Tag: corruption

Russian Media: Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Agencies Preparing To Arrest Zelensky’s Wife Elena – Kiev Authorities Deny Report

Is Zelensky’s wife the next domino to fall?

Ever since Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky failed at curbing the power of Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO, the rampant corruption that is allegedly taking place in his government began to be exposed.

With Zelensky’s close friend and partner Timur Mindich fleeing justice and hiding in Israel, the number of Kiev regime figures who were fired and are facing investigations/indictments is long – and growing.

So far, these are the fallen ones: Herman Galushchenko – former Minister of Energy and former Minister of Justice; Svitlana Hrynchuk, former Minister of Energy; Oleksiy Chernyshov, former Deputy Prime Minister; Mykola Solskyi, former Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food; Andriy Pyvovarsky, former Minister of Infrastructure; Andriy Smyrnov, former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office.

And, of course, Andriy Yermak, chief of staff and right-hand man to Zelensky, formerly the second most powerful man in all of Ukraine, who has been indicted and ordered to pre-trial arrest.

But now, things may get much worse for Zelensky.

Today, Russian outlet RIA Novosti is reporting that the arrest of Zelensky’s wife, Olena (Elena), is being prepared by NABU and SAPO, who reportedly have ‘ample ground’ for detaining her.

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Evo Morales Claims Plot to Capture or Kill Him as Bolivian Justice Closes In on Former Leader

Former Bolivian president Evo Morales has once again placed himself at the center of political controversy after publishing a lengthy social media statement claiming that an international operation is allegedly being prepared to capture—or even kill—him.

According to Morales, the United States ordered the Bolivian government to carry out a military operation against him with support from the DEA, U.S. Southern Command, and several units of Bolivia’s armed forces.

Morales claimed the alleged operation is taking place in the Cochabamba Tropics, a region that has served as his political and union stronghold for decades.

In his statement, Morales accused political figures tied to Bolivia’s past governments of helping orchestrate the supposed operation, including former minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, who served under former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

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Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson fined for improper use of state aircraft for personal travel

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson violated state ethics law by allowing a former aide to fly on a state aircraft for personal travel, according to a ruling by the Washington State Executive Ethics Board.

The board concluded Ferguson improperly used state resources and granted a special privilege when he invited former Chief Strategy Officer Mike Webb to join him on a Washington State Patrol plane in June 2025.

The incident stemmed from a complaint filed on July 30, 2025, alleging Ferguson permitted a private citizen to travel on a taxpayer-funded aircraft assigned for official gubernatorial use. The complaint said Webb, who had left state employment months earlier, was traveling for non-government purposes.

According to stipulated facts accepted by the board, Webb resigned from the governor’s office in March 2025 but was allowed to accompany Ferguson on a June 26 flight to the Tri-Cities, where both had separate engagements. Ferguson said he offered Webb an empty seat on the plane because the flight was not at capacity.

Ferguson acknowledged the decision was a mistake, stating in a written response that the invitation “may have given the wrong impression” that Webb still had a role in the administration.

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Pentagon quietly shut legally required program to prevent civilian deaths by military, watchdog finds

The Pentagon has quietly dismantled a program it is legally required to operate to prevent and respond to civilian deaths in US military operations, according to its internal watchdog.

A report released by the department’s inspector general concluded the US military no longer has the people, tools or infrastructure needed to comply with two federal statutes requiring it to maintain a functioning civilian casualty policy, and operate a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (CP CoE).

Donald Trump’s administration has been accused of making deep cuts to the Pentagon’s civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) program, designed to handle training and procedures critical in limiting civilian harm in theaters of war.

While the program has not been officially canceled, the inspector general’s report said that funding had ended for a data management platform; committee meetings had halted; and many dedicated personnel had been lost or reassigned.

“As a result, the DoW may not comply with its civilian casualties and harm policy,” the report read. “A policy required by federal law.”

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

The program was created by Lloyd Austin, then defense secretary, in January 2022, under Joe Biden, following years of deadly US bombing campaigns in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Airwars, a civilian harm monitor, estimated that US drone and airstrikes killed at least 22,000 civilians – and perhaps as many as 48,000 – in the 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon chief, has recently come under fire over deadly attacks on Iran, including a US strike in Minab that killed at least 175 people, a majority of them children, at an all-girls school.

Limiting casualties has not been a top priority under Hegseth’s tenure at the Department of War, rebranded on his watch from Department of Defense last September. When pressed on civilian casualties in Iran, he has pivoted to blame the country’s regime for placing rocket launchers in civilian areas, and also claimed no nation in history had taken more precautions than the US to avoid civilian deaths.

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What If We Really Are Just Exposing the Tip of the Federal Fraud Iceberg?

Open the Books exposed yet another insight into the stinking, rotten catastrophe that is the massive, systematic, and continuing stealing from American taxpayers via an unknown number of federal social service programs that for decades have all but hung in their windows signs saying “Come Steal.”

Earlier this month, the headline on the Open the Books website proclaimed “Hidden Fees: Taxpayers on the Hook for Foreign-Linked Health Care Fraud Schemes.” Here’s what was found:

In January 2026, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz alleged that roughly $3.5 billion worth of fraud, so far unconfirmed, was happening through false hospice billings in a scheme he attributed in large part to what he called the ‘Russian Armenian mafia.’

So, Open the Books took a look at Oz’s claims, what fraud could be confirmed, and its cost to taxpayers. It turns out Russian and Armenian-linked fraud has cost taxpayers almost $1 billion in confirmed losses from Medicare and Medicaid, part of a Department of Justice operation dubbed ‘Operation Gold Rush.’

So now we must add the Russian-Armenian Mafia to the Somali robbing of Medicaid billions in Minnesota and Ohio, and whatever ethnicity may be the thieves behind the similarly systematic filching in California and Maine. And let’s not forget the Mexican Drug Cartels almost certainly have their greasy fingers in this long-running criminal enterprise, too.

Thus far, 11 individuals involved in the transnational criminal operation have been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Operation Gold Rush, which is the largest health care fraud case ever charged by federal officials. The criminals bought medical equipment firms, then submitted fraudulent Medicare claims using more than 1 million stolen Americans’ names.

Only 11 people charged? There were 324 individuals charged nationwide by the DOJ last year, and the total thus far in 2026 isn’t known. But let us assume DOJ doubles its 2025 level and takes 648 individuals to federal court for defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, SNAP/Food Stamp, and who knows how many more federal benefit programs? And we haven’t even mentioned fraud in Department of Defense procurement.

Given the international scope of the waste and fraud, one might reasonably expect that thousands of criminals are involved who should be identified, charged, convicted, and imprisoned. According to GAO in 2024, the government loses as much as $521 billion annually to fraud, but I expect that estimate to spiral as the DOJ’s current anti-fraud effort goes forward.

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Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Say Zelensky’s Right-Hand Man Yermak Turned to Fortune Teller To Cast Spells and ‘Eliminate Enemies’

Yermak sought the counsel of ‘Veronika Feng Shui’, who urged him to ‘eliminate his enemies’ while still in power.

It turns out that Volodymyr Zelensky’s right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, turned to a fortune teller amid the political turmoil that ended with him in pretrial arrest.

We first reported this story back in February, when Russian RT brought ‘a story that would have had all the markings of pure Moscow propaganda, if it were not brought by a Ukrainian source with knowledge of the inner workings of the Kiev regime’.

Former press secretary to Volodymyr Zelensky, Yulia Mendel, had claimed that Yermak sought help from witches of various stripes – shady occultists gathering ‘water from corpses’, burning herbs, and performing dark rituals – as you can read in: Former Ukrainian Official Denounces Regime Reliance on Witchcraft – Disgraced Gray Eminence Andriy Yermak Said To Mess With Corpses, Burned Herbs, and Perform Dark Rituals.

Many people may have dismissed this story as a fantasy by one disgruntled employee amplified by the Russian propaganda machine – but now, the reports have resurfaced, with iron-clad Ukrainian sources and copious amounts of evidence.

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Ilhan Omar Knew About $250 Million Somali Fraud Scheme, Convicted Mastermind Claims in Explosive Jailhouse Interview

Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind behind the massive $250 million Feeding Our Future COVID meal fraud scandal, has dropped a bombshell from jail, saying she believes Rep. Ilhan Omar knew exactly what was going on and actively helped keep the fraudulent program alive.

Bock, the founder of Feeding Our Future, spoke to the New York Post this week from Sherburne County Jail, where she is awaiting sentencing after her March 2025 conviction on conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud charges.

Dozens of individuals, mostly from Minnesota’s Somali community, have been convicted in the scheme that fraudulently billed the federal government for tens of millions of meals that were never served to low-income children during the pandemic.

“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar.

Bock alleged that Omar’s office repeatedly stepped in to help secure and extend USDA waivers that dramatically loosened oversight of the child nutrition programs.

Those waivers eliminated the requirement for site inspections and allowed restaurants and other non-school entities to participate, opening the floodgates to massive fraud.

Omar personally introduced the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (MEALS) Act in March 2020, which gave the USDA authority to issue those waivers during the pandemic.

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Colorado county Republican chair arrested in sting on allegations he tried to pay for sex with a child

Hunter Rivera, the 24-year-old chairman of the Weld County Republican Party, was one of two men arrested Thursday on suspicion of trying to buy sex from Larimer County Sheriff’s Office investigators who posed as minors as part of an operation targeting child predators.

After news of Rivera’s arrest broke late Friday, multiple prominent Republicans denounced Rivera and called for his immediate resignation from the party position.

The sheriff’s office said in a news release that “several dozen people” responded to investigators who posed as minors offering sexual acts for sale on local websites and online forums. Two men — one of whom was Rivera — showed up at an agreed-upon location to pay for sex but were arrested and later booked into the county jail, the office said.

Rivera, who lives in Windsor, faces four felony charges, the sheriff’s office said: soliciting a child prostitute, internet luring of a child, soliciting to arrange a minor prostitute in a cybercrime, and attempted sexual assault on a child.

Rivera was being held at the Larimer County jail on a $6,500 cash-only bond but was in the process of being released, according to county records. His next scheduled court appearance is May 21.

“Children are not property to be bought or sold,” Sheriff John Feyen said in a statement. “Human trafficking is modern day slavery, and we won’t tolerate it in Larimer County. I hope this operation sends a strong message. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you try to hurt kids in our community, you will be held accountable.”

The sheriff’s office release stressed that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Rivera has been a fixture in Republican circles in recent years, both at the state Capitol, where he worked for several years as a legislative aide until last year, and in broader party activity.

After serving on multiple local local boards and chairing the Northern Colorado Young Republicans, Rivera ran unsuccessfully for Windsor Town Board in 2022, the Fort Collins Coloradan reported.

He served as an appointed member of the state GOP’s executive committee until last month, when the state party’s interim chair, Eric Grossman, removed him from the panel following delegates to the Republicans’ state assembly censuring members who had voted against filing a motion to close Colorado’s primary election to unaffiliated voters.

“Mr. Rivera should immediately resign,” Grossman told Colorado Politics in a text message. “I dismissed him from the excomm weeks ago after being censured by over 2,000 delegates and how fortuitous that decision looks now.”

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Windsor Republican who supported Rivera’s bid for county chair last year, issued a blistering statement condemning the allegations and calling on Rivera to be “replaced immediately” as party chair.

“These allegations are vile and indefensible. I pray to God there are not real victims out there. I am angry and disgusted,” Boebert said in a text message.

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Australian Federal Court rules ‘trans women’ are REAL women

Australia’s Federal Court has delivered its long-awaited judgment in the Giggle v Tickle appeal, finding in favour of Roxanne Tickle.

The full court, made up of Justices Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett and Wendy Abraham, handed down the decision today after a two-day hearing last August.

The case involved Sall Grover, founder of the women-only social networking app Giggle, who had removed Roxanne Tickle, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, from the platform. Grover appealed an earlier 2024 ruling that found the exclusion amounted to indirect discrimination. Tickle cross-appealed, seeking a finding of direct discrimination and higher damages.

The court ruled that Giggle and Grover directly discriminated against Tickle on the ground of gender identity by excluding them based on their gender-related appearance, as shown in a selfie, and then refusing to readmit them. 

The judges agreed with the original decision on the interpretation of special measures under the Sex Discrimination Act, concluding that the app’s women-only policy did not provide a defence in this instance. They increased the damages award to $20,000, taking into account what they described as aggravating conduct by Grover.

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For-Profit Immigrant Detention Centers Exploiting Prison Labor With $1 Per Day Wages

As President Donald Trump continues his mass detention and deportation agenda and expands the use of privately owned immigrant prisons, with more than 60,000 people detained across the country, the profits of private contractors like the GEO Group and CoreCivic are skyrocketing—and a new report by a government watchdog reveals one method the multibillion-dollar firms have of extracting profits from detainees.

Public Citizen researcher Douglas Pasternak wrote in a report released Wednesday that approximately 50% of immigrants who are detained for more than a few days end up in the government’s so-called Voluntary Work Program (VWP), earning just $1 per day—12.5 cents per hour—while they keep the detention centers running.

At facilities like Adelanto Detention Center in Adelanto, California, run by the GEO Group, and CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, detainees work as many as 14 hours in a day for just $1—cooking, cleaning, performing maintenance work, and completing other labor essential to the facilities’ operations—and in many cases are forced to use their meager wages only at commissaries also run by the corporations.

“This entire $1-a-day pay scheme is economically unjustifiable, fundamentally unfair, and morally reprehensible,” said Pasternak in a statement.

The companies are notorious for price gouging, forcing the so-called “voluntary worker” to work full-time for 11 days to afford a tube of Sensodyne toothpaste—priced at $11.02 at Stewart Detention Center, compared to just $5.20 on Amazon.

“At these rates, it may take a detainee more than three days of work to purchase a can of tuna fish or more than two days of work to purchase a bar of soap,” said Public Citizen.

The business model has saved the contractors millions of dollars and allowed them to reap massive profits.

Former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger made $7.2 million in compensation last year before retiring, and the company’s profits grew from $68.9 million in 2024 to $116.5 million last year. Both CoreCivic and the GEO Group reported well over $2 billion in revenue in 2025.

When it was sued over its use of the VWP in Washington State, the GEO Group testified that it would have had to pay 85 full-time employees at the state’s minimum wage—$17.13 per hour—if it hadn’t used the labor of detainees. Hiring workers would have cost the company over $3 million per year, but instead the GEO Group spent just over $22,000 paying imprisoned immigrants $1 per hour.

“The private contractors running immigrant detention centers are pocketing millions of dollars in profits as tens of thousands of detainees struggle to afford to purchase a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste,” said Pasternak. “The dichotomy between the contractors’ profits and the detainees’ pay is outrageous.”

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