The King County Office of the Ombuds released a report earlier in May that takes a deeper look at a 2025 audit performed on a narrow range of contracts overseen by the King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS). This report comes after the King County Auditor’s Office said that DCHS has made “significant progress” on audit recommendations to increase accountability and oversight.
The ombuds will refer observations from the new report that indicate “possible fraud, forgery, or attempted theft of funds” to law enforcement and send the report to the Washington State Auditor’s Office for an additional layer of review.
However, while the review process has taken about a year and a half so far, neither the original audit nor the ombuds’ report have proven that any fraud has taken place – although several vendors failed to fulfill contractual obligations to document their…
THE TD BANK INSIDER “BRIBE-FOR-DATA” SCHEME (USA)
Date: February 17, 2026 Perpetrator: Edward Low (Former Bank Employee)
Case Description: In a high-profile case of “Insider Threat,” Edward Low, a former employee of TD Bank in New York, pleaded guilty in a New Jersey federal court to accepting bribes in exchange for confidential customer data. Between 2021 and 2022, Low leveraged his internal access to harvest the personal details of high-balance account holders. He then sold this “hot data” to external fraud syndicates for as little as $26,700 in personal kickbacks.
The external fraudsters used the information Low provided to conduct “Account Takeovers” (ATO), creating fraudulent checks and falsifying bank records to drain over $500,000 from unsuspecting customers. Low even went as far as helping co-conspirators open shell company accounts at a second financial institution where he was later employed. He now faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. This case has sent shockwaves through the global banking sector, highlighting that even the most robust external firewalls cannot protect against a “rogue insider” with administrative credentials.
Link to Original: US Dept of Justice – TD Bank Insider Plea