Trump Wants YOUR Medical Data for His Drug War

 

Apple ‘Hide My Email’ Vulnerability Reveals Peoples’ Real Email Addresses

404 Media: “…Hide My Email is part of Apple’s paid iCloud+ product. It lets users generate an anonymous email address which they can then use to sign up to services or email people with instead of their personal email. These email addresses are often two random words and a number ending in the @icloud.com domain. 

This can be useful for all sorts of reasons: to reduce spam; to create an account you may not want linked to your personal address and identity; and to not have your personal information held by a site that may later suffer a data breach. I personally have generated more than 400 email addresses with Hide My Email, for example. To test the issue I generated a new Hide My Email address and provided it to Murphy. 

Around five minutes later, he replied with my real email address linked to my Apple account which was supposed to be hidden. “We don’t know the full scope of the issue, but in our limited tests with volunteers, 100% of Hide My Email addresses were exploitable,” Murphy said…”

Trump Wants YOUR Medical Data for His Drug War

Zeteo: “The Trump administration’s new drug strategy does more than escalate the war on fentanyl.

DOJ Tax is Hiring

Trevor Sikes, “DOJ Seeks More Tax Attorneys as Caseload Increases” (Tax Notes, June 29, 2026):

The Justice Department’s Tax Litigation Branch of the Civil Division is looking to bolster its workforce following a significant exodus of attorneys and an increased caseload, according to a government official.

“During the last couple of years, we’ve lost some significant amount of staff,” Joshua Wu, deputy assistant attorney general for the Tax Litigation Branch, said June 26 at a conference sponsored by the New York University School of Professional Studies.

Staffing has decreased about 30 to 40 percent since last year, while the Tax Litigation Branch caseload has continued to increase, according to Wu. The Civil Division has 4,413 pending tax trial matters — an increase of 138 from last year — and 373 appellate tax cases, which is 56 more than last year, he said.

The Analog Life: 50 Ways to Unplug and Feel Human Again

Inside Hook: “…I’ve put together a list of ways to live a more analog lifestyle. As I make the rules here, I’ve stretched the definition of “analog” a bit to accommodate a reasonably modern lifestyle. I’m not suggesting you cancel your wifi. This is more about adopting sustained, analog-adjacent routines — and while there are 50 here, I certainly wouldn’t recommend adopting all of them. Just cling to the ones that ring true. Perhaps they’re something to aspire to, or something you usedto do, before we got into this mess of an era. 

These ideas are meant to create friction — to slow you down, interrupt default behaviors and make digital life feel a little less automatic. More than nostalgia, the analog life is about resistance. From old-school rituals, to single-use devices, to website blockers, these small interventions will help you live like a person again — instead of a user…”

The cost of being American

Brookings Institute:

• As the country heads into its 250th birthday this weekend, more than 40% of American households are struggling to make ends meet, and the reasons why look different depending on where you live, what you drive, and how you get to work. To understand why, Brookings researchers delved into the details—how the rising costs of housing, energy, and transportation are driving the affordability crisis. Here’s what they found. The price of getting around—and everything else.
• Congress is about to spend five years and untold billions on roads. Is it spending wisely? Millions of us will be driving a lot this weekend. So it makes sense to begin with roads: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s BUILD America 250 Act would set the terms for federal transportation funding for the next half-decade. Adie Tomer and Ben Swedberg explainwhat the bill gets right (it gives states flexibility with what to spend on), where it falls short (it charges electric car owners too much in registration fees), and how Congress can fix these flaws. Tomer also recently led a related discussion with government leaders and industry experts on another transportation topic: why American transit buses cost so much more than they should, and how to fix that.
• Gas prices are up. EV policy is a patchwork. Fluctuating oil prices driven by the Iran war have sparked renewed interest in electric vehicles. But federal support for EV adoption has weakened, leaving a patchwork of state programs in its place. Shriya Methkupally and Mark Muro examine EV policy across all 50 states, finding that leaders like California and Massachusetts are doing more, while many other states continue to lag on charging infrastructure and purchase incentives

Telling Problem about Telstra

"Whatever brings you down will eventually make you stronger." ?

 ~ Alex Morgan

 

Telstra investigating widespread network outage

By Jack Gramenz and David Swan

Telstra customers may be unable to reach Triple Zero, police in two states have warned, as a nationwide Telstra outage left thousands of customers across every mainland capital unable to make calls or use mobile data.

NSW Police said Triple Zero systems were not affected, but it warned that some customers calling from Telstra devices may experience difficulties reaching emergency services.

Telstra is investigating a widespread network outage on Wednesday.SAM MOOY

Victoria Police said it was aware of disruptions affecting some mobile and landline services, but there was no evidence that the outage had affected frontline responses.

More Futbol - What Planantir CEO Told CNBC and Why Law Firms Should Listen

 "Some people think futbol is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that." 

— Bill Shankly

Argentina 🇦🇷 beats Egypt 🇪🇬 3:2 even though Egypt was winning for a long time 2:0 …

Swiss 🇨🇭 won on penalties 4:3 against Colombia 🇨🇴 

Not to brag or anything, but my Bluesky bunch have supported lucky 🍀 teams … so far 

Let’s hope these predictions come true …

So many are rooting for Belgium to go all the way so they can do the two-handed jackoff dance when they get the trophy.

Quarterfinal prediction France 2–1 Morocco Spain 2–1 Belgium England 2–1 Norway (AET) Argentina 2–1 Switzerland Predicted semifinals 🇫🇷 France vs 🇪🇸 Spain → France advances 🏴 England vs 🇦🇷 Argentina → Argentina advances Predicted Final France vs Argentina Predicted Champion 🏆 France (3–1 vs Argentina)

I don't know how France received three yellows and Paraguay none when the Paraguay side was acting like old-school NHL goons. But yeah, look into that ref and see if he's into sportsbooks or "prediction markets."

Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev

What Planantir CEO Told CNBC and Why Law Firms Should Listen

Brainyacts: What Karp Told CNBC and Why Law Firms Should Listen. Palantir’s CEO went on CNBC and bluntly described on live TV the exact trap your firm is walking into with AI. Not “AI is scary.” Sharper: you can pay a fortune, get modest value back, and quietly hand a vendor the three things that make your firm your firm: your client data, your work product, and your method.

The Declaration of Independence, America at 250 and Past Centennials

Internet Archive Blogs: “As America celebrates its Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) this year, explore a curated list of materials preserved at the Internet Archive documenting the nation’s founding, the Declaration of Independence, past ephemera created for the nation’s anniversaries, and new efforts to capture and preserve the materials published by democracies.

• Democracy’s Library – The Internet Archive’s Democracy’s Library project helps preserve critical information and publications produced by federal, state, provincial, and municipal governments, and makes them available for users to access and to anyone wanting to build new services on these public documents. Learn more about Democracy’s Library.
• Declaration of Independence – The National Archives of the United States lists three documents as the “Founding Documents”: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Don’t Let Trump’s Lawyers Bury Jack Smith’s Report

Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University via LinkedIn – “Three years ago this month, the Justice Department indicted Donald Trump under the Espionage Act for concealing and refusing to return classified documents—the first time a president had been charged with a crime, let alone one so grave. But President Trump hasn’t had to face trial, and he hasn’t had to fully account to the public for his actions, either.  

There are a few reasons for this. The Justice Department abandoned the criminal case against Trump after he returned to the White House in 2025, citing a long-standing policy against the prosecution of sitting presidents. Trump’s personal lawyers have worked closely with the Justice Department, now staffed by Trump’s former personal lawyers, to bury the official report about the criminal investigation into Trump’s conduct. 

Meanwhile, Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida has effectively prohibited Jack Smith, the special counsel who wrote the report, from talking about the report or even testifying about it to Congress. In The New York Times this morning, I explain why the suppression of Smith’s report is so disturbing and why the report’s disclosure is so essential:

[I]f presidents are to be immune from prosecution while in office, it’s all the more important that Congress and the public have access to the information that would empower them to hold the president accountable in other ways…

Mr. Smith investigated Mr. Trump for conduct that appears to have entailed an astonishing betrayal of the public’s trust as well as the nation’s security. Legislators and ordinary citizens should have the opportunity to read the report for themselves. It is incoherent to immunize the president from prosecution on the theory that he can be held accountable through the political process—and then to deny Congress and the public information that would help them do so.

As I explain in the essay, which you can read here [Note – beSpacific provided free access], the Knight Institute is suing for the release of Smith’s report, asserting that the public has a right of access to the report under the First Amendment and the common law. Judge Cannon rejected our arguments, but we’ve challenged her ruling and a federal appeals court in Miami will hear oral argument in the case in the 

Wikipedia Is Battling for the Soul of the Internet

The New York Times Gift article : “The internet’s largest stockpile of free knowledge is under threat from MAGA, A.I. and foreign autocrats. A bibliophile ex-ambassador is here to help. Wikipedia is in peril. In a world where trust in truth is crumbling, the grande dame of collective online fact-gathering is under threat on every front. 

The MAGA right, with Elon Musk at the fore, is slinging accusations of political bias and antisemitism and has even questioned the site’s nonprofit status. Artificial intelligence is raiding the encyclopedia’s resources and draining attention. Repressive governments have hauled its volunteer editors into penal colonies. In Wikipedia’s 25-year history, it has never had to fight this hard. 

The organization that supports the site, the Wikimedia Foundation, is increasing its lobbying budget and advertising in Times Square. It is charging companies like Google and Meta that gobble up the encyclopedia’s 65 million articles, and throttling access for certain scrapers. 

And it is expanding its human rights team to better protect volunteers against rising harassment, surveillance and retaliation. For an organization that holds neutrality as a cardinal rule, it is a lot of conflict, requiring Wikimedia to go on the offensive — diplomatically, of course…”

 What they hate in you is missing in them.

The Musicians (Les Musiciens) is a 2025 French comedy-drama directed by Grégory Magne. It follows a wealthy heiress who unites four virtuosos to play priceless Stradivarius instruments in the Champagne region to honor her late father. The musicians clash until they bring in the reclusive composer to save the performance.

Musicians, The 

The enchanting new comedy of manners from acclaimed writer/director Grégory Magne (Perfumes), THE MUSICIANS stars Valérie Donzelli as a wealthy heiress whose plan to stage a landmark concert is derailed by the clashing egos of the virtuosos recruited for the performance.

Astrid Thompson (Donzelli) is determined to honour her late industrialist father’s final wish: unite four priceless Stradivarius-stringed instruments for the premiere recital of a new composition by his favourite artist, to be live-streamed for music lovers globally. With just six days to rehearse, a quartet is assembled, but the dream quickly unravels: the musicians, blinded by their differences, are seemingly incapable of working together. With the deadline fast approaching, Astrid tries to coax the reclusive composer of the score, Charlie Beaumont (Frédéric Pierrot), out from creative seclusion in the desperate hope of salvaging the event.

French language, English subtitles.

An impromptu jam is the best scene in “The Musicians,” an offhand, fireside performance of a classic American folk lament made famous by Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Robert Plant and Allison Krause, Nirvana and Lead Belly. 

“In the Pines” is a tune every “musician” should and would know, plucked and bowed and sung with geniune soul here by musicians who know “classical music” didn’t end with Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.

In the Pines

French film ‘The Musicians’ and its classical quartet hit the right notes

Forget Flock. Now The Cameras Can Read Your Pockets Too.

The Leonardo Patent That Turns Your Devices Into a Location Fingerprint and Forecasts Where You’ll Go Next – The patent is US 12,236,780 B2, “Systems and Methods for Electronic Signature Tracking and Analysis.” It was granted on February 25, 2025, to Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions — the American arm of Leonardo, the Italian defense conglomerate. 

It is the second patent in a family behind a product called ELSAG SignalTrace. And the specification describes, in the company’s own filing, two striking capabilities. The first: once the system has watched you a few times, it no longer needs the camera. In the patent’s words, it “will be able to detect the likely presence of a vehicle and its associated license plate without visual information, e.g., without the use of a camera.” 

The license-plate reader is the training wheel. Once the model learns you, the reader can come off. The second is the one that moves this out of surveillance and into something closer to prophecy. The system, the patent says, “allows an investigator to forecast the presence of a violation type, vehicle, or group of vehicles across time and location.” Not where you were. Where you will be. Nobody reported this patent. The story that ran last month — and it was a good one — was about the first patent, and the product it powers. This is the part that came after…

Here is what that brochure says, in Leonardo’s own words. SignalTrace builds what it calls a “unique, trackable ‘electronic fingerprint’” from the devices you carry. Its list of “Tracked Device Types” is not vague. It names key cards. Wearables — “watches, fitness trackers.” Wireless headphones. Your car’s tire-pressure sensors and infotainment system. And, in a detail that reads like satire until you sit with it, your pet’s microchip…”

See also Proton – Forget Flock. Now The Cameras Can Read Your Pockets Too. A defence contractor called Leonardo has decided that reading your plate is no longer enough. Their new system, ELSAG SignalTrace, reads everything else you’re carrying. You drive past a sensor, and it doesn’t just photograph the car. 

Instead, it grabs the wireless signals leaking out of every device inside it: your phone, your smartwatch, your earbuds, your fitness tracker, the car’s own Bluetooth, tyre pressure sensors, the key fob, and in some cases, even your pet’s microchip. 

Then it ties all of that to your numberplate and stores these data for later. It is, as far as branding goes, refreshingly honest. The product page’s own subheading is “Identify Suspects by the Electronic Devices They Use.”…he system works because almost every device you own is shouting a more-or-less stable identifier into the air whether you asked it to or not. 

As we have covered partially in a video before, these come in the form of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi requests, RFID, and the radios baked into your car. SignalTrace doesn’t have to break into any of it; it’s not hacking anything, just listening and storing…”

The Brand Ledger

Worse on Purpose: Tracking the brands that got worse on purpose — and the ones that didn’t. The Brand Ledger tracks 215 brands across tools, bags, apparel, eyewear, and footwear. Who owns them, what they used to be, whether they’re still worth buying. Updated as things change.

Search the Brand Ledger

• Browse all brands →Read the investigations ↗

55 - The Onion Rolls Out New InfoWars Website After Taking Over Alex Jones’ Platform

 A day peppered with dinner Spain 🇪🇸 beating Portugal 🇵🇹 1:0 Belgium 🇧🇪 beating America 🇺🇸  4:1 

And special birthday punj punj - 55 Birthday 🎊

Why Some People Take Breakups Harder Than Others

Part of it depends on whether they believe personality is fixed or constantly changing.

By Lauren Howe

So what makes for a healthy breakup, one in which the person moves on with minimal emotional damage? In our study, some people drew much weaker connections between rejection and the self, describing rejection as an arbitrary and unpredictable force rather than the result of some personal flaw. One person wrote, “Sometimes girls are not interested. It’s nothing to do with yourself, it’s just that they’re not interested.” Another noted how rejection wasn’t a reflection of worth: “I learned that two people can both be quality individuals, but that doesn’t mean they belong together.” Other people saw the rejection as a universal experience: “Everyone gets rejected. It’s just part of life.” 

The Onion Rolls Out New InfoWars Website After Taking Over Alex Jones’ Platform

Fast Company: [Note – beSpacific added links to subject matter not found in the original article] “Tim Heidecker’s favorite form of comedy wastes your time. So there’s no better punch line than the internet, society’s ultimate time suck, which has woven its addictive, algorithmic tendrils into every single aspect of our lives, bottoming out in the silty, dark, disorienting unreality of Alex Jones. 

InfoWars, the right-wing conspiracy theorist’s poison pill of a brand, went up for auction in 2024 after the families of the victims of a 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School successfully sued him for defamation, and he subsequently declared bankruptcy in 2022. That’s when the satirical website The Onion stepped in. It has been attempting to officially take over InfoWars’s brand assets and related production equipment (the bid has been mired in court appeals by Jones), with the intention of donating its proceeds to those families. 

The team, helmed by Onion CEO Ben Collins and Heidecker as creative director, isn’t waiting any longer.  Satirical media outlet The Onion is now previewing its new take on InfoWars, the conspiracy website formerly owned by far-right commentator Alex Jones. 

Creative Director Tim Heidecker (known for Adult Swim show “Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job”) explained that The Onion plans to copy InfoWars’ aesthetic while simultaneously pillorying right-wing conspiratorial content in its signature satirical fashion. Jones lost control of InfoWars after a lawsuit filed by families of children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting, which resulted in Jones having to sell off all of his assets.

Episodes will stream across all platforms The Onion is on, including Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, as well as its own website.

 The £17 billion of tax HMRC is choosing not to collect

TIGTA: The IRS Provided Addresses for Nearly 47,000 Persons to ICE

Sloan Speck

June 27, 2026

TaxTax NewsTax Policy in the Trump Administration

In early June, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released a lightly redacted report on the IRS’s implementation of its April 2025 data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The report focuses on the IRS’s processes and controls for responding to ICE requests for taxpayer address information, rather than the legality of the information-sharing agreement itself.

Below the fold, links, excerpts, and further coverage from Politico on DHS and ICE’s efforts to acquire Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers—which can be issued by the IRS to undocumented persons—from private providers through procurement contracts. These private-sector vectors, of course, have been criticized as an end run around court orders blocking IRS information-sharing with DHS and ICE.

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, The IRS Provided Addresses for Nearly 47,000 Persons to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Report No. 2026-IE-R010 (June 4, 2026):

Our evaluation found that, before releasing address information on individual taxpayers, the IRS developed an automated process to match ICE data to IRS records. However, the criteria were unable to identify and match the records accurately and consistently. . . .

We also found that ICE did not meet [redacted] safeguarding standards prior to signing the data-sharing agreement. The IRS performs a safeguard review of an agency receiving federal tax information. This review evaluates an agency’s compliance with the safeguard requirements. The IRS then issues a Safeguard Review Report with findings to the agency. Our review of the report for ICE found that [redacted] findings remained open at the time of the data transfer. . . .

No recommendations were made in this report. We plan to share our concerns regarding the security findings with the DHS Office of Inspector General.

Bernie Becker, DHS’s ID Collection Efforts, Politico Weekly Tax (June 22, 2026):

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreed to a new data subscription contract this month for Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, to help assist Homeland Security investigators in fraud investigations . . . .

Related TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Government Seeks to Resume Taxpayer Info Sharing With ICE (June 16, 2026)
• ICE and the IRS: Inadvertent Disclosures Edition (Feb. 21, 2026)
• Politico: Plotting the Comeback—and a 2027 Tax Agenda (May 16, 2026)
• ICE and the IRS: Preliminary Injunction and Other Updates (Nov. 22, 2025)
• ProPublica: The IRS Is Building A Vast System To Share Taxpayer Data With ICE(July 17, 2025)
• IRS Nears Deal To Give ICE Addresses Of Immigrants Targeted For Deportation (Mar. 1, 2025)

Australia warns of fake crypto trading platforms and apps; commonly red used in crypto romance frauds

 San Diego: Man from China gets 12.5 years prison; ran a ring of couriers who collected $27 million from victims of tech support, government impersonation and refund frauds; changed money into crypto and sent it to India, keeping 18%

 
Rhode Island: Two executives of company that provided telco services to businesses in India they knew were tech support frauds plead guilty
 
Elderly California couple dead after wife sent large sums to fraudster pretending to be Tom Selleck; apparently husband killed her and then himself
 
Is that “local” business really where it says it is?  In the last issue I covered the FTC’s recent case against Premium Home Services, which ran google ads and offered plumbing, electrical, and other home repair services with “local” addresses and phones along with great (fake) reviews. But at least 10,000 victims found that calls really went to overseas call centers, who collected money and then tried, often unsuccessfully, to find someone who could appear and do the work. It is troubling that anyone would be able to game the online system this way, thought I fear that (at least) fake florists and locksmiths use the same tactics.  More law enforcement here – not to mention better work by Google – might be a real benefit to consumers
 
Review and Recommendation: I heartily recommend a series of fiction books by CJ Box that all involve Wyoming Fish and Game agent Joe Pickett.  They each have some sort of crime involving the state -- though these are not typical mystery novels. And I think they are great for any sort of audience.
 

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 fraud and crypto scams
 
Fraud News Around the world

• India: Police bust four fake call centers targeting the US and claiming to offer tax advice; used identities of US government officials
• Kansas City: Man from India gets 15.5 years prison; was courier in scam that called claiming to be law enforcement and that victims needed to keep money “safe,” often providing gold bars; got $4.75 million
• Canada and the US arrest man who developed a huge botnet that infected computers worldwide
• Canada: Halton police arrest two for gift card fraud where they replaced cards with those that had been tampered with
• New Jersey police arrest man who went to victim’s home to pick up money from grandparent fraud
• Singapore police investigate 295 suspected scammers and money mules in two week effort
• Singapore arrests Malaysian woman who was part of scam that impersonated police; gold bars found with her
• Kentucky: Judge shuts down crooked moving company
• Kentucky: Nigerian man gets 115 months prison for laundering money for romance, BEC, and other frauds
• India: Police bust fake tech support call center, arrest 132
• Ohio: Chinese man arrested when he went to collect gold bars from victim of tech support fraud
• Rochester: Man pleads guilty to romance fraud; theft of unemployment benefits, PPP fraud, and illegal charges on credit cards he didn’t own; got $2 million
• Oregon: Man extradited from Romania gets 56 months prison for hacking into State of Oregon computer system and selling access to those systems
• Florida: Jury convicts owner of business that hired off shore telemarketers to call seniors and offer durable medical equipment that was not needed: got $1 billion from Medicare

Humor

• Florida man sneaks into landscaping van to steal it but locks himself inside and police arrest him

FTC and CFPB

•  FTC settles with Cox Media over deceptive claims that they could use AI to target ads to specific groups; to pay nearly $1 million
• FTC gets credit card processor Cardflex held in contempt of earlier order for handling card transactions for scammers; must pay $6.5 million
• FTC resolves case against Shutterstock video site; alleges insufficient notice of auto renewals and charges; to pay $35 million

Benefit Theft

• Maryland: Man gets 54 months prison for stealing ID’s of 30 people to get SNAP food stamp benefits
• Maryland: Man (Chinese?) gets three years prison for theft of unemployment benefits; part of a gang that stole ID’s and got $3.5 million
• Minnesota: Ringleader of Feeding Our Future fraud scheme gets 41 years in federal prison
• Minnesota: 15 people (Somalis?) charged for Medicare scam that operated fake day care centers that got $90 million
• Montana: Woman gets 30 months prison for PPP fraud; got $613,000
• New Jersey: Woman who was physical therapist gets a year prison for defrauding health care system of Amtrak
• Illinois: Woman gets a year prison for PPP fraud; got $170,000
• Rockford: Man gets three years prison for PPP and tax fraud
• California: Two medical company owners plead guilty to PPP fraud; got $1 million
• Boston: Man illegally here from Dominican Republic pleads guilty to theft of food stamps and other benefits; used identity theft
• Orlando: Man gets 63 months prison for PPP fraud; got $729,000
• Colorado: Man gets 37 months prison for PPP fraud; got $442,000

Scam Compounds

• Thailand: Police arrest six Nigerians who were operating romance frauds with AI
• Scam compounds move to Sri Lanka; officials have arrested over 1000
• Philippines: Police arrest 63 at call center apparently doing crypto romance fraud
• Southeast Asia scam compounds are now moving to Indonesia, Chinese officials assert

Business Email compromise fraud 

• Houston: Nigerian man pleads guilty to BEC fraud; another already sentenced
• Australia charges three with BEC fraud; seize gold

Bitcoin and Crypto Fraud

• Australia warns of fake crypto trading platforms and apps; commonly red used in crypto romance frauds
• Bitcoin ATM chain Bitcoin Depot files for bankruptcy
• Miami: Man illegally in the US from Canada and another man indicted for theft of crypto; got $13 million

Ransomware and data breaches

• International effort takes down VPN used by 25 ransomware groups

ATM Skimming                                                       

• Colorado: 12 arrested for ATM skimming; appear to all be Romanians; concentrated on 7/11’s
• Texas: San Antonio police arrest man who was skimming gas station pumps
• Minneapolis grocery store owner arrested for skimming EBT cards; then used them to buy goods for his store at Costco; made $1.14 million

Jamaica and Lottery Fraud

• Pittsburgh: Jamaican man who was living in the US illegally pleads guilty to lottery fraud
• Pittsburgh: Jamaican man gets 4.5 years prison for lottery fraud
• Tacoma: Jamaican man gets three years prison for lottery fraud; had been extradited

Romance Fraud and Sextortion 

• UK: Operation led by London police in the UK and Nigeria results in arrests of 31 for romance fraud
• North Carolina: Woman arrested for acting as a money mule for romance fraud; claims she was herself involved with “Elon Musk”
• India arrests four Nigerians for romance fraud
• North Carolina: Nigerian man extradited for romance fraud and charged
• Cleveland: Three from Ghana charged with romance fraud; part of gang and others in the ring have been prosecuted
• North Carolina: Man extradited from Nigeria arrested by FBI for romance fraud