India: Police raid 42 locations; man found and arrested from $240 million crypto investment scam

 “When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Australia busts massive operation run by China that laundered fraud money from around the world; handles $229 million; seven arrested; $50 million in property seized
 
Quebec arrests 17 in $5 million real estate scheme; used ID theft to get mortgage loans on houses they didn’t own
 
Vermont: Woman from India who lived in Florida pleads not guilty when charged with tech support fraud where victims were contacted by email claiming to be from Geek Squad; moved money from victim’s savings accounts to checking, and claimed they had accidentally made too large a “refund” and victim to return “excess” to them; part of a larger group charged

New AI tool, LoveGPT, is being used on dating sites to create profiles, avoid CAPTCHA’s, and to chat with victims
 

Fraud Studies: Here are links to the studies I’ve written for the Better Business Bureau: puppy fraud, romance fraud; BEC fraud, sweepstakes/lottery fraud,  tech support fraud, romance fraud money mules, crooked movers, government imposters, online vehicle sale scams, rental fraud, gift cards,  free trial offer frauds,  job scams,  online shopping fraud,  fake check fraudand crypto scams
 
Fraud News Around the world

• Nigeria busts internet fraud training school; arrest six
• Quebec: Police arrest two men who called elderly victims, impersonated bank officials, and had victims withdraw money to “protect” it; police searching for other victims
• BBC: Man in Wales gets suspended sentence after jury trial; was part of group of 16 that send millions of spam text messages and ran a call center that got victim credit cards and money
• US postal service tightens up regulations on change of address to help prevent fraud
• Washington State AG gets court order shutting down websites of two operations that sent texts and email to small businesses pretending to be state agencies needing money
• China: Shanghai man gets 4.5 years prison for counterfeiting anchor butter and cheese
• Canceling and getting a new credit card may not stop subscription traps from continuing to bill victims
• Canada’s Competition Bureau enters consent decree with home furnishing company, alleges deception in items advertised as “on sale”, but previous price was not real
• India: Police arrest man who sent phishing emails supposedly from banks and then impersonated bank employees to steal money
• Canada fines Quebec man $40,000 for text message phishing scam
• Montana: Man from India pleads guilty to tech support fraud; traveled to victim’s home to pick up money
• EFCC in Nigeria arrests 69 for internet fraud

Humor 

• CVS pharmacy worker keeps asking routine question while armed robber tried to get him to read a note announcing robbery
• Police in Nebraska pull over man who claims that he didn’t know that he had 435 pounds of marijuana in his Van

FTC and CFPB

• FTC sends $100 million in refunds to Vonage customers who had a difficult time canceling service
• FTC gets summary judgement against Richmond Cash Advances; company deceptively offered small businesses merchant cash advances
• Court issues preliminary injunction stopping the CFPB’s small business lending rule from going into effect

Artificial Intelligence and deep fake fraud

• Biden issues executive order on use of AI

Virus Benefit Theft 

• New Orleans :Man pleads guilty to PPP fraud
• Dallas: Woman pleads guilty to PPP fraud; got $40,000
• New Orleans: Woman pleads guilty to PPP fraud
• Hawaii: Woman indicted for getting Covid unemployment benefits she wasn’t eligible for and tax fraud
• Hundreds of employees of the City of Chicago are being investigated for PPP fraud
• Boston: John Doe indicted for ID theft used to get covid unemployment benefits
• Florida: Former guard in Miami/Dade jail gets 18 months for PPP fraud; got $432,000
• Baltimore: Man gets two years prison for PPP fraud; got $550,000

Social media

• New Zealand: Man gets 32 months prison for selling goods he did not have on Facebook; had done time before for the same thing

Kidnapping and forced to scam

• Myanmar: Police arrest 95 from call centers where callers have been kidnapped

Business Email compromise fraud 

• Tampa: DOJ gets court to forfeit $2.4 million stolen in BEC fraud where supplier supposedly said it was changing accounts; money went to a mule who thought the money was payment for work he was to do

Ransomware

• Group of 40 countries join together to fight ransomware; US leads
• Hits major telecom in Chile
• Attacks on US healthcare facilities have caused losses of $77.5 billion (excluding ransom) since 2016
• Hits Stanford University
• Attack on national telecom system in Tobago
• Attack on Las Vegas school district and hackers email parents about stolen data
• Spain arrests 34 in bust of ransomware gang that stole data of 4 million people

Data Breaches 

• Hackers take down computer systems of Orange County District Attorney’s office
• Extensive breach of the University of Michigan; students, donors, alumni, patients, more

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency

• India: Police raid 42 locations; man found and arrested from $240 million crypto investment scam
• Arizona: Man gets 30 months prison for scam that got victim emails and did SIM swapping to get texts to their phones, used that to stead $1 million in crypto
• SEC sues crypto investment company Safe Moon for fraud
• Scammers are now using mule accounts in Europe to transfer crypto into national currencies
• Taiwan arrests man for laundering $320 million in crypto, may have involved scam call centers in Southeast Asia

ATM Skimming

• Indiana: Three arrested for ATM skimming

Jamaica and Lottery Fraud

• Jamaica: Man gets six years prison for defrauding woman from the US in lottery scam

Romance Fraud and Sextortion 

• New Jersey: Man sentenced to 27 months prison for romance fraud; sent victims funds home to Ghana
• Oregon: Cutting tool company settles with DOJ for $1.7 million; accounts of Nigerian distributors to launder money from romance fraud victims
• Boston: Two Nigerian men get over five years prison each for laundering money from romance frauds and Covid unemployment benefit fraud