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May 4th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer In a previous piece, we gave you a quick look at contractor fraud. We examined what it is, looked at common signs, and gave you a few tips to protect yourself from falling prey to such scams. In...
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January 18th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer An overwhelming majority (over 90%) of all money mule transactions identified through the European Money Mule Actions are linked to cybercrime, the Europol says. What does that mean? It means a large number of law-abiding citizens in the...
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December 10th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A two-day global online virtual assets conference — co-organized by INTERPOL, Europol, and the Basel Institute on Governance — concluded with a call to action on better protecting the world’s financial systems by increasing multi-sector cooperation to strengthen...
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December 3rd, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer Only yesterday, Dec. 2, Europol announced the results of a massive international law enforcement operation that targeted money mules. The operation, codenamed EMMA 7 (i.e. the European Money Mule Action), involved 26 countries including the U.S., and led...
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October 13th, 2021category: News Reports
By Biometrica staffer A 28th woman pled guilty for playing a part in a scam from 2017, in which a group of conspirators planned to stage an accident with a tractor-trailer in New Orleans, to milk insurance payouts. The investigation revealed that...
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September 24th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer There's been a large increase in the number of sextortion complaints made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warned at the start of this month. As of July 31, 2021,...
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September 17th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer Between 2015 and 2017, two ringleaders of a gang in New Orleans allegedly staged at least 100 accidents in a scam that was targeted at defrauding trucking and insurance companies. As part of a federal investigation into intentional...
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August 27th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer Winning the lottery is normally associated with excitement and happiness. And, let's be honest, it's something many of us have wished would happen to us and make us wealthier overnight. Yet, it's wise to not let that dream...
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August 13th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Aara Ramesh A couple of months ago, members of an esports organization called FaZe Clan started promoting a new cryptocurrency called “Save the Kids,” which promised to “build a better world for kids” through donating some proceeds of the sales of...
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July 28th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Aara Ramesh Next month marks 20 years since the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) conducted a series of raids and arrested eight individuals for a racketeering plot in which they defrauded McDonald’s Corp of $24 million dollars over a 12-year period. ...
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July 23rd, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, July 21, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a warning urging parents to be aware and on the alert for criminals trying to steal their personal and financial information, as families across the country are starting to...
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July 16th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer After someone has been evacuated from their home or been impacted in any other way by a natural disaster, the last thing they'd want is to fall victim to something else. Yet that's what happens to many Americans...
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July 9th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Deepti Govind Millions of elderly Americans become the victims of some kind of financial fraud or internet scam each year. Just last year, for instance, senior citizens in the country lost $1 billion to fraud. That's an increase of roughly $300...
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July 2nd, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Deepti Govind Sample this: Nearly one-in-three Americans have fallen victim to a phone scam in the past year, according to a report from Truecaller published last week. In total, Americans lost an estimated $29.8 billion, the report added. Of the survey...
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Besieged Maverick John McAfee Found Dead Just Hours After Spain Authorized His Extradition To The US
June 24th, 2021category: News ReportsBy Aara Ramesh In the late evening of Wednesday, June 23, John David McAfee, whose name is virtually synonymous with anti-virus software world over, was found unresponsive in his cell in a prison near Barcelona. He was being held there pending extradition...
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June 4th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer There were 13,638 victims of real estate/rental fraud in 2020, amounting to a loss of over $213 million according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Internet Crime Report for the year. That's a 16.7% jump in victim...
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May 17th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Every year, as the tax season begins, so does an uptick in tax related frauds and scams. The season began on Feb. 12 this year, when the window for taxpayers to start filing their returns to the Internal...
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May 7th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy Kevin King We’ve come a long way from when we had to sign paper receipts when paying by credit card, and then have a store manager or cashier look over at that receipt and the signature at the back of the...
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February 26th, 2021category: Feature StoriesOn Feb. 24, the Department of Justice’s Fraud Section released its 2020 “Year In Review.” Sixty-two of the 167 individuals charged last year by the Health Care Fraud Unit were medical professionals, 13 of whom faced charges for illegal opioid prescriptions. Together,...
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February 25th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Leroy King, 74, of Dickerson Bay, Antigua, the former chief of Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) was sentenced on Feb. 24 to 10 years in prison for his role in connection with a $7 billion Ponzi scheme involving...
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February 18th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Three North Korean computer programmers were charged with participating in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to conduct a series of destructive cyberattacks, to steal and extort more than $1.3 billion of money and cryptocurrency from financial institutions and companies. Jon...
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February 15th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Olakitan Oluwalade, his cousin Odunayo Baba Oluwalade and Kelly Lamont Williams were arrested after the HSI Intellectual Property Rights Center and the HSI Cyber Crimes Center became aware of a fraudulent replication of the website of Company 1, a biotechnology company based in...
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February 11th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer David T Hines of Miami fraudulently obtained $3.9m in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and used part of these funds to buy himself a Lamborghini Huracan sports car worth $318,000. At the time of his arrest, the car...
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February 4th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer If you think scammers also took a break during the Covid-19 pandemic, think again! On Feb. 4, the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) said it received more than 2.1 million fraud reports from consumers in 2020. Imposter scams were...
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February 3rd, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica stafferThe CEO of the Texas-based Merida Group of hospice and home health entities was sentenced to 15 years in prison, on Feb. 3, for falsely telling thousands of patients with long-term incurable diseases they had less than six months...
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December 4th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A man from Maryland pleaded guilty to his role in a scheme that involved diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for the reconstruction of Afghanistan for his own use instead, the Department of Justice said in a...
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December 2nd, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Interpol issued a global alert to law enforcement across its 194 member countries warning them to gear up for organized crime networks targeting covid-19 vaccines. The group’s Orange Notice warned the international community to prepare for possible infiltration...
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November 30th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer An Indian national was sentenced to 20 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in operating a scam that defrauded US victims out of millions of dollars between 2013 and 2016. Hitesh...
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October 2nd, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Two leaders of ‘Team Xecuter,’ one of the world’s most notorious videogame piracy groups, have been arrested and are in custody facing charges in Seattle, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. The group grew so...
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September 25th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A man from Georgia has been sentenced to 5 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for running a Ponzi scheme that ensnared over a hundred victims, including college students, the US Department of Justice...
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September 15th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer A Texan woman has been taken into custody on allegations of defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of more than $1.9 million in forgivable loans, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. The Small Business Administration...
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September 10th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Former New York Jets wide receiver Joshua J Bellamy was arrested in Florida and charged for his role in a scheme that involved defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The National Football League (NFL) player and his associates...
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September 3rd, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer An attorney from New Jersey was arrested on charges of defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by obtaining about $9 million in loans, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Jae H. Choi, a licensed...
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August 25th, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staff A Russian national was arrested for conspiring to recruit an employee of a Nevada-based company to introduce malicious software into the company’s computer network, extract data from the network, and extort ransom from the company. Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov,...
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August 21st, 2020category: News Reports
A Minnesota man was charged for defrauding the PPP of $841,000 | © Ossi Lehtonen - Dreamstime.com By a Biometrica staffer A man from Minnesota was charged for allegedly defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of about $841,000, the US Department of...