The Treasury Department’s financial-intelligence bureau analyzed 5,702 Bank Secrecy Act reports and identified about $17.5 billion in suspicious activity potentially linked to health-care fraud. The number is a warning signal compiled from financial institutions, not a court finding that all $17.5 billion was stolen or that every named transaction was criminal. The reports covered one…

Federal prosecutors allege that counterfeit Social Security cards sold for $750 apiece contained names and numbers belonging to real people. A grand jury indictment in Georgia charges Derly Alvarez-Rodriguez with document trafficking and identity theft, but the charges remain allegations and no conviction has been entered. Three undercover purchases form the core account According to…

At least 20 Hurricane Sandy homeowners paid a Long Island contractor about $2.5 million for elevation and foundation work, but prosecutors say unfinished projects left the households and a state recovery program with more than $1.5 million in losses. The contractor, Alexander Almaraz, has been sentenced to 48 months in federal prison after pleading guilty…

More than a dozen prospective buyers, many of them older adults, allegedly sent over $600,000 for used farm and construction equipment that never arrived. Federal prosecutors say the sellers built a convincing commercial front around machinery they did not own. One defendant has been convicted; a second, who fled after indictment, was arrested near Seattle…

A federal sentence has attached a precise restitution figure to a gold-based elder-fraud scheme. Venkateswara Chagamreddy was ordered to pay $99,496 after a jury convicted him of conspiring to defraud a Vietnam veteran. Investigators recovered 23 ounces of gold, but the court’s restitution order covers the larger documented loss identified in the case. A false…

The spending trail from a nearly $10 million theft included a mansion, a private beach-club membership and approximately $340,000 donated to a church. Federal prosecutors say those purchases came from money a financial adviser took from an elderly client whose accounts he was trusted to manage. A federal judge has now sentenced the adviser to…

Federal prosecutors allege that a Texas boarding-home operator stole more than $50,000 in Social Security benefits belonging to a resident who later died. The indictment says she redirected his benefits to her account, withdrew tens of thousands after his death and failed to return the money. Those claims remain allegations, and the defendant is presumed…

A federal jury convicted former U.S. Postal Service employee Luann Middleton of fraudulently collecting more than $900,000 in federal workers’ compensation disability benefits. Prosecutors said she repeatedly claimed total disability while investigators documented physical activities that conflicted with the limitations she reported. The verdict was announced September 11, and sentencing remains ahead. The case involved…

A national COVID-loan enforcement surge has reached more than 160 defendants and approximately $245 million in alleged intended losses to taxpayers. The Justice Department describes Operation No Doze as a coordinated summer effort involving 44 U.S. Attorney’s Offices and 20 federal and state investigative agencies. The total combines people at different stages of the criminal…

A home sale that should have preserved an older resident’s largest asset instead became the center of a federal fraud indictment in North Texas. Prosecutors allege operators of unlicensed boarding homes routed more than $156,000 from a 79-year-old woman’s property through family-controlled accounts. No defendant has been convicted in the case, and every charge remains…