PORTLAND (WGME) — Vice President JD Vance, who is just hours away from visiting Maine, announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is freezing new Medicare enrollments for hospice and home health agencies.
This will be a six-month moratorium for all states, not just Maine.
It only applies to agencies looking to open a new hospice or home health facility.
For facilities in Maine already providing care or for existing clients, nothing changes and services won’t be interrupted.
The Trump administration claims the move is to protect people who depend on Medicare and taxpayers.
Without giving any specifics or announcing any policy changes, Vice President Vance says these agencies are a “key source of fraudulent activity”.
Earlier this year, the federal government questioned Maine over an audit, finding possible improper spending in state-administered programs.
“There has been some back…
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