Business Email Compromise Fraud Matters
Business Email Compromise (BEC), a sophisticated online scam that targets businesses and tricks employees into transferring money to cyber criminals, is responsible for $1.6 billion in losses in the U.S. and $5.3 billion globally since 2013. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that...
Misprision Can Lead to Prison
Knowing about a crime and not reporting it is just about as bad as actually committing one. The official term for this act is misprision, or the failure to report a known felony to authorities even though the person reporting the offense is not...
One-Man Crime Wave
When Robert Lee Snowden, of Owings Mills, Md., was laid off as a temp at a healthcare business, he launched a lucrative new career. From 2013 until well into 2020, he conspired to defraud the Maryland Department of Human Services, the Federal Supplemental Nutrition...
COVID Feature: Snowball Effect
A snowball effect is described metaphorically as a process that begins as something very small, but as it gains momentum, it becomes larger, more serious, and perhaps even dangerous or devastating. Rashawn Prioleau, 35, of Charlotte, N.C., triggered an avalanche when he allegedly engaged...
Risky Business
Today’s “Fraud of the Day” is based on an article entitled, “Alexandria Business Owner Pleads Guilty To Medicaid Fraud” published by Old Town Alexandria Patch.
Layers of Deception
A husband and wife from Dearborn, Mich., carried out a multi-level layered fraud scheme when they deceived the Federal Government by fraudulently collecting $60,000 in food stamp benefits, declaring a false bankruptcy, and lying to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (Sounds like they made...
She Was Going for the Gold
Some fraudsters make a habit out of stealing from only one type of government benefits program. Others find success with one type of fraud and replicate their scheme to siphon off even more taxpayer dollars from another government program. Maribel Rodriguez, 63 of Marlboro,...
Welfare Woes
Sometimes people must find out the hard way that’s it’s better to tell the truth than to lie. A Yakima, Wash., woman, who is charged with theft and multiple counts of making false statements to welfare officials over five years, is the focus of...
All Greed and No Smarts
Some fraudsters concoct elaborate schemes, while others rely on the basics from YouTube. When scammers opt for the latter, you would think they’d exercise some caution. (If they found the technique online, so have the good guys.) But some of these folks are all...