Posts tagged fraud

A few weeks ago, I was trying to call Cuba. I got an error message—which, okay, international telephone codes are long and my fingers are clumsy—but the phone oddly started dialing again before I could hang up. A voice answered. It had a British accent and it was reading: “…the moon was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine…” Apparently, I had somehow called into an audiobook of The War of the Worlds. Suspicious of my clumsy fingers, I double-checked the number. It was correct (weird), but I tried the number again, figuring that at worst, I’d learn what happened after the Martians took away the excavating machine. This time, I got the initial error message and the call disconnected. No Martians.

via http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/12/cuban-telephone-fraud/509006/?single_page=true

Daniel Rigmaiden is the man who first discovered Stingray while he was in prison facing charges of tax fraud. In an attempt to live off the grid, Rigmaiden had concocted a scheme where he would file tax returns for dead people. He did so for quite a while — making sure to cover his tracks — and was able to rake in thousands of dollars. Despite his intense meticulousness to details, Rigmaiden was ultimately caught by the authorities. Yet he didn’t understand how they became hip to his ways. He used a slew of fake IDs, maintained almost no public identity, and even lived in the woods. The only weak link, he thought, was the cellular AirCard he used to access the internet. But, given that he only used fake identities and anonymized his web browsing, Rigmaiden did not understand how they tracked him down. And so he began to research.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-daniel-rigmaiden-discovered-stingray-spying-technology–2015–6?op=1?r=US&IR=T

Here are the criminal indictment and Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against Martin Shkreli, who was arrested today not for jacking up prices for lifesaving drugs, not for buying the only copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album and not listening to it, not for being generally vile on Twitter and in interviews, but just for garden-variety securities fraud. Here’s how the indictment describes the early going at Shkreli’s second hedge fund, MSMB Capital

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015–12–17/martin-shkreli-accused-of-being-surprisingly-good-at-fraud

On Monday, the Justice Department charged Carl Mark Force IV, a former DEA agent with 15 years of service at the agency, and Shaun Bridges, 32, with committing numerous instances of fraud while playing lead roles in the investigation into Silk Road, the infamous illicit marketplace that sold drugs, guns, and other goods on the so-called “darknet.”

http://fusion.net/story/111691/a-dea-agent-investigating-silk-road-was-allegedly-posing-as-a-hitman-while-working-as-a-thief/