When in doubt, blame COVID.
That’s a big takeaway from the state’s response to revelations of fraud in the Massachusetts SNAP program.
As the Herald reported, a 2024 letter showed that President Biden’s administration urged Gov. Maura Healey to clean up the state’s SNAP program, which was recently found by state and federal authorities, and a whistleblower report, to be the subject of tens of millions of dollars in public benefits fraud.
Up until now, Healey has claimed that allegations of fraud in Massachusetts, labeled by President Trump during the State of the Union address as among the most fraud-ridden states, are simply a “distraction” by Trump to shift focus away from what she says are his failed policies.
Nice try. Until the 2024 letter from the USDA came to light. It urged Healey to improve and bring to “acceptable” levels the Department of Transitional Assistance’s payment…
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