A startling case out of California is raising fresh concerns about fraud in the U.S. health care system and how easily it can disrupt patients’ access to care.
During a recent congressional hearing (1), Sheila Clark, president and CEO of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association, described what she says is widespread abuse in the hospice industry. Her testimony highlighted cases of “phantom” providers, organizations that appear legitimate on paper but don’t actually operate in any meaningful way.
“You’d be amazed at how many hospices … You can walk up to the door in California, and there is nobody there,” Clark told lawmakers. “There are five months’ worth of mail stacked up, and nobody’s there. And that passed a survey. How did that happen?”
In one striking example, she questioned how a hospice could be registered at what appeared to be a burrito stand or even a tire…
THE HASHFLARE “CLOUD MINING” PONZI SCHEME (GLOBAL/ESTONIA)
Date: February 13, 2025 (Guilty Pleas) Perpetrators: Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin
Case Description: This $577 million cryptocurrency fraud remains one of the largest digital asset scams in history, with major legal developments concluding in 2025. Potapenko and Turogin operated “Hashflare,” which they marketed as a massive cryptocurrency mining operation. Hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide purchased “mining contracts,” believing they were renting hash power to mine Bitcoin. In reality, the duo was running a sophisticated Ponzi scheme.
They created fake customer dashboards that showed “real-time” mining profits, but the money being paid out was simply the capital of newer investors. They laundered the proceeds through shell companies to purchase luxury real estate and a fleet of high-end vehicles. After a massive international investigation involving the FBI and Estonian authorities, the pair agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. This case underscores the “Cyber-enabled Fraud” warning issued by the FATF in early 2026: as technology evolves, the scale of fraud moves from local millions to global billions in the blink of an eye.
Link to Original: ACFE – High Profile Fraud of 2025