MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) – Fraud has been growing in recent years: scam calls, fake letters, virus filled emails and more.
One of the Edward Jones financial advisors gave a presentation at the Carnegie Library in Ishpeming to help people guard themselves against common fraud attacks.
Edward Jones Financial Advisor, Tyler Vertin, explained that there are more than 47 million fraud attacks per year, nearly 37 billion dollars taken with 1 in 10 people falling victim.
Common scams include long-distance relationship scams, false phone calls, lottery or sweepstakes scams, and fraud posing as a family or friend in trouble.
Vertin explained that most scams can be revealed with a little legwork and a hunch.
“Do your own investigating. If it seems too good to be true or something doesn’t seem right or add up or doesn’t make sense stop it at the source,” said Vertin. “Call back to a number from…
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