Where a defendant was convicted on four counts of failure to collect or pay over employment taxes in violation of 26 U.S.C. §7202 and one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. §1341, the defendant’s convictions should not be reversed despite an instructional error on good faith.
“After a jury trial, Defendant-Appellant Lilian Giang was convicted on four counts of failure to collect or pay over employment taxes in violation of 26 U.S.C. §7202 and one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. §1341. Her convictions stem from the operations of Able Temp Agency (‘Able’), a staffing business she owned and managed. At trial, the government’s witnesses testified that Able paid workers in unreported cash and submitted false payroll information to both the Internal Revenue Service and Able’s workers’ compensation insurer, resulting in lower tax bills and insurance premiums….
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