It shouldn’t be too much to ask that taxpayer-funded social service programs benefit people who actually exist.
Apparently it is, as more than 1 million people enrolled in Obamacare plans lack Social Security numbers, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
As the New York Post reported, that’s “a glaring warning sign for fraud” across the Obamacare program, Kennedy said, blaming President Trump’s predecessors for not maintaining proper guardrails in social safety net programs.
The guardrails are wonky in a few areas.
Last week, the Justice Department announced the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown yielded charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes…
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