A former Chicago Public Schools principal and an ex-CPS employee pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court for their roles in a kickback scheme that took thousands from local school districts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
Antonio Ross and Alfonzo Lewis both signed plea deals Tuesday after being indicted just over a year ago, according to court records.
The two allegedly created companies to apply as vendors for professional service contracts with District 65, submitting “false and fraudulent” documents to win them and then hid thousands of dollars in kickbacks to then-district superintendent Devon Horton, according to prosecutors.
Ross, then serving as Hyde Park Academy High School principal, obtained nearly $120,000 from District 65 and paid Horton nearly $42,000 from the proceeds, prosecutors said.
The scheme ran from August 2020 to…
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