Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force

UPDATED 4:51 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A convicted felon who emerged from prison and almost immediately launched a $1 million fraud scheme known as PPSN threatened to prosecute and sue a consumer who had filed an online complaint, federal prosecutors said. Although the threat caused the consumer to withdraw the complaint against Philip Pestrichello, Pestrichello’s bid […]

A Georgia banker accused of lending a now-accused Florida real-estate fraudster money to buy a “private island” in the Caribbean has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and to receive bribes, and to a single count of tax evasion, federal prosecutors said. Douglas Ballard, 40, of Atlanta, formerly was the executive vice president […]

BULLETIN: UPDATED 1:10 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) At least 1,215 criminal defendants have been named in “Operation Stolen Dreams,” which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described as a “three and a half month takedown of mortgage fraud schemes throughout the country.” The mortgage-fraud operation began March 1 and is the largest-such undertaking in U.S. history, Holder […]

BULLETIN: The U.S. government has announced charges against at least 43 defendants in five separate financial-fraud schemes, the largest of which allegedly involved $1.9 billion and contributed to the collapse last year of a bank with 346 branches and a mortage-lending company in Florida. Smaller schemes in cases outlined by federal prosecutors today involved tens […]

A New Jersey woman was arrested this morning on charges she fleeced more than 20 Greater New York investors by engineering  a $45 million Ponzi scheme involving purported real- estate flips, the FBI said. Antoinette Hodgson, 58, of Montclair, New Jersey, was accused of conspiracy and wire fraud amid allegations she recruited clients by telling […]

An Ohio man who fleeced more than 200 people in a $7 million Ponzi scheme tried to commit suicide in November when the scheme was collapsing and also is suffering from pancreatic cancer, the Warren Tribune-Chronicle is reporting. The story of David J. Harriett demonstrates the enormous emotional pressure on both perpetrators and victims in […]

In yet another sign that U.S. policy is to turn up the heat on Ponzi and HYIP purveyors, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced the guilty plea of a Texas man accused both criminally and civilly of running a Forex HYIP and Ponzi scheme. Ray M. White, 51, of Mansfield, faces up […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s one for your Bubba Blue notebook on the various ways to have a Ponzi scheme, as opposed to shrimp. UPDATED 5:50 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A Miami man has been charged by the SEC with gathering $40 million in a Ponzi scheme, pocketing $6 million for himself and telling investors they were helping […]

So, you want to use Google’s free Gmail service to pull off a scam? From this day forward you should not be confident that you’re not already caught. The FBI today announced that it set up a sting to nail two people who were trying to sell the quarterly earnings report of Walt Disney Co. before […]

In a fast-moving news day on the fraud front, the SEC has accused two men and their Florida company of orchestrating a real-estate “promissory note” Ponzi scheme. Separately, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force announced the guilty plea of a California attorney in a real-estate swindle, plus the indictments of seven other people in separate […]

Calling it an “unprecedented partnership” brought about by a financial-fraud problem that is national in scope, federal and state officials today announced the creation of the Virginia Financial and Securities Fraud Task Force. The Virginia Task Force, which is part of President Obama’s interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, brings together criminal investigators and civil […]