On April 7, 2026, the Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, issued a memorandum establishing the Department of Justice National Fraud Enforcement Division (NFED). The memo describes an ambitious, but perhaps redundant, vision for this standalone litigating division: a centralized, coordinated approach to investigating and prosecuting fraud against taxpayer dollars and taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. A close reading of the memo reveals that while certain organizational changes take effect immediately, many of the NFED’s most consequential features—including its final scope, its relationship with the Civil Division, and its capacity to deliver on its prosecutorial ambitions—have yet to take shape.
The distinction between what the memorandum does and what it contemplates doing is critical for company executives, compliance professionals, and defense counsel to…
Cyber fraud uses technology as the primary weapon. It is highly scalable and can be conducted from anywhere in the world.
- Phishing/Smishing/Vishing: Using deceptive emails (phishing), text messages (smishing), or phone calls (vishing) to trick victims into clicking malicious links or revealing sensitive data.
- Business Email Compromise (BEC): A high-value scam where a criminal impersonates a CEO or high-level executive via a “spoofed” email address to trick a staff member into making an urgent, unauthorized wire transfer.
