State Senate Republicans are calling for an oversight hearing on SNAP-EBT fraud in Massachusetts after the Herald reported a whistleblower’s claims of “rampant” and “unabated” fraud within the program and as several other SNAP fraud schemes have been uncovered by the feds and state auditor.
The caucus sent a letter Wednesday to Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee Chair Sen. Mark Montigny requesting a hearing on “significant and recurring evidence of SNAP EBT fraud, operational failures within the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), and the Commonwealth’s inability to adequately protect taxpayer funds and program beneficiaries.”
“A recent whistleblower report featured in the Boston Herald and based on the comments of a DTA employee details specific instances of internal dysfunction within DTA amplifies the many reasons for concern with these benefits and the way they…
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