fraud

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Madoff Sentence a Massive Waste: Alec Baldwin

(Newser) - Alec Baldwin throws water on the general celebration of Bernie Madoff's prison sentence, arguing that the 150-year term handed down to the fraudster Monday was a wasted opportunity. "I want to suggest, as I am confident others have, that Madoff be given a reduced sentence in exchange for answering...

US Won't Charge Ruth Madoff

Not enough evidence to nab Bernie's wife in Ponzi scheme

(Newser) - Ruth Madoff won’t be prosecuted in her husband’s giant Ponzi scheme, insiders tell the New York Post, because the feds didn't find enough evidence against her after a 6-month probe. She had “no criminal exposure,” one source says. But if something new turns up, authorities could...

Madoff's Money Man Sells Rothkos for $310M

Merkin unloads art, but buyer's identity a mystery

(Newser) - Ezra Merkin, the financier who pumped billions of his clients' money into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, is selling more than 10 paintings by Mark Rothko and two sculptures by Alberto Giacometti for $310 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. Some of the proceeds may go to his defrauded investors, who...

How Will Ruth Madoff Survive on Just $2.5M?

With $125K to spend yearly, time to trade in the pair of Mercedes

(Newser) - With just $2.5 million at her disposal as her husband heads to jail, Ruth Madoff won't exactly be sentenced to penury, but she'll have to cut her annual expenses to the low six figures if she wants it to last her lifetime, reports Brett Arends of the Wall Street ...

Fake Swine Flu Cures Flourish Online

(Newser) - Purported swine flu cures are cropping up online, including a nostril sanitizer, air purifier, and a shampoo that makers say will wash that virus right out of your hair, the Kansas City Star reports. The FDA has mailed out more than 50 warnings to online sellers not to make such...

Stanford Surrenders to FBI
 Stanford Surrenders to FBI 
Jun 19, 2009 12:26 AM CDT

Stanford Surrenders to FBI

Alleged fraudster turns himself in after grand jury hands down criminal charges

(Newser) - Sir Robert Allen Stanford turned himself in to authorities soon after criminal charges were filed against him yesterday, the BBC reports. The billionaire financier is now in FBI custody, according to his lawyer. Stanford, whose firm Stanford Financial was shut down by authorities earlier this year, already faces civil charges...

HealthSouth Boss on Hook for $2.9B Fraud

Civil case finds Scrushy to blame after criminal acquittal

(Newser) - Four years after Richard Scrushy was acquitted of directing accounting fraud at HealthSouth, a judge has held him accountable for $2.876 billion, Bloomberg reports. “Scrushy was the CEO of the fraud,” said the judge, who ruled without a jury. The decision “is a shot across the...

Kinkade's Art Firm Loses Court Battle

'Painter of light' must pay two 'duped' gallery owners $2.1M

(Newser) - Hugely popular painter Thomas Kinkade claims God is his art agent, but a federal appeals court has ruled against his company for putting art gallery owners through financial hell, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The plaintiffs accused Kinkade and his firm of exploiting their Christian faith to lure them into...

Global Insurance Fraud Floods N. Korea with Cash

 Global Insurance Fraud 
 Floods N. Korea with Cash 
INVESTIGATION
Jun 18, 2009 6:54 AM CDT

Global Insurance Fraud Floods N. Korea with Cash

North Korean leader profits personally from fires, disasters

(Newser) - North Korea has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from global insurance giants on often suspicious claims of fires, floods, and other disasters, according to a Washington Post investigation. While insurers have kept mum about their losses, US officials and Korean defectors describe a sophisticated fraud that has provided Kim...

NY Man Posed as Dead Mom in Alleged Fraud Scheme

He denies being modern Norman Bates

(Newser) - Shades of Norman Bates in Psycho: A Brooklyn man accused of dressing up as his dead mom to collect Social Security checks and rent subsidies worth $115,000 has been indicted on 47 counts of grand larceny, forgery, and conspiracy, the New York Daily News reports. Thomas Prusik-Parkin, 49, and...

Surge in Medical Identity Theft Cripples Credit Ratings

Fraud spreading with use of electronic medical records

(Newser) - Watchdog groups warn that medical identity theft is on the rise with the growing use of electronic records that lack proper safeguards, the New York Times reports. Fraudsters use stolen insurance information or Social Security numbers to get free medical care and the victims are often unaware they have been...

'Rockefeller' Guilty of Kidnapping, Faces 15 Years

(Newser) - A Boston jury found the con man known as Clark Rockefeller guilty of kidnapping and assault today in the abduction of his young daughter last year, the Boston Herald reports. He faces up to 15 years in prison when he's sentenced this afternoon. The jury found him not guilty of...

Butler: Astor's Mind Was Gone
 Butler: Astor's Mind Was Gone 
Jun 9, 2009 11:37 AM CDT

Butler: Astor's Mind Was Gone

(Newser) - Brooke Astor spent her final years in a haze as her faculties deserted her, her butler testified yesterday at the fraud trial of Astor’s son Anthony Marshall. As early as 1997, Astor’s memory started to fail her, leaving her unable to recall her servants’ names or even what...

FTC Shuts Down ISP Linked to Child Porn

(Newser) - The FTC has taken the rare step of shutting down an Internet Service Provider that it says was a haven for child pornography and malware run by Eastern European criminals, MSNBC reports. The case gives "a rare glimpse into the seediest parts of the web," writes Bob Sullivan....

Countrywide's Mozilo Charged With Fraud

Mozilo, two others accused of fraud, misleading investors

(Newser) - The SEC has charged former Countrywide chief Angelo Mozilo and two other former execs with civil fraud, the Wall Street Journal reports. The agency accuses them of insider trading and withholding information from investors about the condition of what was once the nation's largest mortgage company. They are the first...

Scammers Target Panicky Job Hunters
Scammers Target
Panicky Job Hunters
May 26, 2009 2:10 AM CDT

Scammers Target Panicky Job Hunters

Experts warn work-from-home frauds are mushrooming as unemployment rises

(Newser) - Scammers are taking advantage of the recession to con people desperately seeking work out of what little cash they have left, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Watchdog groups warn that phony work-from-home offers promising quick cash in return for an initial outlay of money are proliferating, and that some fraudsters are...

Fugitive Execs: Good at Scams, Bad at Being on Lam

(Newser) - In the midst of a recession, so-called “executive fugitives” are driven to increasingly desperate efforts to flee as schemes implode and they face ruin—or prison time. NPR examines the tactics of these con artists—and how more often than not, say the law-enforcement authorities who chase them, their...

France Tries Scientology for Fraud
France Tries
Scientology for Fraud
May 25, 2009 6:44 AM CDT

France Tries Scientology for Fraud

(Newser) - The church of Scientology goes on trial for fraud today in a landmark case in France, reports the BBC. The American organization is widely regarded in the nation as a sect, and if Scientology is found guilty of a crime, it could be banned in the country. It's the first...

Scammer: I Forged Author Signatures

'Autographed' first editions brought big bucks in eBay fraud

(Newser) - A man who made more than $300,000 by selling "autographed" first editions of books that actually contained forged signatures pleaded guilty to fraud in a Philadelphia court today. Forrest Smith's offerings on eBay included books by Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Anne Rice, Tom Wolfe, and Tom Clancy,...

Top Traits That Mean You're a Sucker

Researchers find a fifth of people are most likely to be fooled by fraudsters

(Newser) - British researchers have identified several traits that make a person more likely to be sucked in by a scam, the Daily Telegraph reports. The country's fraud watchdog warns that while nobody is immune to being conned, the following traits make around a fifth of the population most vulnerable:
  • An inability
...

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