Tag: fraud

Once China’s Richest Man, Evergrande Founder Hui Ka Yan Gets Life In Prison — And The Property Crisis Rolls On

Hui Ka Yan, the founder and once richest man in China of property developer China Evergrande Group, has been sentenced to life in prison for fraud and bribery in one of the biggest corporate collapses in history.

Hui Ka Yan, the chairman of Evergrande Property Services, was found guilty of fraud by a Chinese court on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison, along with a number of other defendants, including his two sons. Xu Tenghe and Xu Zhijian were also found guilty of crimes committed as part of the business dealings of their father.

He was arrested in 2023 while abroad after he had pleaded guilty in April 2023 to multiple counts brought against him as the former chairman of the now-bankrupt property developer including dishonesty offenses and the misuse of funds. He was at one stage the world’s richest man and was the number one ranked person in China’s rich list, compiled by China’s rich list magazine Fortune China, which ranked individuals by their estimated net worth.

Evergrande became the symbol of China’s massive property market financed by massive amounts of debt that eventually collapsed under the weight of Beijing’s tighter leverage rules. Its highly publicized default in 2021 triggered a massive systemic crisis in China’s entire property sector and got the attention of investors worldwide, from Hong Kong to New York.

The liquidation of Evergrande Group’s Hong Kong incorporated entity was ordered by a Hong Kong court in early 2024. As a consequence, Evergrande Group was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the meantime, the Chinese mainland regulators and liquidators are trying to recover the large amounts of dividends and assets, which were distributed to Hui Ka Yan and his family members during the boom years.

In other news, China’s onshore bankruptcy proceedings against the mainland entity of Evergrande’s Hong Kong listed subsidiary have been launched this week and will complicate recovery for international creditors.

The severe sentence handed down to Hui Ka Yan, once China’s richest man, will be seen as a warning to the rest of the country’s business leaders that they will be held accountable for the debts that have so destabilized the economy. The developers are responsible for the mess left by Evergrande’s collapse, and for the hundreds of thousands of homebuyers left in the lurch – many still waiting in their half-finished apartments for the homes they had paid for in full.

China’s real estate market, once accounting for some 25% of China’s total GDP, continues to be a drag on the country’s broader economy with no end in sight to the downturn in home prices in major cities. China is prioritizing accountability over bailouts in the sector, believing that by putting the worst perpetrators of the crisis behind bars, they can restore confidence in the property market.

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Mortgage program for low-income funded 2nd homes for millionaires

The Department of Agriculture’s Section 502 loan programs help low-income families buy homes with mortgages that don’t require a down payment. But in 2013, an investigation by Reuters found dozens of millionaires took advantage to purchase vacation and rental homes.

Though the millionaires later repaid their loans, the program as a whole covered $500 million in losses from defaults in 2013, or $715 million in today’s money.

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.

Coburn’s Wastebook 2013 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $30 billion, including the loans for millionaires.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

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IT’S OFFICIAL: California Governor Gavin Newsom Signs “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into Law – Journalists Can Now Be FINED and JAILED for Uncovering Democrat Fraud

The formerly great state of California took a giant step toward becoming a complete leftist dictatorship with a new law that completely destroys the 1st Amendment.

As The New York Post reported, Governor Gavin Newsom officially signed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into law on Saturday. This comes just days after a leftist operative interrupted an interview the independent journalist was conducting at the State Capitol and launched a disgusting and bizarre personal attack against him.

The legislation, which officially takes effect on October 1, 2027, passed the Senate on Tuesday and cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday.

The “Stop Nick Shirley Act” was introduced by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, who is married to California’s far-left Attorney General, Rob Bonta. AB 2624 claims to expand California’s “Safe at Home” confidentiality program to safeguard “immigration support service providers” from harassment.

But in reality, this is a disgusting Democrat power grab designed to silence brave conservative citizen journalists like Shirley who expose the rampant fraud bleeding American taxpayers dry in government-funded immigrant service centers.

For example, Shirley has exposed over $110 million in alleged Somali-run daycare fraud in Minnesota — empty “learning centers” billing taxpayers while no children were present.

He then followed up with a shocking exposé on California daycare and hospice fraud schemes. This included ghost operations in Los Angeles tied to massive looting of Medi-Cal and Medicare.

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Derek Chauvin’s Attorney Makes ‘Bombshell’ Motion to Dismiss, Alleging ‘Fraudulent’ Conduct by Tim Walz and Keith Ellison

Attorneys for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin filed a petition Tuesday seeking a dismissal of the state murder charges against him, arguing that it was unlawful for Gov. Tim Walz to assign Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to prosecute the case

In April 2021, Chauvin, 50, was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd in police custody in May 2020. Video showed that Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for over 9 minutes.

An autopsy revealed that there was both fentanyl and methamphetamine in the man’s system, which may have been contributing factors to his death. Floyd would not comply with police orders to stay in the squad car, prompting Chauvin to eventually get on top of him and put a knee on his neck to subdue him.

Chauvin is currently serving a state sentence of 22 years, in addition to a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, The Hill reported.

The former police officer’s latest petition seeking to get his conviction overturned was filed with the Minnesota Court of Appeals. That court has denied two previous petitions by Chauvin.

Chauvin’s attorneys argued in their Tuesday filing that Walz’s assignment of the case to Ellison was “illegitimate” and therefore violated their client’s due process rights.

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I’m Sorry, The Feds Wasted HOW MANY TRILLIONS in Improper Payments?

Instead of drawing out the big mystery over how much of your money Washington wastes on improper payments, I’ll just tell you right up front: In the 20 years between 2003 and 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the total money blown on payments made in error, or in the wrong amount, or with no documentation (!!!) is $2.7 TRILLION.

That’s a two followed by a seven followed by 11 zeroes. That’s almost double what we spent last year on Medicare/Medicaid combined, or on Social Security. It’s triple last year’s defense budget. It’s almost triple the unconscionable amount we spent last year just servicing Washington’s outstanding debt.

It is almost exactly the same amount Washington collected last year in personal income taxes. And if that doesn’t make your blood boil, you must be reading this inside a walk-in freezer, chewing on a mouthful of Lopressor.

The incomprehensible numbers come from a Cicero Institute report earlier this year titled “Rebuilding Public Trust by Ensuring Accountability in Government Spending.”

Dream on, right?

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ActBlue Co-Founder Pleads the Fifth During Closed-Door Meeting

The co-founder of the Democrat fundraising powerhouse ActBlue invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a deposition with three key House Committees, according to sources reported by FOX News.

Matt DeBergalis was in and out in under thirty minutes this morning during a deposition with the committees on House Administration, Oversight, and the Judiciary.  The deposition was reportedly over lax fraud prevention standards which may have allowed foreign donations to seep through their filters and into U.S. campaigns.

According to InfluenceWatch.org, DeBergalis is an MIT graduate who created ActBlue in 2004 after a failed bid for city council.

Influence Watch cited a 2007 interview where DeBergalis described ActBlue:

The whole thing is built around using existing social networks: whether they are coworkers asking each other to do things, friends, or existing communities built around e-mail lists or blogs. But we aren’t trying to direct people to give money to any particular place, we’re just trying to facilitate connections that already exist. Our feeling is that everyone has some sphere of influence and that set of people will respond to appeals from a person far more actively and frequently than they will to a top down national advertising campaign. We’re just trying to harness that.

Originally, ActBlue would list every Democrat running for office in a state where ActBlue was active. A user would select which Democrats they wanted to support. The fundraiser would use their social circles and encourage people to donate to that candidate. ActBlue would process the credit card and send the money directly to the candidate or organization. 3

DeBergalis saw ActBlue as a counter to the traditional Republican advantage in direct-mail fundraising, saying, “The other big tool however has been direct mail — it works particularly well for the Republicans, they’ve always had a large advantage in direct fundraising by mail. ActBlue is a nice counter-example: our model, where everyone can use their own language and own pitch for why they’re supporting a candidate, actually works better for the democratic party than for a republican party.” 3

Last month, The Gateway Pundit reported that ActBlue and the DNC allegedly funneled millions through payroll firm Rippling taken from unwitting employees.  The total accounted for approximately $23.3 million in payroll expenditures processed by the DNC.

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200,000 Fake AI ‘Victims’ Deployed To Scam-Bait Online Fraudsters

Australian tech firm Apate deploys a vast array of AI-bot characters worldwide that play the role of gullible scam victims to waste millions of hours of con artists’ time each month.

Hilariously, one of the company’s monthly performance metrics is how many times frustrated scammers swear at the idiot ‘victims’ who are playing dumb and stringing them along.

“I think we’re the only company in the world that is actually keeping as part of their KPIs the number of F-words that scammers are dropping at them,” Apate founder Dali Kaafar tells Magazine with a chuckle. 

The company has a stable of almost 200,000 AI characters that are able to hold convincing phone conversations and to chat on social media and messaging platforms.

”I can tell you that we’re basically servicing, as we call them, hundreds of thousands of calls a day, and pretty much hundreds of thousands of conversations on the other channels,” he says. 

Every hour of a con artist’s time they waste is another hour they’re not scamming a member of the public. In the six weeks up to the end of 2025, Apate’s bots engaged in 600,000 scam calls for a single telco called TPG in Australia. 

“Essentially, we wasted more than five hundred days of scammers’ time,” he explains. “That roughly equates to somewhere around thirteen million dollars being saved.”

The bots’ other goal is to elicit actionable intelligence for banks and telcos to combat scam rings across Australia, Asia, Africa and the UK and Europe.

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Lawless State: California Democrats Pass ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ – Journalists will Be Fined THOU$ANDS For Recording and Exposing Fraud Inside Immigration Support Service Providers

California Democrats on Wednesday passed AB 2624, dubbed the ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ by Republicans. The bill, introduced by Democrat Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, restricts the release of investigative videos exposing immigration support service providers.

Mia Bonta is married to California’s radical far-left Attorney General Rob Bonta.

The California Democrats got to work on AB 2624 earlier this year after investigative journalist Nick Shirley exposed rampant hospice and daycare fraud.

The bill will fine journalists (and regular citizens) a minimum of $4,000 for exposing potential fraud inside certain immigration support service providers.

The bill passed the California Senate on Tuesday and was sent back to the Assembly for final passage on Wednesday.

Governor Newsom is expected to sign the bill.

California Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio blasted the Democrats for passing Mia Bonta’s bill.

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Minnesota “Outstanding Refugee” Award Recipient Gets Busted for Defrauding Medicaid By OVER $1 MILLION with Help of Individuals Connected to Sex-Trafficking Ring

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, a refugee once celebrated by the State of Minnesota turned out to be less than upstanding.

KMSP reported on Monday that Salman Ahmed Elmi, who was honored as an “outstanding refugee” by the Minnesota Department of Human Services, has been busted for defrauding Medicaid by over $1 million.

By that’s not all. Police say that Elmi’s alleged co-conspirators at Reva Health in Golden Valley have connections to a recent sex trafficking case.

Here’s the background on the case from KMSP:

Elmi is accused of billing Medicaid for more than $1 million in services that were not provided or not eligible. Reva Health provided autism services and adult rehabilitative mental health services.

Elmi and the other co-conspirators are accused of falsifying documents to get Medicaid reimbursements. Prosecutors say other co-conspirators directed staff to pay kickbacks to people to use their information for claims.

The charges state two people involved in the fraud enterprise, former Anoka County prosecutor Andrea Sampson and Frank Devone Reeves, were also involved in a sex trafficking ring that was busted in Hennepin County last week.

Individuals charged in the case face a slew of charges, and on Monday, authorities said there could be many more victims who suffered as a result of that case.

KMSP notes that in addition to being named an “outstanding refugee,” the State of Minnesota also honored Elmi with an Entrepreneurship Award in 2021.

Elmi is the founder and part-owner of the Minneapolis-based startup Tavolo, which received funding from Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary. Tavolo is an AI marketing app for restaurants.

Elmi then used the honor of being a part-owner of the Minneapolis-based startup Tavolo to secure the loan to start Reva Health.

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Democrat Massachusetts Mayor Arrested on Fraud and Money Laundering Charges – Used $1.6 Million in Covid Loans as Personal Slush Fund to Pay Off Mortgages

A Democrat Massachusetts mayor was arrested and charged on Friday with fraudulently obtaining over $1.5 million in Covid business loans.

The Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Brian Depena, used the proceeds from Covid small-business loans to fund his campaign, pay his personal taxes and pay off nearly $900,000 in high-interest, hard-money mortgages on his properties, according to the Department of Justice.

According to the charging documents during the pandemic back in 2020 and 2021, Depena applied for a taxpayer-funded Covid-era Economic Injury Disaster Loans (“EIDL”) for his tire business.

The EIDL loans must be used as working capital to provide relief to businesses that suffered economic losses during Covid.

However, Depena used the Covid loans to fund his struggling campaign, pay off two high-interest mortgages, and pay back taxes.

Per the DOJ:

Depena allegedly caused Tenares Tire to apply for and obtain an EIDL in the amount of $150,000 in June 2020 and then used the majority of those funds as working capital for the business. However, according to the charging documents, Depena needed cash by early 2021. It is alleged that his mayoral campaign was struggling to pay bills, he owed the IRS for back taxes and he owed almost $900,000 to two private, hard money lenders who were charging Depena 12% and 8% interest – significantly more than the EIDL rate of 3.75% – on loans that encumbered various properties Depena owned in Lawrence.

In April 2021, Depena allegedly caused a request for an increase of the Tenares Tire EIDL. On July 14, 2021, the SBA approved an increase of the loan by $350,000, bringing the total Tenares Tire EIDL to $500,000. However, the SBA did not release the funds for another month. While waiting, Depena allegedly sent the following texts (originally in Spanish, here translated to English) to his accountant and financial advisor, who had been assisting Depena with the EIDL application and modification.

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