Fraud & Scams
Financial fraud, phishing, identity theft, scam alerts, data breaches, and how to protect yourself and your accounts.
Latest in Fraud & Scams
Bank customers notified of the Finastra file-transfer data breach have until Nov. 27 to file a settlement claim, with a final hearing set for Dec. 14
A bank software vendor that most of its affected customers never chose has agreed to a $3,125,000 settlement over a 2024 cyberattack, and the deadline...
A Florida accounting and operations manager admitted diverting more than $3.9 million in customer payments to pay for clothing, travel and electronics
Colleen Kieran, 57, of Clermont, Florida, has pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud for moving more than $3.9 million in customer payments out...
Ohio investigators recovered all $15,300 a 63-year-old lost to a crypto ATM scam
Ohio investigators recovered every dollar, $15,300, that a 63-year-old Allen County woman lost to a crypto ATM scam, Attorney General Andy Wilson’s office announced October...
A Ukrainian-Russian man admitted laundering money for hackers who raided over 750 U.S. bank accounts using more than 15,000 unwitting money mules
Oleg Korniev, a 42-year-old dual citizen of Ukraine and Russia, pleaded guilty on October 8 to running a laundering network that moved money stolen by...
A Canadian man got 33 months and must repay $256,000 for recruiting fake bail bondsmen in a grandparent scam aimed at about 20 elderly Americans
A federal judge in Vermont sentenced Paul Conneh, 39, of Moncton, New Brunswick, to 33 months in prison on October 6 and ordered him to...
Fake federal agents talked 24 California and Nevada victims out of $597,100 in cash, and the courier who collected it pleaded guilty October 5
Binghui Liu, 33, a Chinese citizen formerly of San Jose, pleaded guilty on October 5 to laundering about $597,100 in cash that he collected from...
A former Santander bank employee got 30 months for stealing more than $125,000 from a 78-year-old customer with dementia, wiring some of it to Portugal
A former Santander Bank employee in Rhode Island was sentenced on Oct. 8 to 30 months in federal prison for draining more than $125,000 from...
Pennsylvania to mail free chip SNAP cards to over 1.7 million recipients in late spring 2027
Pennsylvania plans to start mailing chip-enabled benefit cards to the more than 1.7 million people on SNAP, the program once known as food stamps, in...
California will let courts return seized crypto to scam victims when scammers are overseas
California has a new way to give cryptocurrency back to people who were scammed, even when the scammers sit overseas and cannot be convicted. Senate...
A Wisconsin courier in a Phantom Hacker scam targeting elderly savers got 84 months
A federal judge in Wisconsin sentenced Ankurkumar Patel, 44, of Brookfield to 84 months in prison on October 6 for working as a courier in...
Prosecutors charged a Vietnamese national with laundering about $53.3 million in pig-butchering money
Federal prosecutors in Kansas City have charged Trung Nguyen Van, 37, a Vietnamese national, with laundering money from pig-butchering scams. The complaint says his cryptocurrency...
Eleven people were sentenced for grabbing credit union members’ phones to reach their bank accounts
Eleven people have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from four months to three years and six months for a scheme in which fraudsters approached...
A Jamaican sweepstakes caller who targeted at least 115 elderly victims got 36 months
A federal judge in South Carolina sent a Jamaican man to prison for 36 months for phoning elderly Americans with news that they had won...
Bhavesh Kumar Thakkar, 45, was convicted in Austin on two counts related to wire fraud and money laundering in a scheme tied to over $150 million from elderly victims
A federal jury in Austin has convicted Bhavesh Kumar Thakkar, 45, an Indian national living in the United States on a spousal visa, on two...
The SEC alleges Cryptoaiml and TSAI Pro used WhatsApp groups and fake AI trading claims to take at least $15 million from retail investors in complaints filed September 29
Two sets of companies used WhatsApp chat groups and promises of artificial-intelligence trading to take at least $15 million from retail investors, the Securities and...
The SEC alleges Mississippi medical marijuana company founder Thomas Moore spent about $1.94 million of investors’ $4.94 million on personal expenses including jewelry and travel
The Securities and Exchange Commission says a Mississippi man raised about $4.94 million from roughly 20 investors for a medical marijuana grower and spent about...
Bank of America cites $20.8 billion in FBI-reported 2025 internet crime losses
Bank of America opened a new round of fraud education for small-business owners on October 6, pointing to an FBI figure: $20.8 billion in internet...
Federal replacement of SNAP benefits stolen by skimming ended in December 2024
Households whose SNAP benefits are drained by a card skimmer have no federal replacement to fall back on, because the authority that once restored stolen...
Claims in the Ernst & Young and Bank of America MOVEit breach settlement close on October 8, with a flat $100 option that needs no documentation
The administrator of the Ernst & Young and Bank of America MOVEit data breach settlement says a claim form must be completed and submitted by...
Three men drew 33 to 39 months in federal prison in a scheme built on checks stolen from Postal Service collection boxes around St. Louis
Three men were sentenced in federal court on October 1 to between 33 and 39 months in prison for a bank fraud scheme built on...