A woman on California’s Central Coast was sentenced Tuesday after being convicted of real estate fraud and scamming several victims out of more than $1 million, including her friends and acquaintances, prosecutors said.
Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni’s office announced that 36-year-old Esmeralda Hernandez Pulido of Salinas received a sentence of three years and four months in jail. Hernandez Pulido was convicted of four counts of felony theft.
Prosecutors said Hernandez Pulido defrauded at least five victims by claiming she needed cash for the down payment of a home, promising each of them that they would be in the first position on the deed. Hernandez Pulido collected an amount described by prosecutors as “well in excess of the value of the house” and provided none of the return that was promised.
“By lying to each victim about…
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