Franco Fuentes and his associates did not need to break into an account online. They called elderly victims by phone, posed as bank employees investigating fraud on the account, and talked victims into handing a bank card to a rideshare driver sent to the door. A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Fuentes, 30, of…

Yue Cao was hired at an Ohio bank as a quant analytics manager, a role meant to help protect customers from fraud. A federal jury in Cleveland found in February 2026 that he used that access to target more than 100 customers ages 90 to 103 instead, and a judge sentenced him on September 17,…

A Brooklyn courtroom sentenced Ronald Spektor, 23, of Sheepshead Bay, to 4 to 12 years in prison on September 23, 2026, after prosecutors said he posed as Coinbase support staff and persuaded roughly 100 people to move their cryptocurrency into wallets he controlled. The scheme drained nearly $16 million before investigators closed in. Spektor gambled…

Starting with the run-up to 2027 coverage, a health insurance agent or broker working through the federal marketplace will need a consumer’s electronic sign-off before taking any action on that person’s application or enrollment. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services described the requirement as new, part of a wider set of changes meant to…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that also runs the health insurance marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, has stopped registering new agents and brokers for the 2027 plan year unless they already hold an active 2026 Exchange Agreement. The freeze is temporary and applies to newcomers to the federal…

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged New Jersey founder Ernest Ossei Boateng and two companies he controls with running an alleged Ponzi scheme that raised about $16 million from more than 200 investors, many of whom had never invested before. The SEC said on September 10, 2026, that Boateng promised guaranteed fixed returns and…

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has granted 10 whistleblower awards totaling more than $150 million, all in final determinations issued between July and September 2026. The agency announced the awards on September 14 and said they recognize people whose original information led the CFTC and other authorities to successful enforcement actions. As required by law,…

A federal judge in Connecticut has ordered Florida resident Michael Frederick Staryk to pay $547,616 in restitution to defrauded clients and a $5,907,720 civil monetary penalty in a Commodity Futures Trading Commission options-fraud case. The CFTC announced the default judgment on September 15, 2026, and said it also permanently bans Staryk from trading and from…

Michael Young, a founder of the Culver City, California, homelessness nonprofit Home At Last, was arrested September 16 on a federal wire fraud charge alleging he misappropriated more than $7.5 million in taxpayer money meant for homeless housing. The Justice Department says Young ran the money through sham vendors he secretly controlled and spent millions…

Twelve people in the San Diego area face federal fraud charges over more than $10 million in public money meant to help low-income families pay for child care, the Justice Department said September 15. Prosecutors allege the defendants ran licensed home daycares that billed subsidy programs for children who were not actually in their care.…