Three Minnesota child care centers featured in a viral video alleging fraud at Somali-run day cares are now suing the state of Minnesota, claiming they were unfairly punished.
In late December, the ABC Learning Center day care in Minneapolis was one of nearly a dozen thrust into the national spotlight. It wasn’t by choice — at least not the owner’s.
Umi Hassan found herself needing to defend the legitimacy of her business after conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley leveled sweeping fraud accusations, often without definitive evidence, against Somali-owned day cares. Days after Shirley’s viral video went public, the federal government sent thousands of additional ICE agents into Minnesota under the banner of Operation Metro Surge.
About a month and a half later, White House border czar Tom Homan declared that the surge is over but noted that a certain number of agents will remain in the…
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