JD Vance’s vaunted task force, focused on uncovering fraudulent federal spending, is off to a rough start, and this week’s meeting added to the project’s troubles. Nearly two dozen state attorneys general skipped the latest gathering because they were invited on Friday — and given a deadline to RSVP by Saturday.
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that all of these state attorneys general are Democrats. Indeed, the result was an all-Republican meeting, which likely suited the White House just fine, given that Vance’s endeavor has been brazen in its partisan intentions.
Nevertheless, the meeting on Tuesday proceeded as planned, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller took the opportunity to share a claim that warranted a closer look.
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