The financial news that actually matters
Covers financial scams, fraud cases, regulatory enforcement actions, and government crackdowns on illegal financial activity. It educates readers on financial safety and risk prevention.
Credit-union members who lost a combined $95 million in a single fraud case now face a regulatory system that has no pending proposal to tighten how such losses are disclosed. The National Credit Union Administration, the federal agency that charters and supervises credit unions, is instead directing its rulemaking energy toward a different priority: clarifying…
James Wellesley, a British national who operated under the aliases “Andrew Fuller” and “Andrew Templar,” was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running a Ponzi-like wine fraud that extracted over $97 million from more than 140 investors across multiple countries. The sentence, handed down in Brooklyn federal court, caps a case that took…
Scammers posing as government officials, bank representatives, and tech-support agents drained $3.5 billion from Americans in 2025, a nearly 20 percent jump from the prior year. More than one million people filed imposter-scam complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, making this category nearly one in three of all fraud reports the agency received. Older adults…
Christine Hunsicker, founder of the fashion-rental technology company CaaStle, was charged in a federal indictment with wire fraud, money laundering, false statements to a financial institution, and aggravated identity theft in connection with an alleged $300 million scheme that deceived institutional investors. Hunsicker pleaded not guilty at her initial court appearance and was released on…
The U.S. Department of Justice charged 455 defendants in connection with more than $6.5 billion in alleged health-care fraud, the largest single enforcement action of its kind. Federal agents coordinated arrests across multiple countries, with Estonian law enforcement assisting in apprehensions tied to a multi-billion-dollar durable medical equipment conspiracy known as Operation Gold Rush. The…
Federal prosecutors have charged former First Brands Group CEO and founder Patrick James with orchestrating a fraud scheme that left roughly $2.3 billion unaccounted for when the company, maker of Fram oil filters and Autolite spark plugs, collapsed into bankruptcy. The indictment, unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York,…
Consumers reported losing nearly $1 billion to bank impersonators in 2025, part of a broader $3.5 billion in imposter scam losses tracked by the Federal Trade Commission. The scheme is consistent and effective: a caller claims to be from the victim’s bank, warns of suspicious activity on the account, and urges an immediate transfer to…
Sanders Family Office LLC and its founder Margaret Sanders have agreed to settle Securities and Exchange Commission claims that they raised roughly $40 million in connection with a $56 million South Florida real estate Ponzi scheme. The proposed final judgment, filed in the Western District of Texas, calls for disgorgement of $2,977,099.53 plus prejudgment interest…
Ramil Ventura Palafox, the CEO of Praetorian Group International, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after draining $62.692 million from investors through a bitcoin Ponzi scheme that promised daily returns of 0.5% to 3%. The scheme operated from December 2019 to October 2021, pulling in more than 90,000 investors worldwide by combining crypto…
More than 430 investors, many of them elderly, lost money in a scheme that federal prosecutors say stretched across five funds and relied on misleading promissory notes sold by a registered adviser on Long Island. Vincent Camarda, who operated through A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, pleaded guilty to investment fraud in Central Islip after the government…