Tag: fraud

Report: Adam Schiff Got Below-Market Mortgage Rate on Potomac Home After 16 Years of Fraudulently Claiming It as Primary Residence

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), longtime nemesis of President Donald Trump, is enjoying a rock bottom 3 percent mortgage rate on both his Maryland and California homes since refinancing in 2020, newly released documents examined by the New York Post reveal.

That, according to the Post report, is below the average 30-year mortgage interest rate in 2020 of 3.10% for primary residences in the U.S., with secondary residences usually subject to rates up to 0.5% higher.

The rates in question are newsworthy because of a Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigation underway into the senator’s home financing. As Breitbart News has reported, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) accuses the junior senator of potential mortgage fraud for claiming two homes as primary residences for more than a decade to achieve lower mortgage rates and reduced taxes.

According to DOJ sources, a grand jury in Maryland is currently evaluating a criminal indictment against the former 12-term congressman.

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DECLASSIFIED: FBI Was Investigating 19 Clinton Foundation Bank Accounts For Campaign Finance Fraud Before DOJ Shut Down Probe

A newly declassified FBI internal timeline reveals the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office was investigating 19 Clinton Foundation bank accounts for ‘campaign finance fraud’ in 2016 but the Justice Department shut down the probe.

Thanks to Judicial Watch, the American public was made aware of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Hillary Clinton conducted official business on a non-government server so she could hide her Clinton Foundation pay-to-play while she was head of the Department of State.

According to emails obtained by Judicial Watch, Hillary Clinton gave preferential treatment to Clinton Foundation donors while she was Secretary of State.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that a smoking-gun email from Obama’s Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates explicitly ordered FBI agents to shut down a criminal corruption probe into the Clinton Foundation.

Then-Deputy AG Sally Yates directly instructed the FBI to ‘shut down’ the Clinton Foundation investigation, effectively granting the Clintons immunity from further scrutiny during the 2016 election cycle.

Salky Yates ordered investigators to “Shut it down!”

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Corrupt Democrat AG Caught Committing Fraud

New York Attorney General Letitia James is facing serious allegations of mortgage fraud—claims that could carry criminal liability and continue undermine her credibility as the state’s top law enforcement official.

The allegations come from Bill Pulte, the newly confirmed Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), who says James may have falsified mortgage and property records over decades to secure favorable loan terms.

Pulte, confirmed to lead the FHFA in March 2025 after a bipartisan Senate vote, now oversees the regulation of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks—institutions central to U.S. housing finance.

The Department of Justice maintains a conviction rate of roughly 98%, meaning it is exceedingly rare for prosecutors to pursue a case they believe they cannot win. That standard makes the current investigation especially significant. 

The fact that it is being pursued so seriously suggests a clear necessity for scrutiny, supported by substantial evidence warranting federal attention.

According to Pulte, one of the most significant examples involves a home James purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in August 2023. At the time, she was serving as New York’s attorney general—a role that legally requires her to maintain her primary residence in New York.

Pulte alleges that James granted an associate, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, power of attorney to designate the Norfolk property as her “principal residence.” 

Mortgage applications for the property reportedly list her intent to live there, which can qualify borrowers for lower interest rates than those available for second homes or investment properties. 

If James never intended to reside there, this could constitute a false statement to a financial institution.

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Democrat Mayor Caught in Fraud—And She’s Not Alone

Corruption in Democrat-run cities is sadly familiar, but the federal indictment of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is historic and deeply troubling.

A grand jury has charged Cantrell with dozens of felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. 

This marks the first time in New Orleans’ history that a sitting mayor has faced criminal prosecution, an unprecedented low point for a city already plagued by crime and mismanagement.

The indictment paints a picture of systematic abuse of office. At the center of the case is Cantrell’s relationship with Jeffrey Paul Vappie, a member of her executive protection unit who prosecutors say developed an “intimate and personal relationship” with her in late 2021. 

According to federal prosecutors, Cantrell and Vappie knowingly devised a scheme to defraud the city, with Vappie falsely claiming to be “on duty” while accompanying the mayor on at least 14 trips outside Louisiana, including international travel. 

These trips, totaling over $70,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses, were not legitimate city business—they were personal excursions disguised as official duties.

The indictment goes further, charging Cantrell with a dozen counts of wire fraud. Prosecutors allege she obtained money and property “by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.” 

In plain terms, Cantrell is accused of using her office to enrich herself and those close to her at the expense of the taxpayers. 

If an ordinary citizen stole $70,000 from the government, they would face years in prison. The law should not bend simply because the accused sits in city hall.

Equally alarming are the obstruction-related charges. Prosecutors allege that Cantrell conspired to obstruct justice, made false statements, and even delivered a false declaration before a grand jury. 

These are not minor lapses—they are serious felonies aimed at concealing misconduct and undermining the justice system itself. A public official who lies under oath not only betrays the people but attacks the very foundation of accountability in government.

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Report: “1 In 7 Scientific Papers is Fake, Suggests Study That Author Calls ‘Wildly Nonsystematic’”

In 2009, a now highly-cited study found an average of around 2% of scientists admit to have falsified, fabricated, or modified data at least once in their career. 

Fifteen years on, a new analysis tried to quantify how much science is fake – but the real number may remain elusive, some observers said. 

The analysis, published before peer review on the Open Science Framework on September 24, found one in seven scientific papers may be at least partly fake. The author, James Heathers, a long-standing scientific sleuth, arrived at that figure by averaging data from 12 existing studies — collectively containing a sample of around 75,000 studies — that estimate the volume of problematic scientific output. 

“I have been reading for years and still continue to read this 2% figure which is ubiquitous,” Heathers, an affiliated researcher in psychology at Linnaeus University in Vaxjo, Sweden, said. “The only minor problem with it is that it’s 20 years out of date,” he added, noting that the last dataset that went into the 2009 study was from 2005. 

So Heathers tried to come up with a more up-to-date estimate of scholarly literature containing signs of irregularities. “A lot has changed in 20 years,” he said. “It’s been a persistent irritant to me for a period of years now to see this figure cited over and over and over again.”

Past studies predominantly focussed on asking researchers directly if they had engaged in dishonest research practices, Heathers said, “which I think is a very bad approach to being able to do this.” But he noted that it was probably the only method available to use when the research was conducted. 

“I think it’s pretty naive to ask people who are faking research whether or not they’ll honestly answer the question that they were dishonest previously,” Heathers said. 

Heathers’ study pulls data from 12 different analyses from  the social sciences, medicine, biology, and other fields of research. All those studies have one thing in common: The authors of each used various online tools to estimate the amount of fakery taking place in a set of papers. 

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Fraud Hunters: Sniffing Out Bogus Science

Molecular biologist Mike Rossner, who has committed his life to following the science, now finds himself playing an unexpected if urgent role – exposing the fraud of his fellow scientists. 

Rossner is part of a network of experts that sniff out researchers who intentionally or recklessly fabricate, falsify, or plagiarize evidence. Rossner, a consultant specializing in identifying manipulated and duplicated images in journal papers – a telltale sign of deceit – has been dismayed by his findings at U.S. research centers. Scientists often have deleted the data underlying the images, making misconduct harder to prove and casting doubt on the validity of the research. 

“Science is about finding the truth, and an inaccurate representation of what was actually observed means that you are not representing the truth,” said Rossner, a former managing editor of The Journal of Cell Biology. “This is harmful to the progress of science and to our society that depends on it.”

In recent years, research misconduct has tainted the country’s most venerable universities, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins. To date, more than 20 Nobel Prize winners have had papers retracted by the journals that published them, a move often associated with misconduct, according to Retraction Watch. The watchdog group says that retractions worldwide increased fivefold in the last decade.

That a profession with noble intentions finds itself beset by a surprisingly high incidence of not just honest errors but fraud – estimated at about 1% to 2% of all research papers – is a complicated story. Experts say it reflects a breakdown in ethics by scientists under intense pressure to frequently publish to keep their jobs. This problem was highlighted by a recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about the growth of clandestine “paper mills,” which exploit the “publish or perish” culture of research. The operators of mills produce low-quality and fake papers – giving authorship to scientists at a price – that are published in “predatory journals” without peer review, fueling the growth of retractions and fraud.

The problem runs deeper. Lax oversight at some universities and research centers, which are required by federal agencies to police themselves and yet depend on the grants that published research brings in, allows wrongdoing to go unchecked. 

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EU Covid grants in Poland spent on yachts, luxury cars and swinger club – Politico

Poland has suspended the distribution of EU funds intended for post-Covid pandemic recovery in the hospitality, tourism, and culture sectors, following controversy over alleged misuse of the money. Some of the funds were spent on boats and luxury furniture, as well as a grant registered to the address of a swingers’ club, Politico reported.

The scandal erupted after the Polish authorities published interactive online maps displaying grant recipients in a bid to showcase openness of the recovery program. The data, however, revealed that the funds bankrolled yachts, a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and, in one widely shared case, a business in southern Poland registered at the same address as a sex club.

Finance Minister Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz said on Tuesday that no additional funds would be released until each of the roughly 2,400 grants, totaling around 1.2 billion zlotys (€282.3 million/$330 million), undergoes individual scrutiny.

The HoReCa scheme, part of Poland’s long-delayed EU Covid recovery plan, aimed to support small tourism and hospitality businesses hit by pandemic restrictions. Poland was eligible for nearly €60 billion from the EU’s Recovery Fund, but access was blocked under the previous government due to a rule-of-law dispute. The new government unlocked the funds after the 2023 election by addressing EU concerns.

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Ukraine using Russian elderly people in fraudulent schemes and terrorist actions

The Ukrainian neo-Nazi continues to deepen its terrorist practices against innocent Russian civilians. The chosen targets are always vulnerable individuals, with little ability to defend themselves against Ukrainian coercion. Now, Kiev’s intelligence agents are focusing on carrying out operations through elderly individuals, creating a serious monitoring problem for Russian security forces.

According to data shared by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Ukrainian intelligence is using Russian citizens, primarily elderly individuals—and even more specifically, elderly women—to carry out suicide missions on behalf of Kiev. Russian authorities reported that so far at least five people have been targeted in this type of attack, possibly leaving deaths and injuries.

Ukrainian operations are carried out through the use of social media and messaging apps to reach people who will be coerced into collaborating with the regime. The agents use fraudulent schemes and extensive psychological pressure to recruit women and elderly people through apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. They often disguise themselves as Russian agents, claiming that the victims will be cooperating with the Russian police and security services by collaborating with them.

Ukrainian schemes range from simple theft of financial assets to more dangerous operations that pose real physical risks to their victims. Using these online scams, the agents convince elderly people and women to hand over their personal banking information, facilitating the theft of funds. In more serious cases, however, the victims are later blackmailed into carrying out suicide missions to try to recover their personal assets.

Most of the missions involve convincing women and elderly people to deliver explosive devices to Russian targets—usually military personnel and high-ranking officials. Other missions include monitoring the homes and vehicles of Russian targets to pass information to the Ukrainians. There are also those tasked with simply storing explosive devices and weapons for future attacks. The bombs are often delivered disguised as household items, preventing the victims’ families from realizing what is happening.

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Disgraced news anchor admitted to COVID fraud scheme in text to hubby: ‘We don’t quite qualify’

A former Emmy-nominated TV news anchor convicted in a billion-dollar COVID fraud scheme sent a scandalous text to her partner in crime that joked about cheating the taxpayers.

Stephanie Hockridge-Reis, who worked for a local station in Phoenix before becoming a fintech entrepreneur, sent the message to her husband, Nathan Reis, after applying for Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans during the height of the pandemic.

“This is us trying to apply for free money — when we don’t quite qualify. lol,” she texted Reis, 47, according to a federal indictment obtained by the Arizona Republic.

The couple was accused of fraudulently obtaining over $300,000 in PPP loans for themselves, including one application that falsely claimed he was a veteran and an African American.

Reis took a plea deal on Monday and will be sentenced in November.

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UCLA library user borrowed rare Chinese manuscripts, returned fakes, DOJ says

A UCLA library user who allegedly took home rare Chinese manuscripts and returned fake ones in their place has been charged with stealing items worth $216,000, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Jeffery Ying used a number of aliases to get access to the classics works, some of them over 600 years old, the DOJ said.

Ying, 38, would check the works out and return days later with dummy manuscripts, and would frequently travel to China shortly thereafter, charging documents say.

“The library noticed that several rare Chinese manuscripts were missing, and an initial investigation revealed the books were last viewed by a visitor who identified himself as ‘Alan Fujimori,'” the DOJ said.

When detectives raided the Los Angeles area hotel where Ying was staying, they found blank manuscripts in the style of the books that had been checked out.

“Law enforcement also found pre-made labels known as asset tags associated with the same manuscripts that could be used to create ‘dummy’ books to return to the library in place of the original books,” the department alleged.

Libraries allow rare, one-of-a-kind works to be examined on-site, but they can’t be taken home like regular paperbacks.

Ying, from Fremont, in the San Francisco Bay Area, was also found to have a number of library cards in different names.

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