Democratic Govs. Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsom turned a blind eye to the billions of dollars in Medicaid fraud they let go down the drain, Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz alleged Sunday.
“Some governors have not been serious about these problems. I’m going to single out [Tim] Walz in Minnesota, Gov. [Gavin] Newsom in California and Gov. [Kathy] Hochul here in New York,” Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on 77 WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” program.
Medicaid is the public health insurance program for those in need, with costs split among the federal, state and local governments.
Oz announced last week that his office is conducting an extensive probe of the Hochul…
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