Tag: fraud

Former CDC Autism Scientist Extradited to U.S. on Fraud, Money Laundering Charges

A former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist who played a key role in research that denied any link between vaccination and autism was extradited to the U.S. last week to face charges of wire fraud and money laundering stemming from a 2011 indictment.

Poul Thorsen, 65, a Danish native, began working for the CDC in the late 1990s. In 2011, a federal grand jury indicted him for the alleged misuse of over $1 million in CDC grant money that was earmarked for autism and public health research. Thorsen is accused of redirecting the funds for his personal use.

Despite the indictment — and the existence of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Denmark — Thorsen continued to live and work in Denmark. However, he was arrested in Germany last year on an INTERPOL warrant.

On May 8, U.S. Air Marshals escorted him from Germany to Atlanta, where he was arraigned.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which listed Thorsen on its most wanted list in 2012, posted a video of his extradition.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Thorsen faces two counts of wire fraud and nine counts of money laundering. He is being held without bail until trial.

In 2011, studies Thorsen co-authored were used to dismiss cases filed by the parents of autistic, vaccine-injured children that were part of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings pending before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

A 2016 book, “Master Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government Betrayal at the CDC,” focused on the Thorsen case, describing him as “a world-class villain whose manipulation of health data gave CDC and big pharma what they wanted: a report clearing thimerosal of any possible role in the autism crisis.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said Thorsen “was central to the CDC and Pharma lies that ‘vaccines do not cause autism.’”

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, said Thorsen’s work “set autism research back more than 20 years.”

“Previous administrations did not appear interested in pursuing Thorsen,” according to the MAHA Report. As a result, Thorsen was “living openly, apparently without concern of being captured in Denmark.”

HHS and DOJ did not respond to The Defender’s requests for comment.

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Oz: Chinese Government Involved in Fraud, Suspect Russia, Cuba as Well

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz discussed fraud and said that “We’ve got the Chinese government involved in a big fraud ring in New York” in addition to suspected fraud that the Russian and Cuban governments are involved in.

Guest host Kayleigh McEnany asked, [relevant exchange begins around 2:25] “[L]ast time, when I spoke with you, you talked about the Cuban government possibly being involved in some Florida fraud, but it’s bigger than that. There are many foreign [governments] that are getting taxpayer dollars and taking advantage of taxpayers, tell me about what you found.”

Oz responded, “Well, we’ve got Russian government involvement, we believe, in Los Angeles. We’ve got the Chinese government involved in a big fraud ring in New York. And, of course, the Cuban connection that you mentioned was pointed out to me by the former mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, who pointed out that we’ve got twice as many durable medical equipment suppliers — they sell wheelchairs and canes — twice as many as there are McDonald’s in South Florida and the owners all seem to be Cuban and they flee back to Cuba with the money when we come after them.”

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Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Name Pops Up MULTIPLE Times in $250 MILLION Feeding Our Future Fraud Emails – Including One Titled “Ilhan’s Office” – But the Radical Squad Member REFUSES to Turn Over Documents to Minnesota Investigators

Fresh court exhibits from the massive $250 MILLION Feeding Our Future fraud trial have revealed that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s name appeared MULTIPLE times in email chains and text messages with convicted fraudster Aimee Bock, the mastermind behind the largest COVID-era fraud scheme targeting children’s nutrition programs.

According to trial exhibits unsealed in Aimee Bock’s case, Omar’s office was directly involved in communications with the fraud ring.

According to resurfaced trial exhibits from Bock’s 2025 conviction on wire fraud, conspiracy, and bribery charges, one email chain between Bock and Omar’s office was literally titled “Ilhan’s Office.”

Another email from February 2021 carried the subject line “help with USDA food program,” right in the middle of the massive scam that funneled hundreds of millions in federal pandemic funds to fake meal sites, luxury cars, jewelry, and overseas real estate, according to the New York Post.

Text messages recovered during a raid of Bock’s Minnesota home also show direct communication between the fraudster and Omar’s congressional staff.

More from the Post:

A few days after Bock’s email to Omar, on Feb. 28, Bock exchanged messages with Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee who fled the country after he was indicted in 2022. The subject line of their emails was “Ilhan’s Office,” according to the court documents.

While the list of exhibits is public, the contents have been sealed by the court.

The exhibits also include a text message string between Bock and Omar, which was uncovered during a raid of Bock’s Minnesota house, records show.

Bock has been leaking documents from behind bars through her college-age son ahead of her sentencing to try to shift some of the blame to elected officials, Minnesota federal prosecutors have alleged.

It’s unclear if those leaked documents were related to Omar.

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How a Scientific Cartel Protects Fraudsters and Rakes in Billions of Taxpayer Dollars

I was 22 when my grandmother forgot me.

It took her 12 years to die from Alzheimer’s. It started with little things, like where her glasses were or what day it was. Soon she didn’t know who I was. For a while, she addressed me as her son, but then, as the disease ate away more of her mind, she forgot him too. Then I was the young, handsome version of her husband, until he too faded away. After a while, I was just a nice young man who came to visit her.

The rest of the time, she was afraid: waking up in an unfamiliar world, surrounded by people she’d never met, confused that she wasn’t back home in Minnesota, where she’d grown up. It hit my mom the hardest. She did everything she could to take care of her own mother, watching the brilliant, kind woman she knew rot into a husk of her former self.

My grandmother died on Christmas Eve. As sad as it was, it was a blessing for my mom, who was finally freed from her duty of watching the woman she loved the most waste away.

The Alzheimer’s Researcher Who Became a Poster Child for Academic Fraud

Sylvain Lesné, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, published a paper in Nature in 2006 claiming to identify a specific amyloid beta protein assembly as the direct cause of memory impairment in Alzheimer’s. This reinvigorated the amyloid hypothesis at a moment when skepticism about it was ramping up. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted $1.6 billion to projects that mention amyloids in 2022 alone, nearly half of all federal Alzheimer’s funding that year. Lesné was a star.

But there were rumblings. Numerous amyloid drugs made it to trials with billions invested by pharmaceutical companies. They failed repeatedly. A question arose in the pharmaceutical community: How can this be right? How can the trials keep failing if the underlying research is correct? 

In 2022, the Vanderbilt neuroscientist Matthew Schrag uncovered evidence that images in Lesné’s paper had been manipulated. Science magazine found more than 20 suspect papers by Lesné, with over 70 instances of possible image tampering. Nature retracted the paper in June 2024. Every author except Lesné signed the retraction. Lesné himself resigned from his tenured position at the University of Minnesota on March 1, 2025, three years after his fraud was exposed.

More news and details trickled out over time. Charles Piller’s 2025 book Doctored talks about the Amyloid Mafia, a nickname for a network that had prioritized novelty over replication and marginalized dissenters for decades. Anyone questioning the amyloid gospel was pushed out and watched their funding vanish.

When I first picked up that Science article, I hadn’t considered academic fraud as something that was real and widespread. As I thought about it more, I was filled with a deep, bitter hatred. For his own pride, greed, and acclaim, this man had doomed millions of people like my grandmother to slow, horrible deaths and millions more like my mom to agonizing years as caregivers.

Lesné resigned, but was still rich. None of his grant money was clawed back. The system that was supposed to catch this—peer review, university compliance, journal editorial boards—failed repeatedly for years.

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Former NFL Player Sentenced to Prison for $197M Medicare Fraud

The Department of Justice announced that former NFL player Joel Rufus French, 47, was sentenced to 16+ years in prison and ordered to pay $110,753,619 in restitution after a years-long scheme to bilk Medicare and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) out of nearly $200 million.

He also forfeited approximately $17 million that the government seized from bank accounts and other assets.

French was an All-American tight end at Ole Miss before briefly playing in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers.

According to the DOJ, French, who owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment (DME) companies, was selling patient information and sham doctors’ orders for orthotic braces that patients did not want or need.

Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. shared, “Fueled by lies, bribes, and overseas telemarketers, this corrupt scheme preyed on senior citizens and disabled veterans to flood the country with unnecessary medical devices — and then billed the taxpayer for it.”

“Today’s sentence makes clear that if you target America’s elderly, sick, or vulnerable — and rob America’s purse doing so — you will be targeted and brought to justice.”

“The defendant orchestrated a brazen, yearslong scheme that preyed on elderly patients and the families of disabled and deceased veterans to steal millions from Medicare and CHAMPVA.”

Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS‑OIG) added, “By hiding behind overseas call centers, sham telemedicine companies, and straw‑owned DME suppliers, he exploited some of the most vulnerable people these programs were created to protect.”

“This lengthy sentence underscores the seriousness of his crimes and sends a clear message: HHS‑OIG and our law enforcement partners remain steadfast in safeguarding taxpayer‑funded programs and ensuring those who seek to defraud them will be found, stopped, and held accountable.”

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Massive Health Care Fraud Ignored as Billions Drained From Ohio Taxpayers

Mehek Cooke, senior national security and legal analyst at The Daily Signal, warned that the growing fraud scandal in Ohio is not an isolated case but part of a systemic failure across welfare programs nationwide.

Appearing on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” Thursday, Cooke said she discovered widespread health care fraud last December that is allegedly draining billions in taxpayer dollars. She brought this evidence to government officials, but many failed to take it seriously.

“This was the tip of the spear,” Cooke said of Ohio, pointing to similar fraud cases in other states. “Any time you have a welfare program, there’s going to be fraud because government is so complacent.”

Cooke described her firsthand efforts to investigate suspicious activity in Ohio’s home health care system, including making door-to-door inquiries in areas receiving significant taxpayer funding in Franklin County. Several whistleblowers alerted Cooke in December to alleged home health care fraud in Ohio, claiming that patients were entering doctors’ offices, claiming they needed home health care services. Upon evaluation, providers determined that they did not qualify for those services, but some of these individuals then threatened that if the paperwork was not rubber-stamped, they would return to providers who would approve it.

After receiving this information, Cooke said she brought the alleged fraud to the Ohio attorney general’s office and the Department of Medicaid.

Cooke also visited close to 100 home health care offices. What she found raised serious concerns about whether services were being legitimately provided.

“So, when you knock on doors, most of these people are in the Somalian community. They don’t speak English, so I’m wondering how they’re even providing services,” Cooke said. “It’s hidden behind closed doors.”

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Illegal Immigrant Confesses to Stealing Seniors’ Savings in Nationwide “Grandparent” Scam

An illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic living in Paterson, New Jersey, has pleaded guilty in federal court after admitting to laundering money stolen from elderly Americans through a cruel and calculated “grandparent” fraud scheme, as reported by Townhall.

The case shines a harsh light on how criminals are exploiting both America’s generosity and its border failures to prey on the most vulnerable citizens.

Engels Guillermo Almengot Valerio, 26, entered his guilty plea before Senior U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer on May 4, 2026.

The plea marked the culmination of a federal investigation exposing a disturbing operation that specifically targeted senior citizens across the country, manipulating them into handing over their life savings under false pretenses.

According to court documents, Valerio was part of an elaborate scheme that originated from the Dominican Republic.

Scammers called elderly Americans, impersonating grandchildren or relatives in distress — claiming they had been in a car accident or arrested — and begged for money to cover legal fees or bail.

The call would then be handed off to someone pretending to be an attorney or bail bondsman, sealing the illusion.

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Conservative Host SHOCKS “Muslims-Only” Waterpark Event Organizer After Exposing a Series of Humiliating Truths About Her “Job” to Her Face

A conservative activist who played a role in exposing a disgusting and racist “Muslim Only” celebration completely embarrassed the organizer of the event after exposing a series of embarrassing truths about her line of work.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, a taxpayer-funded waterpark in a Texas city sparked online fury earlier this week after announcing it would openly discriminate against non-Muslims to celebrate an Islamic holiday.

Epic Waters in Grand Prairie released fliers for a June 1 event celebrating a major Muslim holiday called Eid al-Adha. The event was supposed to require a “modest dress code” and solely serve Halal-slaughtered meat.

Epic Waters, which was funded by an additional sales tax on Grand Prairie residents, would have essentially resembled a hard-core Islamist country rather than the great state of Texas.

The Blaze’s Sara Gonzales was extremely instrumental in exposing this disgusting religious discrimination to the rest of the country. The backlash soon became so severe that the event was cancelled.

On Thursday, Gonzales invited the organizer of the “Muslims Only” stunt, Dr. Aminah Knight, to her podcast to discuss how she felt about her little party getting canceled. But, unbeknownst to Knight, Gonzales had a major surprise up her sleeve.

Gonzales stunned Knight when she revealed that the bigot runs a daycare center called “Excellence Early Learning Center” in which the word “learning is spelled “learing.” Just like one of the Somali Daycare Centers in Minnesota!

Gonzales next asked if it was appropriate for her to teach kids when she can’t spell a basic word correctly.

Knight was left speechless and stunned when confronted about this, so Gonzales started mocking her. Then, she meekly said it was a typo.

Gonzales then informed Knight that her registration to run the business had been involuntarily terminated and asked how the daycare center was still operating.

Knight had no clue how to respond. She proceeded to complain that she had been brought on to answer questions about the cancellation of her event.

Gonzales informed that they had already discussed this and hoped Knight had learned a lesson about not discriminating based on religion.

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Texas ‘Muslim Only’ Waterpark Organizer Runs a Misspelled “Learing Center” for Kids

Only in 2026 America could a taxpayer-funded waterpark become the backdrop for a “Muslim only” event that blew up so spectacularly it ended up scrapped by order of the Texas governor.

The mastermind behind the fiasco, Aminah Knight, is now under fresh scrutiny for running a child care center with a glaring typo in its name, the “Excellence Early Learing Center.”

The facility, located in the Fort Worth suburb of Hurst, proudly advertises itself online with that same misspelled banner, something most educators would rush to fix within moments.

Knight, who is listed as the owner, operator, and curriculum designer, boasts of academic credentials from both USC and Vanderbilt University. Yet, somehow, “learning” got lost along the way.

The daycare’s pitch includes buzzwords common in modern progressive education circles: “multiculturalism,” “small classroom sizes,” “healthy eating,” and a “loving environment that feels like home.”

Staff reportedly hold degrees from “their home countries” in fields ranging from biology to accounting.

The center seeks to project an image of inclusivity, except when the conversation turns to who’s welcome at the local waterpark.

Earlier this month, Knight’s separate group, DFW Epic Eid, made headlines after it rented out Epic Waters in Grand Prairie, an enormous $88 million facility funded by local taxpayers, for an Eid holiday celebration labeled “Muslim only.”

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Meet The Convicted Fraudster Running A Million Dollar Medicaid Business

After the federal government approved a waiver allowing Ohio to expand Medicaid by paying housekeepers to spend time at elderly people’s houses to help with tasks like “homemaking” and “chore services,” taxpayers across the country footed a shocking $2.5 billion worth of bills between 2018 and 2024, according to a trove of Medicaid data released for the first time by the Trump administration.

The demand for free home care was so high in Ohio that taxpayers spent more on that “personal services” category, Medicaid’s term for non-medical in-home help, than any other outpatient service. The program allows for people who aren’t medical professionals to get paid by the government for work done inside private residences, where what was performed, and even whether anything was done, is essentially unverifiable.

The state’s largest outpatient Medicaid category therefore relies on trust. So who’s facilitating payments from the government?

The Daily Wire spent weeks analyzing the Medicaid data released by the Trump administration as part of its effort to weed out wasteful government spending. I went to Ohio, and found clusters of home healthcare providers that bill the government millions of dollars in desolate buildings filled with empty offices.

At 1415 East Dublin Granville Road, one of the Columbus buildings we visited in our investigation, we found True Home Healthcare LLC.

All that appeared on its door was a tattered piece of printer paper that read, “SORRY WE MISSED YOU, OUT FOR A QUICK BREAK.”

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