Tag: fraud

Social Security Launches New ID Technology to Prevent Fraud—Here’s What to Know

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has rolled out “enhanced technology” to detect suspicious activity in telephone claims or banking changes. The new technology will strengthen identification verification, preventing fraud.

The SSA had initially planned to roll out new identity proofing policies in March, but pushback from beneficiaries and advocates delayed it. The policies have gone through two changes so far. So, what are these ID proofing policy changes, and how will they affect you?

Fraudulent Phone Callers Stole Benefits

Previously, Social Security recipients could call the toll-free number to change their direct deposit bank information. But there’s a problem with using the phone. According to the SSA, approximately 40 percent of direct deposit fraud was due to someone calling the SSA to change banking information. And although SSA employees asked questions to verify identity, many thieves successfully stole people’s funds by diverting the benefits to other bank accounts or even Visa cards.

The SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) estimates that $33.5 million in benefits for 20,878 beneficiaries was misdirected from January 2013 to May 2018.

ID Proofing Policies Originally Delayed

On March 18, 2025, the SSA announced that beginning March 31, 2025, people would no longer be able to verify their identity over the phone. And if the beneficiary could not properly verify their identity through SSA’s “my Social Security” online service, they would need to visit a field office. According to the SSA, this new policy affected 73,229,000 people who received Social Security benefits.

Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security, said in a March 18 press release, “For far too long, the agency has used antiquated methods for proving identity. Social Security can better protect Americans while expediting service”.

But, there were complaints from recipients, congress, and advocates such as the AARP that there wasn’t an opportunity for the public to weigh in on the change.

On March 26, the SSA postponed the new ID proofing policy to April 14 to give a longer transitionary time. At that point, due to complaints, the policy was once more changed.

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North Korea-linked gang ‘stole’ billions from Americans through romance scams, online schemes

A Cambodia-based gang with ties to North Korea has “stolen” billions of dollars from Americans through romance scams and other cyber-heists since August 2021, federal officials said Thursday in announcing a crackdown on the malign network.

For years, the online marketplace Huione Group has helped North Korea and other transnational criminal gangs rip people off by sending texts or direct messages on social media platforms and sites to bilk them for fake investments or “pig butchering.”

The cons, which also take place on dating or professional networking sites, have gotten US retirees and others to invest in crypto or other virtual currencies — before eventually defrauding them.

Between August 2021 and January 2025, Huione raked in at least $4 billion in proceeds from the romance and investment racket, with affiliates helping facilitate payments (Huione Pay PLC), provide fiat currencies (Huione Crypto), and furnish an online marketplace with illicit goods and services (Haowang Guarantee).

The US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) shared the findings of its investigation into the Huione’s scam network exclusively with The Post, tallying up $37 million that went toward North Korean cyber heists and another $336 million in the romance and investments grift.

Now, the Treasury is taking action by proposing a federal rule to sever the Cambodian firm’s access to the US financial system.

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Crypto Casino Founder Richard Kim Arrested After Gambling Away Investor Funds

Richard Kim, the founder of crypto casino Zero Edge, was arrested on Tuesday following allegations that he had gambled away investors’ funds.

According to an FBI complaint filed on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, Kim “fraudulently induced investors to invest in Zero Edge, a cryptocurrency technology company he founded, and then misappropriated millions of dollars in those investors’ funds.”

The FBI said Kim lost “nearly all” of the $7 million he raised from investors and charged him with securities fraud and wire fraud. According to court records, Kim posted a secured bond of $250,000 and put up $100,000 in “cash or real property” to secure it.

CoinDesk was first to report on the Zero Edge incident in July of last year. In an interview at the time, Kim revealed to CoinDesk that he had gambled away more than $3.67 million of his investors’ funds through a series of high-risk leveraged crypto trades.

“The downfall began with a careless mistake — a phishing site that cost $80k,” Kim said in his own recollection of what went wrong, which he shared with CoinDesk in a written statement that he later published as a public apology. “This triggered my old demons, the need to ‘make it back’ to preserve my reputation.”

According to Kim, he “started down a negative spiral of leverage trading, raising more capital, and hiding the truth.”

After losing most of the $7 million he had raised for Zero Edge, Kim told CoinDesk he reported himself to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s public tip line.

“Part of my rationale in reaching out proactively to the SEC was to say, OK guys, I really f—d up. I lost this money. It was grossly negligent. But I didn’t intend to go run away with this money,” he told CoinDesk in an interview.

According to the FBI complaint, Kim’s previous accounts “misleadingly described where investors’ funds had gone, and why, and omitted to inform investors that certain funds had been transferred to Shuffle.com, the gambling website.”

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Letitia James Lawyered Up with Hunter Biden’s Defense Attorney After Trump Official Drops Bombshell Allegations of Mortgage Fraud — Admits to “Mistakenly” Claiming Virginia Home as Primary Residence

New York Attorney General Letitia James has hired Democrat defense attorney Abbe Lowell in a last-ditch effort to spin away serious fraud allegations tied to her real estate dealings.

Lowell, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, is known as a high-profile attorney for embattled political figures, having represented Democrats such as Hunter Biden, John Edwards, and even Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial.

According to the Times Union, he was reportedly hired by the Office of the New York State Attorney General, not personally by Letitia James, just days after Trump-appointed officials filed a formal criminal referral to the DOJ.

The referral, spearheaded by U.S. Federal Housing Director William Pulte, accuses James of participating in suspicious real estate and mortgage transactions stretching back decades.

The Gateway Pundit and the White Collar Fraud previously reported back in early March that James has been implicated in multiple instances of mortgage fraud, with the most damning claims centered on her Brooklyn and Virginia properties.

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Here Are Letitia James’s Two Big Lies in Her Building Registration that Appear to Defraud NYC — Serious Offense with Significant Legal and Financial Consequences

In New York City, property owners are legally required to register all details of their residential buildings each year with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).

The goal is to ensure transparency and accountability among building owners, city agencies, and tenants.

Property registration includes providing accurate information about the building’s ownership and its physical characteristics.

Two conspicuous characteristics of any residential building are the number of stories and the number of units. New York State Attorney General Letitia James has lied about them both.

Registration ensures that HPD and other city agencies can quickly contact responsible parties in the event of emergencies, housing code violations, or tenant complaints. Failing to register – or submitting false information – is illegal. False information can invalidate the registration and result in civil penalties.

On Letitia James’s registration page of her apartment building on HPD, she listed the property at 296 Lafayette Blvd in Brooklyn as having only three stories. In fact, it has four.

In New York City, a building with a basement apartment and three additional floors above it is considered a four-story building for the purposes of HPD registration.

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4 Admissions Of Social Security Fraud In April Alone Show Waste And Abuse Are Real

When Elon Musk announced in February that there were 10 million Social Security numbers belonging to holders apparently aged 120 years and older, instead of acknowledging the great potential for fraudulent activity, the corporate media downplayed the concerns. They insisted that Social Security fraud is “not very common” and maligned the Trump administration’s efforts to purge the federal government of waste and abuse.

However, multiple instances of Social Security fraud confirmed in April alone are a reminder that the system has enabled abuse for years.

In late March, DOGE announced that, following a “major cleanup” of records, 9.9 million number holders listed with ages 120 years and older “have now been marked deceased.” (While people do live past 100, the oldest person who ever lived in modern times was Jeanne Louise Calment, of France, who died in 1997 at 122 years old.)

Corporate media and so-called experts have claimed that the listed ages of these centenarian number holders may be the result of “coding quirks” in the system and that efforts to mark these number holders as deceased could lead to more errors. But this does not change the fact that unused Social Security numbers marked as live are ripe for fraud.

What can you do with a spare Social Security number? You could register to vote again or sign up for social welfare, like housing, health insurance, cash assistance, and SNAP. Noncitizens can get a job, and of course, collect Social Security retirement or disability benefits.

Last month, a White House fact sheet, citing an inspector general report from 2024, noted how “The Social Security Administration made an estimated $72 billion in improper payments between 2015 and 2022.”

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Letitia James Breaks Silence on Mortgage Fraud Scandal Following TGP and White Collar Fraud Report — Dismisses Evidence as ‘Baseless’

New York Attorney General Letitia James is finally responding after explosive allegations surfaced accusing her of mortgage fraud related to her Brooklyn property. But instead of addressing the facts, she’s lashing out at critics — including President Donald Trump — and portraying herself as the victim of a “right-wing revenge tour.”

On Tuesday night, the Trump Administration criminally referred New York State Attorney General Letitia James to the Department of Justice over accusations of mortgage fraud.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) accused Letitia James of falsifying records, citing a 5-unit property in New York she claimed was only four units in order to get a more favorable loan.

FHFA Director William Pulte said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that James appears to have falsified records to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms.

In an interview Thursday night on NY1’s Inside City Hall, James was asked point-blank about a criminal referral alleging she misrepresented her home’s occupancy classification on mortgage documents — a potential felony offense that would land any other New Yorker behind bars.

Of course, James deflected questions about the mortgage issue, insisting she won’t “litigate this case in a camera.”

Instead, she pivoted to her office’s $454 million judgment against Trump for allegedly ‘inflating asset values’—a case currently under appeal.

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NEW EVIDENCE AGAINST NY AG: Letitia James’s Fishy Virginia Foreclosure Purchase in Martinsville Warrants Separate Investigation

New York Attorney General Letitia James’s mortgage fraud problems just got even bigger, and may now include the possible breaking of campaign disclosure laws.

Questions are now being raised about a foreclosure sale in December 2008 that involved James as a purchaser. Documents show her name appearing on the “Final Foreclosure Accounting” for the purchase of a single-family home at 21 Peters Street in Martinsville, Virginia.

Two other names appear on the same document as additional purchasers, Johnsie Finney and Philip Finney. Interestingly, James’s first named is misspelled as “Letitua.” One has to wonder whether this misspelling was intended to make the transaction harder to track. At the time, James was serving on the New York City Council.

Letitia James purchased the 21 Peters Street property with the Finneys at a foreclosure auction sale where full payment was required immediately. The Finneys had been the previous owners of 21 Peters Street, and it was their mortgage that had been foreclosed on by Wells Fargo Bank.

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DOGE Does It Again: Unemployment Insurance Claims $254M For Under Age 5

In yet another shocking data discovery from Elon Musk & ‘DOGE’, they found $254 million worth of unemployment insurance claims – for people under the age of 5!

“It’s just one more installment to what we can only call sophisticated white collar crime stealing taxpayer money” said Scott Powell, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and Newsmax contributor.

This, while radical left protestors continue to march, swearing that none of this fraud, waste, and abuse is happening.

“Sad to say that we’ve come to a point in America where you have large numbers of our population that can no longer think critically, that can no longer really think commonsensically” Powell told KTRH, “But that’s where we’re at.”

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ADAM SCHIFF IN DEEP SCHIFF TOO – Evidence Shows He Falsely Registered, Ineligibly Voted, and/or Committed Mortgage Fraud

Evidence Shows that California Senator Adam Schiff, has committed Election Fraud, Ineligible Voting, and/or Mortgage Fraud.  These are BIG time crimes. 

In April of 2023, we reported that an ethics complaint was filed against corrupt US Rep. Adam Schiff.  Today we can report that there is much more to Schiff’s corrupt and even criminal acts.

In April 2023 we reported at The Gateway Pundit that an ethics complaint had been filed against US Rep. Adam Schiff.

We reported:

US Congressman Adam Schiff from California is in deep trouble.  An ethics complaint has been filed against Schiff by a concerned citizen alleging that Schiff has committed election and voter fraud claiming he was both a citizen of California and Maryland. 

A concerned citizen from the state of California uncovered what is believed to be crimes committed by Adam Schiff.

In 2000 Schiff was elected to Congress and has served as a US House member from the state of California ever since.  Schiff reportedly purchased a home in Maryland with his wife in 2003 stating they would occupy this home for 12 consecutive months as their “primary residence”.  Despite this claim, Schiff continued to vote in California.

Schiff refinanced his home in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013 claiming the Maryland home was his primary residence.  In 2009, a House Ethics investigation claimed that Schiff did this and Schiff claimed it was an error and he repaid the exempt taxes to the state of Maryland.

A fellow member of Congress was charged with criminal counts for doing the same thing, Steven Watkins, of Oklahoma.

In addition, the amount of the home mortgage has remained basically the same this entire time. Congress should look into this as well.

When asked about his residence in Maryland months ago while on the campaign trail running for US Senate in California, Schiff shared that his primary residence was in California and neglected to mention that he had repeatedly claimed his Maryland home was his primary residence.

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