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.
Federal prosecutors allege that a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer spent roughly a decade stealing confidential deal information from his own law firm clients and passing it to a network of traders who turned those tips into tens of millions of dollars in illicit stock-market profits. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against 21 individuals,…
Elchonon “Elie” Schwartz, a New York-based commercial real estate developer, collected more than $60 million from at least 700 investors through an online crowdfunding platform between May 2022 and March 2023. Prosecutors say he then spent large portions of their money on a penthouse, luxury watches, and shoring up failing deals instead of the properties…
More than 4,000 investors handed over roughly $528 million to funds that marketed themselves as a way to buy shares in private companies before they went public. The pitch was simple: no upfront fees, direct access to hot pre-IPO stock. But federal regulators say the operators were quietly adding markups as high as 150 percent…
The Securities and Exchange Commission reported $17.9 billion in monetary relief for fiscal year 2025, a figure that on its surface suggests a banner year for investor protection. But a single legacy case, the Robert Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme first charged in 2009, accounts for roughly $8 billion of that total. Remove it, along with…
Consumers who receive a phone call, text, or email demanding that they settle a debt, tax bill, or legal threat by purchasing gift cards and reading off the numbers are being targeted by one of the most persistent fraud schemes in the country. The Federal Trade Commission, the IRS, and the FBI have each stated…
Braden John Karony, the CEO of SafeMoon US LLC, was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison in Brooklyn after pleading guilty to securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee also ordered Karony to forfeit approximately $7.5 million in assets tied to the scheme. The sentence caps…
Devin Ward Elder, founder and CEO of DJE Texas Management Group, pleaded guilty to wire fraud after raising approximately $69.5 million from roughly 345 investors through 17 separate offerings between January 2023 and March 2025. Federal prosecutors described the operation as a scheme that recycled new investor money into Ponzi-like payments to earlier participants, masking…
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Paul Regan with conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that collected more than $60 million from over 300 investors. The indictment, unsealed in the Southern District of New York, accuses Regan of funneling new investor money into payments to earlier participants through two entities,…
Federal prosecutors allege that three sales executives ran a nationwide operation that collected approximately $528 million from more than 4,000 investors between March 2019 and July 2022 by selling shares in private companies pitched as “pre-IPO” opportunities. The sales team told buyers there were no upfront fees and that the firm would profit only when…
A mortgage broker operating across borders left roughly 1,700 investors facing losses that reportedly reached $300 million before authorities arrested him abroad. The fallout has since landed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, where Chapter 15 proceedings tied to a Canadian receivership are now assigned to a federal judge. The…