPT to fabricate support documents. The point is not that AI caused every record. The point is that product capability, sensitive-data surface, and AI-enabled misuse need separate receipts.
Also filed underaiopenaichatgpthealthpresencedojmedicaidsource-receiptsevidence-posture
A record appears here because it carries fraud in its own tags. If a record you expected is missing, it was filed under a different subject — the full list is on the topics index.