Tag: fraud

Florida, Texas Executives Get 20 Years for $233M Affordable Care Act Fraud Scheme

Two executives were each sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted for a years-long scheme to steal from the Affordable Care Act program.

The defendants — the president of an insurance brokerage firm and the CEO of a marketing company — preyed on tens of thousands of vulnerable consumers to improperly enroll them into fully subsidized ACA plans, for which the defendants earned millions of dollars in commission payments from insurance companies.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Cory Lloyd, 47, of Stuart, Florida, and Steven Strong, 43, of Mansfield, Texas, engaged in an extensive fraud scheme that sought over $233 million in fraudulent ACA plan subsidies for which the federal government paid at least $180 million. 

“Preying upon medically compromised consumers to rob hundreds of millions from taxpayer-funded programs is evil and unforgivable,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Fraud schemes like this rob citizens and shake faith in our institutions — today’s sentencing is the latest example of this DOJ’s commitment to fighting fraud nationwide.”

As proven at trial, Lloyd and Strong targeted vulnerable, low-income individuals experiencing homelessness, unemployment, and mental health and substance abuse disorders, and, through “street marketers” working on their behalf, sometimes offered bribes to induce those individuals to enroll in subsidized ACA plans. 

“These defendants didn’t just commit fraud; they built a business model around exploiting people at their most vulnerable,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “They targeted vulnerable individuals in the community, manipulated federal health programs for profit, and put victims at risk of losing critical medical care so they could cash in. Stealing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars while endangering lives is as callous as it gets. The FBI and our partners will continue to track down and hold accountable anyone who treats vulnerable Americans as a payday.”

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SHOCKING: Liberian Illegal Alien Infiltrates U.S. National Guard and Minnesota Prison System After Overstaying Visa—Arrested Following Decade of Fraud

A Liberian national has been arrested after spending over a decade masquerading as a U.S. citizen, even going so far as to join the military and work as a law enforcement officer.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 45-year-old Liberian national Morris Brown was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis on January 15 following an extensive federal investigation tied to Operation Twin Shield.

Federal authorities say Brown last entered the United States legally in 2014 on a nonimmigrant student visa, but that visa was terminated the following year after he failed to enroll in a full course of academic study, placing him out of lawful status.

Instead of departing the country as required by law, DHS officials allege Brown embarked on what U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow described as a decade-long scheme of deception.

“Operation Twin Shield continues to deliver results as the Department of Homeland Security relentlessly pursues those who seek to cheat our immigration system,” said USCIS Director Joseph Edlow.

“This alien tried every trick in the book to remain in the United States after losing legal status. We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure he faces justice for his many violations of the law.”

Even more alarming, federal officials say Brown enlisted in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 2014, despite not having legal immigration status, and subsequently went AWOL the following year.

He was eventually taken into custody and discharged from military service in 2022 under “other than honorable conditions,” according to DHS.

Yet, two years after that discharge, Brown allegedly attempted to naturalize as a U.S. citizen based on his prior military service, an application DHS described as “another commission of fraud.”

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Jury Convicts Chinese National in $2M Scheme Targeting Elderly Bank Customers

A federal jury has convicted a Chinese national of using his role as a bank employee to access confidential client information to target elderly customers and create a scheme to steal their money and then use it for his personal benefit.

After a five-day trial in front of U.S. District Judge J. Philip Calabrese, Yue Cao, 36, was found guilty on 10 counts of bank fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of money laundering.

Court documents and evidence presented before the jury showed that Cao was a quant analytics manager at an Ohio-based bank who was hired to help protect customers from fraud. 

Instead, from about 2022 to 2023, he used his access to steal the identities and money of elderly customers who had not enrolled in the bank’s online services. 

He did this by first using an offshore service to create email addresses in the names of more than 100 victims. 

Then, he used these emails to enroll the victims in online banking—all without their knowledge or authorization. Additionally, Cao directed the victims’ bank statements and other notifications to the email addresses he created. Because he controlled their online banking, he transferred the victims’ money directly to his personal bank and credit card accounts.

He also used the victims’ identities to open accounts in their names without their knowledge and transferred their money into them. Some of these were brokerage accounts, where he then engaged in options trading using their money. He even arranged trades between the unauthorized accounts he set up and his own brokerage account.

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Massachusetts auditor heads to court after finding $12M in fraud

he Massachusetts state auditor is headed to court as part of her effort to audit the state legislature.

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio, earlier this year, notified the state legislature that she would begin the audit, after 72% of state voters approved a law permitting her to do so.

However, state lawmakers declined to produce documents necessary for the audit, Fox News reported. She is now challenging the state at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

In 2025, her office identified roughly $12 million in public fraud related to state programs. The court battle comes in the wake of national fraud revelations in Minnesota linked to the state’s Somali expat community.

That development has turned the public’s attention to state government’s and their attitudes toward enforcing restrictions on eligible recipients of public aid.

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Minnesota Sheriff Whose Office Missed Billions in Fraud Now Attacks ICE

On Friday morning, Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt stood before reporters and expressed relief that “Operation Metro Surge” was coming to an end. 

She spoke about rebuilding trust and emphasized that her office does not conduct civil immigration enforcement, adding that “nothing has changed” in the county’s policies.

The speech was among the most inflammatory anti-ICE remarks she could have delivered. Operation Metro Surge was a federal enforcement effort launched under the direction of the Trump administration’s border team, including Border Czar Tom Homan, in response to escalating tensions and public safety concerns in Minneapolis and surrounding areas. 

The purpose was straightforward: enforce existing federal immigration law and prevent further instability. When violence threatens to spiral out of control, federal authorities have both the power and the obligation to intervene.

Instead of acknowledging that reality, Sheriff Witt framed the operation primarily as a political burden placed on her office. She spoke at length about strained relationships and eroding trust, suggesting that local law enforcement had been forced into difficult positions by federal action.

What she did not do was thank federal officers for stepping in during a volatile moment. She did not acknowledge that ICE enforces statutes written by Congress. She did not recognize that immigration enforcement is a lawful function of the executive branch, not an optional courtesy.

Minnesota has spent the past several years confronting overlapping crises of disorder and fraud. The Feeding Our Future scandal alone involved what federal prosecutors described as a $250 million scheme to exploit taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs. 

Additional investigations into Medicaid and autism services fraud revealed systemic vulnerabilities that drained public funds of well over $8 billion and embarrassed state leadership. 

These were large-scale criminal operations that flourished under the watch of state and local authorities.

Public safety is not limited to street patrols. It includes institutional competence and, above all, requires proactive enforcement and coordination across agencies. 

Yet at the very moment federal officers increased their presence to deter violence and enforce immigration law, the sheriff’s message signaled distance, not partnership.

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Feds charge 11 in Florida for marriage fraud scheme targeting US service members

Federal authorities have unsealed a sweeping indictment charging 11 people in connection with a marriage fraud conspiracy that allegedly recruited U.S. military service members, particularly Navy personnel, to enter sham marriages with Chinese nationals to evade immigration laws and provide illicit benefits, including unauthorized access to military installations. 

The three-count indictment, announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, alleges the conspiracy operated from March 2024 through February 2025 and spanned multiple states, with fraudulent weddings staged in Florida, New York, Connecticut and Nevada.  

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Ted Cruz Just Introduced a Bill That Would Make Life Hard for Welfare Fraudsters

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has introduced a measure aimed at preventing widespread government welfare fraud like what is happening in Minnesota, California, and other states.

Cruz’s “Payment Integrity Act” would reimagine how federal childcare funds are paid out after it was revealed that fraudsters in Minnesota raked in up to $9 billion in taxpayer funds by running scams designed to defraud government welfare programs.

The legislation, cosponsored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL) would require states to base payments on verified attendance rather than just enrollment. This would prevent situations where childcare providers falsely claim to have a certain number of kids enrolled when they really don’t. This is one of several scams that occurred in Minnesota.

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HHS Releases Medicaid Dataset to Crowdsource Fraud Detection

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released a massive data set related to health care spending. 

The release follows rampant fraud exposed in multiple government programs, including programs meant to feed hungry kids, help autistic kids, get kids into daycare, and help people find housing. One prosecutor alleged that criminals stole up to $9 billion across 14 social programs in Minnesota. 

If you have a computer with enough memory to download the data set and find fraud, then you could even get paid to expose fraud, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

The Treasury Department will set up a website to report fraud where whistleblowers can receive part of the fine, Secretary Scott Bessent said.

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RFK JR: $100 Billion a Year in Medicare and Medicaid Fraud, Mainly in Blue States

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said an estimated $100 billion is stolen each year from Medicare and Medicaid and outlined new efforts to detect and prevent fraud during a discussion with Theo Von.

Von asked Kennedy about what he discovered after reviewing operations within federal agencies.

“What were some of the biggest cases of fraud, like, when you got in there and got behind the curtain, see, like, you know, like the NIH, the EPA, like, just see what’s going on back there. What were some of the biggest cases of fraud that you kind of found?” Von asked.

Kennedy pointed to Medicare and Medicaid as the largest sources of fraud.

“I mean, the biggest cases are, what were we got between Medicaid and Medicare? There’s about 100 billion stolen every year, and a lot of it is like what’s happening in Minnesota with the Somali community and what’s happening now, even worse in California,” Kennedy said.

He described what he called systemic issues within the programs.

“But you know, one of the problems is that that’s a systemic problem, is that Medicaid, Medicare now no longer. It used to be that they that they paid for your medical treatment, your doctor’s visit, but now they pay for the person who takes you to the doctor, and they pay for home care, and they pay for a person to come in and pay your bills, right? So there, there’s, there’s all kinds of opportunities for fraud,” Kennedy said.

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The Bigger Problem that the Tim Walz NGO Scandal Has Exposed 

The Minnesota nonprofit fraud scandal, now expected to cost taxpayers more than $9 billion, is being dismissed by many as an isolated failure. However, this is far from the case, and writing it off as such would be a colossal mistake.

What it actually revealed is a broader problem in the Swamp—that institutions claiming to represent others often operate with little accountability and then quietly drift away from the very people who are footing the bill.

In Minnesota, nonprofit organizations became the perfect vehicle for abuse—shielded from scrutiny, politically protected, and flush with public money. However, in Washington, trade associations operate in largely the same way. They collect millions in dues from American businesses while increasingly choosing to serve their own leadership’s personal and political interests instead of those of their dues-paying members.

Their members only care about being able to deliver good-paying jobs to their employees and securing a more favorable regulatory climate so they can deliver lower-priced goods for the American people; however, you’d never know that if you looked at the public policy priorities of their association leadership officials, who seem more interested in fitting in at woke radical leftist cocktail parties.

Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, has repeatedly broken with Republicans by sharply criticizing Donald Trump, including after January 6, when he called Trump’s actions “mob rule,” urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and faulted the administration’s handling of COVID-19. Despite that record, Timmons later congratulated Trump on his November 2024 victory and suggested they should “work together like we did before.” At the same time, Timmons praised and partnered with Joe Biden, backing the administration’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign and publicly supporting the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act. In 2022, he also donated to Adam Kinzinger’s leadership PAC just days after Kinzinger was censured by the Republican Party.

If a presidency was truly so dangerous five years ago that it was deemed incompatible with democracy itself, it is fair to ask how the same association leadership can now claim alignment and cooperation without any explanation, accountability, or evident change in approach. That kind of abrupt pivot invites skepticism from dues-paying manufacturers who expect their trade groups to be guided by member interests, not political positioning or reputational hedging.

The problem is compounded by a reliance on press releases in place of real relationships. Press releases don’t move policy—relationships do. Manufacturers don’t pay dues for moral posturing, elite signaling, or ceremonial access; they pay for results. When leadership spends years attacking an administration only to reverse course once the election is settled—substituting optics for engagement—it raises a fundamental question about who the organization is really serving.

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