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March 24th, 2023category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Drug related offenses accounted for almost one-third of all cases reported in fiscal year 2022, the United States Sentencing Commission (called “the Commission” hereon) said in its annual report. That makes drug offenses the single largest category of...
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September 15th, 2022category: Feature StoriesBy a Biometrica staffer Fraud accounted for 30.1% of all organizational offenses during the near-30 year period between fiscal 1992 and 2021. Environmental offenses was the second largest offense category at 24%, according to a report published late last month by the...
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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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Billions Of Dollars In Taxpayer Money Could Be Recovered; Lax Child Protection In CO, MO: HHS Report
December 7th, 2021category: News ReportsBy a Biometrica staffer Last week, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its Fall Semiannual Report to Congress, in which it was found that the efforts of the HHS in the 2021...
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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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November 26th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer As the saying goes, where there’s a will there’s a way. A perverse version of this axiom is also applicable to fraudsters and criminals, who are always on the lookout for an opportunity to scam others. Whether that...
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November 2nd, 2021category: News Reports
By Deepti Govind The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), along with its law enforcement partners, said it removed nearly 745,000 lbs of unneeded prescriptions from medicine cabinets across the country under its National Prescription Drug Take Back Day program, which was held on...
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October 20th, 2021category: News Reports
By Biometrica staffer On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted its annual Activities to Combat Elder Fraud and Abuse report to Congress, covering all efforts on this front between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. The summarizing report...
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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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September 16th, 2021category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South Carolina lawyer, is set to turn himself in to law enforcement today, Sept. 16, according to his lawyers. Murdaugh allegedly arranged for a former client to kill him so that his surviving son...
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August 20th, 2021category: Background Check ABCsBy a Biometrica staffer The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning in May asking the public to be wary of scammers looking to extort family members of missing persons who share details on social media. The goal of these missing...
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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 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 22nd, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Aara Ramesh In January 2017, one 20-day tournament sent ripples of shock through the tech industry, when Libratus, an AI-powered robot, beat four of the world’s best poker players in a series of no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em games. This was seen...
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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 18th, 2021category: Feature StoriesBy Aara Ramesh On Monday, May 17, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released data about cryptocurrency investment scams, as reported by consumers in October 2020–March 2021. In that six-month period, the FTC received almost 7,000 complaints, amounting to a total of $80...
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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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March 30th, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Pope Francis has said that laws must reflect “the equality of all members of the church,” indicating that further reforms of the Vatican City penal code were likely, especially to deal with financial crimes. In a March 27 meeting...
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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 22nd, 2021category: News Reports
By Anand Vasu Chen Song, a Stanford University researcher, was charged with visa fraud, obstruction of justice, destruction of documents, and false statements in connection with a scheme to conceal and lie about her status as a member of the People’s Republic...
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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 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 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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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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September 2nd, 2020category: News Reports
By a Biometrica staffer Three former caregivers have been sentenced for their roles in the death of a special needs resident at Second Chance Homes (SCH), an organization that provided housing and care for persons with developmental challenges through a Missouri Department...
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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...