TikTok Is Disappearing Before Our Eyes
House Judiciary Committee releases report detailing abuse of power at the FTC; assert culture of fear; abuse of power
Is this happening in the US as well? New text message scam seeking personal information claims to be Medicare Australia and threatens to suspend benefits: complaints spike to 1500
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
- Mexican drug cartels now running timeshare resale fraud operations hitting Americans
- Scam baiter “Neld Harris” has posted videos on youtube of him pretending to be elderly grandmother, hacking computers of the scammers
- EFCC in Nigeria arrests 50 for internet scams
- Canada: Saskatoon arrests Calgary woman who went to house of elderly woman to pick up funds from grandparent fraud
- Private investigator in Australia who tracks down scammers
- Scammers use AI voice of bishop in Spain to dupe nuns into sending money
- Australia: Police in New South Wales arrest and charge three men for sending 80 million scam text phishing messages
- Ontario: OPP arrests two for grandparent scam when they appeared at victim home to pick up money
- New report on the multi-level marketing industry that employs deceptive earnings claims
- CBS: Claims of free government grants made over Facebook cause victims to lose $67 million – but gift cards are needed to pay for delivery
- Colorado: Crooked mover convicted; picked up goods, payment, and simply never delivered
- Singapore: Malaysian woman gets nearly six years prison for investment fraud
- Police search car and find cocaine – and US Army rocket launcher
- Man once dubbed the world’s dumbest criminal for bank robbery and who spent a year in prison arrested for trying to rob the same bank
- FTC settles with Avast over sales of browsing data of users; to pay $16.5 million and can’t sell browsing data; had promised to prevent online tracking of customers
- FTC settles with company that falsely claimed during the pandemic that it would ship PPE “next day”
- FTC settles with company that offered to set up online stores that would use AI; banned from industry; surrender millions
Virus Benefit Theft
- North Carolina: Man gets two years prison for PPP fraud; got $720,000
- New Jersey: Man gets 33 months prison for PPP fraud; got $2.2 million
- Georgia: Man (Nigerian?) indicted for using ID theft to get unemployment benefits and tax refunds
- Tennessee: Nigerian man gets 21 months prison for unemployment fraud; got $661,000
- Kansas City: Eleven indicted in PPP fraud conspiracy; got $220,000
- Virginia: Man pleads guilty to PPP fraud; got $455,000
- Mississippi: Nigerian man gets six years prison for EIDL fraud; got $439,000
- Crypto romance frauds tied to scam centers using kidnapped employees in Myanmar; also seek ransoms from worker’s families to release them
- Study finds one Myanmar call center took in $100 million over the last two years
- Russia announces arrest of three who operated ransomware gang Sugarloaf
- Ransomware hits school system in DC suburbs; data on 100,000 lost
- Cyber attack takes down RCMP website; ransomware?
- Ransomware gang claims it has hit Epic Games; company denies this
- Hits San Francisco theme park Gilroy Garden
- Montenegro: South Korean Do Kwon arrested; wanted for collapse of $40 billion crypto company
- UK arrests eight over crypto scam, thought to be organized crime, got £8 million
- Binance to pay $4.3 billion to US in criminal fines over illegal activity
- South Africa clears extradition of seven Nigerian Black Axe members to the US for romance fraud
- New York: Prominent social media influencer from Ghana pleads guilty to laundering money from romance fraud victims; to repay $2.1 million
- Rhode Island: Fifth defendant in money laundering gang; a Nigerian man, gets 18 months prison; handled romance and lottery fraud money