Top Stories
Advertise on Craigslist and other online platforms
Claim must sell quickly and cheap because of divorce, deployment overseas, or that car belonged to dead son or husband
Have people do bank to bank wire transfer to supposed third party escrow company; really goes to crooks
Largely the work of Romanian organized crime gangs
FBI warns of dangers from foreign disinformation on election results
FTC sending $147 million in refunds to victims from settlement with Western Union
Europol announces worldwide effort to disrupt sales of illegal items on the dark web; 179 arrested
The rise and fall of Nigerian Instagram star Hushpuppi; in jail for laundering BEC money
Virus benefit theft
- Thieves using stolen unemployment benefit cards spending big in Beverly Hills stores; 44 arrested
- Ohio: Three from Florida indicted for stolen identity refund fraud for tax refunds; also got stimulus payments
- Albany, New York: Man arrested for PPP fraud; got nearly $5 million
- Montana man charged with PPP fraud
- Miami: Houston man charged with PPP fraud; got $1.2 million
- California stops unemployment claims for two weeks to deal with fraud issues
- Rhode Island: Man previously convicted of bank robbery charged with PPP fraud; got $4.7 million
Coronavirus
- Police in Indonesia arrest three who sold $4.3 million of PPE to Italian organization but never delivered
- Ottawa Public health warns of scam callers impersonating them and asking for money to perform COVID tests
Phishing, BEC fraud, spyware all peaked during the pandemic
