September 5, 2024 at 12:50PM Musician Michael Smith faces charges for a streaming fraud scheme, accused of using AI-generated songs streamed by thousands of bots to collect over $10 million in royalty payments from Spotify, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube Music. He employed over 1,000 bot accounts and manipulated streaming data to avoid detection. The scheme … Read more
August 23, 2024 at 08:03AM Kentucky man Jesse Kipf was sentenced to nine years in federal prison after faking his death to avoid paying child support. He hacked into state registries and manipulated official records, resulting in his registration as a deceased person in multiple government databases. Kipf also accessed private networks and attempted to … Read more
August 21, 2024 at 03:42AM A man in the US faked his own death by hacking government systems, resulting in an 81-month jail sentence for computer fraud and identity theft. Jesse Kipf accessed Hawaii’s Death Registry System, certified his own death, and manipulated databases to avoid child support payments. He also attempted to sell network … Read more
August 8, 2024 at 05:03PM The FBI arrested Matthew Isaac Knoot, a Tennessee man, for running a “laptop farm” scheme that outsourced IT jobs to North Koreans while posing as a US citizen. The scheme allegedly helped fund Pyongyang’s weapons programs and earned over $250,000 per job. Knoot faces charges that could lead to 20 … Read more
July 10, 2024 at 06:39AM A widespread fraud campaign, known as Ticket Heist, is targeting Russian-speaking users interested in purchasing tickets for the Summer Olympics in Paris. The operation offers overpriced fake tickets to sporting events and music concerts, using convincing websites to deceive victims. The scheme aims to steal money from victims by employing … Read more
June 18, 2024 at 07:49PM Former IT director Ronald Simpson of St Peters, Missouri, pleaded guilty to wire fraud for defrauding his university employer and a computer equipment supplier of $2.1 million over five years. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Simpson’s scheme involved falsely purchasing and selling IT … Read more
February 21, 2024 at 03:32PM Two Chinese nationals have been convicted of submitting over 5,000 fake iPhones worth $3 million to Apple in a scheme to obtain genuine replacements. The company offers warranty services and replacement programs, allowing customers to return malfunctioning devices. Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue now face 20 years in prison for … Read more