Federal regulators say a Florida crypto entrepreneur ran one of the largest digital-asset Ponzi schemes on record, using a pitch that will sound familiar to anyone who has gotten a message promising guaranteed monthly returns. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint accuses Goliath Ventures, Inc. and its founder, Christopher A. Delgado, of raising at least…

A federal judge in Atlanta has handed down the maximum sentence the law allows to a financial firm founder who spent nearly four years telling ordinary savers to move their retirement money into investments that turned out not to exist. The case is one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever prosecuted out of Georgia, and…

A 70-year-old attorney in Grand Prairie, Texas, was arrested this week on federal charges built around a pitch familiar to a lot of retirement savers: buying liens on properties with unpaid taxes. Prosecutors say David Thomas Gilchrist collected roughly $1.45 million from about 20 people between April 2023 and January 2026 and sent back only…

A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily shut down a credit repair operation that, according to the Federal Trade Commission, pulled in nearly $200 million by posing as debt collectors and creditors. The FTC says the operation, built around a company called Credit Glory, used paid search ads to reach people already worried about a…

Three advertising and marketing firms are paying a combined $930,000 after the Federal Trade Commission determined they told advertisers their technology could listen in on conversations through people’s smart devices to target local ads, a capability the agency says never actually existed. The finalized order, dated August 27, 2026, closes out a case against Georgia-based…

Fake tax-refund calculators are circulating online this year, dressed up to look like legitimate tools for the new Working Families Tax Cuts deductions — and the IRS says some of them exist only to collect personal and financial information. The agency’s fact sheet on the scheme, FS-2026-09, lays out how the fake tools work and…

A federal cybersecurity warning issued this week describes a scam that keeps working even after a victim does the one thing security advice always recommends: changing the password. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center says cyber actors have been quietly gaining lasting access to people’s email and messaging accounts by tricking them into approving a…

Veterans across the country are opening their mailboxes to find postcards promising extra money every month through something called the “Veterans Savings Program.” The Federal Trade Commission wants people to know that program doesn’t exist. It’s a mail-based phishing scheme built to sound official enough that a veteran calls the number printed on the card,…

Two former executives at a Marin County real estate lending firm are accused of running one of the larger alleged Ponzi-like schemes of the year, and most of the people who put money in were already retired. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges on September 1 against Mark D. Hanf, former CEO of Pacific…

A Charlotte woman was sentenced on August 27 to 48 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,623,983.08 in restitution after submitting years of fraudulent bills to North Carolina’s Medicaid program for psychotherapy sessions and drug tests that were never actually performed. Crystal Sherrell Jackson, 40, pleaded guilty in March 2026 to health care…