Tag: theft

Oklahoma Sheriff Got a Judge to Title a Stolen ATV to His Office the Same Day, Then Cited Repair Costs for Keeping It

Stacey McCurry of Stillwater, Oklahoma, is suing the Grady County Sheriff’s Office for an ATV that was stolen in Payne County in 2020. The office’s reason for not handing it back, as KGOU reported it, is that a judge has already titled the machine to the county and the county paid to fix it.

The ATV surfaced in Grady County in 2021, according to KGOU. On June 9, 2025, Sheriff Gary Boggess filed a handwritten petition saying it was unclaimed and on a list to be destroyed, and a judge granted the sheriff’s office title the same day, KGOU reported. McCurry learned where the ATV was this year, when it was flagged in the National Crime Information Center, the FBI-run database police agencies use to check for stolen vehicles and other property, and the Payne County sheriff’s office called. Grady County turned down the request to return it. Undersheriff Kori Brewer said the title had already been transferred and the office had spent tax money repairing the ATV, KGOU reported.

McCurry filed McCurry v. Grady County Sheriff, No. CJ-2026-00297, in Grady County District Court in Chickasha on Aug. 28. The docket lists a petition for replevin, conversion and a request for an order to stay, and classes it as civil relief of more than $10,000. Replevin is the suit an owner files to get a specific piece of property back. Conversion is the claim that someone treated that property as their own.

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‘Super Intelligence’ Fraud Ring Impersonated CEOs And Lawyers To Steal $129 Million, Feds Say

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an indictment Thursday charging three foreign nationals with using what they call “super intelligence” to mimic the voices and images of corporate chief executives and big-firm lawyers, and so talk employees at companies around the world into wiring about $129 million, according to the Justice Department.

Jacob Soall, 41, of Marbella, Spain, and the United Kingdom, was arrested in Spain on June 17. Sharon Hazan, 54, of Israel, was arrested in Spain on Aug. 5, and Guy Sheetrit, 42, of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, was arrested in the United Kingdom on Sept. 7. Extradition requests for all three are pending. The release also lists aliases: Soall as “Seba Clarke” and “Rocky Balboa,” Hazan as “Superman Cash,” “Impossible Mission,” “Fat Boy” and “Ron.”

The scheme ran from 2024 to 2026, prosecutors say. The crew allegedly opened with a call to an employee in which a faked voice of the company’s CEO asked for help on a confidential financial transaction, then steered the employee to “lawyers at large international law firms” who were supposedly working on the deal. Those lawyers were fakes too. One of them would finally tell the employee to wire a large sum to an account the conspirators controlled.

The release puts the haul at more than $129 million from “Victim Companies all over the United States and the world,” and lists six examples totaling about $31.9 million: $11.6 million from a U.K. financial technology company, $5.2 million from a Florida pet food company, $4.8 million from a Missouri hospital system, $4.6 million from a Massachusetts mutual fund company, $3.0 million from a California hospital system and $2.7 million from a Rhode Island bank.

The money did not stay where it landed. Prosecutors say the victims’ wires went to accounts in the United States, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Austria, Slovakia and China, and the conspirators then converted the cash to cryptocurrency to hide its source and split it among themselves.

Soall, according to the release, mainly played the British lawyer, working from a handwritten script titled “Lawyer Call” that included language to convince victims not to discuss the calls with colleagues. Hazan and Sheetrit are accused of laundering the proceeds. Hazan allegedly boasted that he had been laundering money since 1994, had laundered over $400 million in the past three years and was “number one all over the world” among professional launderers. Hazan was convicted in the Southern District of New York of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in 2008.

Each man faces seven counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud (20 years each), two counts of aggravated identity theft (two years each), and money laundering conspiracy and two money laundering counts (20 years each). The release notes that Congress sets those maximums and a judge decides any sentence. The charges are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said the technology “offers tremendous potential,” but that “the public should recognize that there are some who seek to use this emerging technology to pursue criminal goals,” and urged the business community to “consider how to best protect themselves from the emerging threat of SI-enabled crime.” FBI Assistant Director James Barnacle Jr. said criminals “continue to weaponize emerging technologies.” The case is with the office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, and prosecutors thanked Spain’s Policía Nacional and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency for the arrests.

The release does not say how the voices and images were generated, how any victim company’s bank flagged the transfers, or how much of the $129 million has been recovered. It asks anyone who believes they were a victim to use the FBI’s tips page.

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DOJ Charges Kansas Postal Worker for “Stealing Thousands of Pieces of Mail” Including Hundreds of Republican Candidates’ Mailers

The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas said it secured a grand jury indictment for a US postal worker who stole thousands of pieces of mail and hundreds of Republican Party mailers starting in October.

The Kansas postal worker, Kelly R. Cram, 59, faces charges of unlawful seizure, destruction, and delay of mail.

She is accused of stealing more than 4,400 pieces of mail in and around Pittsburg, Kansas, which is part of Congressional District 2. Incumbent Republican Representative Derek Schmidt is in a reelection battle against Democrat Don Coover.

“Nearly 400 political mailers solely related to Republican candidates or Republican Partly affiliated political action committees” were found in her garage, the prosecutor’s office said.

No mailers related to any other parties were found.

The US Attorney’s Office announced in a press release:

WICHITA, KAN. – A federal grand jury in Wichita returned an indictment today charging a Kansas postal worker with stealing thousands of pieces of mail, including hundreds of political mailings that were all related to Republican Party candidates.

According to court documents, Kelly R. Cram, 59, of Baxter Springs, was indicted on one count of unlawful secretion, destruction, and delay of mail.

Beginning in October 2026, Cram is accused of stealing 4,404 pieces of mail that were intended to be delivered to customers in and around Pittsburg, Kansas. Among the mail items she allegedly stole and placed in her garage, were nearly 400 political mailers solely related to Republican candidates or Republican Partly affiliated political action committees. Agents found no mailers related to candidates of any other political party at Cram’s residence.

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“The Height Of Hypocrisy”: Charity Founder Gets Eight Years For Embezzling Millions

The founder of a charity that helped low-income workers cover emergency bills has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for spending millions of dollars in donations on himself. Keith Taylor, 59, of New York, founded Modest Needs around 2002, and U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon sentenced him, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday. He pleaded guilty in August 2025 to defrauding the charity and its donors and to evading more than $1 million in federal income taxes.

Modest Needs was a 501(c)(3) that used crowd-sourced funding to help people living paycheck to paycheck with unexpected costs such as medical bills or a broken appliance. Prosecutors say Taylor embezzled more than $2.5 million from the charity and its donors since at least 2015 and used it to fund his own lifestyle.

The list of what the money bought is the heart of the case. Taylor regularly ate at Per Se, Jean-Georges, Masa and Marea, sometimes twice a day, and spent more than $320,000 of charity funds at New York restaurants and steakhouses. Donations also paid over $300,000 of the rent on a 30th-floor apartment in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper, more than $100,000 to food delivery services, and bills for his electronics and his own medical care. Another $270,000 went straight into his personal brokerage account.

“Keith Taylor embezzled millions from a charity for low-income families to pay for his own lavish lifestyle,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said. “This is the height of hypocrisy.” He added that Taylor “shattered the trust of those who believed in the mission of the charity, denying essential help to vulnerable individuals and families in genuine need.”

Taylor was arrested in June 2024, and prosecutors say the spending did not stop. He purportedly resigned and was barred from the charity’s bank accounts as a condition of pretrial release, yet he kept using its money for meals, medical expenses and the rent on the luxury apartment, in violation of those conditions.

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FBI Says North Korea Behind $6 Billion Binance Heist

It’s official – for what it’s worth: North Korea “was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion USD in virtual assets” from Binance on Thursday, according to a Saturday FBI cyber alert. The agency says says Kim Jong Un’s ‘TraderTraitor’ hacking operation was responsible.

As we reported Thursday, TRM Labs and Chainalysis blamed N. Korea within a day, while Tether and Circle froze billions in stolen stablecoins. TRM puts the haul at $6.36 billion and calls it the largest hack in history; Chainalysis said its investigators concluded that the Binance loot was “commingling” with funds North Korea from last month’s Bitget exploit.

Working in conjunction with US Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI says it has “observed TraderTraitor actors converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum (ETH),” and that “it is expected these assets will then be further laundered by converting them using DeFi and instant swap services.” It published 628 addresses it says “are holding or have held assets from the theft” – 608 on Ethereum, 19 on Bitcoin and one on Solana.

The agencies are urging “THORNode operators, RPC node operators, instant exchanges, DeFi services, blockchain analytics firms, and other virtual asset service providers to block transactions with or derived from” those addresses. The list may already be falling behind: Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin told CoinDesk the attackers have used “thousands of addresses,” adding, “We anticipate this will become tens of thousands over the coming weeks.”

Binance, meanwhile, insists its customers won’t eat the loss. As we reported last night, the exchange said it had replaced 90% of the roughly $6.3 billion with its own funds, and on Sunday it began reopening withdrawals in phases, starting with the Bitcoin network. Co-CEO Richard Teng put the replenished share at about 95% on Sunday, according to crypto.news.

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Connecticut Democrat State Rep. Arrested for Stealing Opponent’s Campaign Signs – Apple AirTag Tracker Led Investigators to Her Home

State Rep Anne Hughes (D) was charged with larceny after stealing campaign signs belonging to her opponent.

Apple AirTags in the signs led law enforcement to Anne Hughes’ home.

Hughes posted an ‘apology’ to Facebook after she got caught.

“Yesterday I removed lawn signs that shouldn’t have been on public property. I apologize for removing them rather than contacting the police or my opponent’s campaign to remove them, and I take full responsibility and accountability for my actions,” Hughes said.

“Campaigns should be about issues and differences of ideas, not yard signs. I apologize for the distraction, and am committed to having civil discourse with my opponent for the duration of this campaign season,” Anne Hughes said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

State representative Anne Hughes was arrested on Friday after several stolen political signs were located on property owned by Hughes, according to police.

The Easton police department received a complaint from the Darrell Harris campaign staff that several political signs were stolen from the side of the road in the area of Route 59 and Judd Road.

After further investigation, police say that an AirTag tracker showed that at least one of the signs was located on property owned by Hughes.

A follow-up investigation was conducted by police, which led to Hughes returning several signs, including the sign with the AirTag tracker.

Police found probable cause to issue Hughes a misdemeanor summons for sixth-degree larceny.

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The Largest Heist in History: Hackers Steal $6 Billion in Crypto from Binance

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, suspended withdrawals  after hackers stole $6 billion from its digital wallets in what is being described as the biggest financial heist on record.

Axios reports that Binance co-founder Yi He announced on X that the exchange had suspended deposits and withdrawals following the suspected breach. “User funds are safe,” she wrote, adding, “Binance will cover all hacking losses.” Multiple reports put the amount stolen from the exchange at $6 billion in cryptocurrency.

Co-CEO Richard Teng also commented on the issue, saying, “Bottom Line — your money is safe, and we’re covering every loss.”

Binance published an official disclosure of the incident in a post on X. According to the exchange, “Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.”

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What Is The Hope Florida Scandal and What Does It Say About Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: A History Of Treachery

When it comes to corruption in the State of Florida, there is no criminal more guilty than Governor Ron DeSantis, and his wife Casey DeSantis, who stole $10 Million from the poorest of Floridians.

The Hope Florida scandal that has enveloped the DeSantis’ throughout the last year has reached a new fevered pitch as CBS News Miami has leaked the entire grand jury presentment against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis.

The leaks reveal damning evidence that the grand jury found evidence of severe, and even potentially criminal conduct by the First Family as it pertains to the Centene settlement, in which their appointed officials illegally steered $10 Million into Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida charity.

Now the DeSantis’ are trying to cover up the information by suing those attempting to expose this information before the midterm elections.

We will examine the depth of the DeSantis’ treachery as it pertains to their theft of $10 Million later within the article, but first, let’s look at DeSantis’ own statements on the matter.

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Vance fraud task force uncovers $42M in food stamp thefts — including lewd rapper who literally set cash on fire

A Trump administration fraud task force has uncovered nearly $42 million in food stamp funds meant for needy families that were instead stolen to support criminal activities as well as the lavish lifestyle of a rapper with multiple arrests — including for repeatedly exposing himself to pee off his apartment balcony.

Vice President JD Vance and members of the Departments of Justice and Agriculture held a press conference in Cincinnati Wednesday highlighting the cases involving more than 40 defendants operating schemes that bilked the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and related programs.

“Two-hundred twenty thousand Americans could’ve eaten for the entire month of October if it were not for this $42 million in fraud,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said. “We’ve indicted men and women in 13 different districts just in the past seven weeks, and that effort will continue for as long as it takes.”

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Dem Kissimmee mayor arrested on grand theft, fraud charges: AG Uthmeier

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Wednesday that earlier in the morning, Democrat Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa had been arrested. He said his office was charging her with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud.

Details on the case are currently limited. Uthmeier said that a press conference would be held at 2 pm to provide further details.

Per WESH, a special prosecutor found probable cause earlier in 2026 to initiate impeachment proceedings against Espinosa, alleging that she had withheld public funds and failed to disclose personal interests. She was accused of disbursing $50,000 in grants to businesses that had been owned by her and her family. It is unclear if her arrest is connected to these allegations.

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