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.
More than 2,000 elderly Americans lost a combined $27 million to a fraud ring that used fake tech-support calls, bank impersonation, and government impersonation scams to trick victims into mailing cash or wiring money. The man who ran the operation, a Chinese national named Zhao Wang, also known as “Oscar,” was sentenced to 151 months…
Fraud losses reported by Americans aged 60 and older reached $2.46 billion last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report to Congress on protecting older consumers. That figure almost certainly understates the real toll because many victims never file a complaint. Impersonation scams, in which callers pose as government agents or bank officials,…
Five people received federal prison sentences for draining the bank accounts of elderly retired Florida school district employees, acting as domestic links in a fraud operation directed by overseas scammers. The defendants exploited a retirement specialist’s access to personal data, faxed fraudulent withdrawal forms, and funneled roughly $1,000,000 in stolen funds through personal and business…
More than a million small stock trades executed by five of the country’s best-known brokerages carried commissions so high that regulators across dozens of states stepped in to force refunds. LPL Financial, Edward Jones, Raymond James, Ameriprise Financial, and Osaic (formerly known as Advisor Group) have agreed to return approximately $19 million to investors nationwide…
A 23-year-old courier who traveled across the United States collecting cash and gold from elderly fraud victims has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. Atharva Shailesh Sathawane, of India, personally took and laundered $6,615,484.66 from older Americans and attempted an additional $1,363,395.98 in fraud, bringing the total scheme value above $7 million. The…
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina seized more than $61 million in Tether cryptocurrency tied to overseas pig-butchering scam operations, marking one of the largest single crypto seizures connected to investment fraud laundering. The action, announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina in February 2026, targeted digital wallets used to…
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Patrick James, founder and former CEO of auto-parts maker First Brands, and his brother Edward James, a former senior executive, with orchestrating a multibillion-dollar fraud that hid the company’s true debt load from lenders and factoring firms. The indictment, unsealed on January 29, 2026, alleges the pair submitted fake or…
Christopher Alexander Delgado, the president and CEO of Goliath Ventures, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after admitting to at least $250 million in investor losses. The scheme ran from at least January 2023 through January 2026, during which Delgado funneled approximately $17 million in…
An Alabama man who lost his entire life savings to a cryptocurrency confidence scheme has recovered $222,000 after federal agents traced and seized the stolen funds. The recovery is part of what the Department of Justice has called its largest-ever forfeiture action targeting crypto-confidence scams, a category that includes so-called pig-butchering schemes designed to build…
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged three top executives of Tricolor Auto with conspiracy and fraud, alleging they ran a years-long scheme that inflated the subprime auto lender’s loan portfolio, deceived the companies financing its operations, and contributed to losses exceeding $1 billion. CEO Daniel Chu, CFO David Goodgame, and COO Jerome Kollar each face…