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A Michigan man who defrauded the Veterans Administration to get disability benefits has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay massive restitution.
Man sent to prison after faking injuries to get $265K in benefits from U.S. Veterans Affairs

A military veteran who claimed he lost the use of his legs and left hand to obtain benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been sentenced to five years in prison on fraud charges.

The government said that Joseph Gray, 53, of Lawton, was seen walking, even carrying a heavy bag of cat food on his shoulder, and using his left hand.

He was convicted by a U.S. District Court jury of conspiracy to defraud the government, making a false statement to the VA, theft of government funds and making a false, fictitious or fraudulent claim.

He was sentenced this week by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker to five years in prison and ordered to pay $264,631.51 in restitution.

His wife, Paula Gray, 53, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government, making false statements to the VA, and making a false, fictitious or fraudulent claim. She was sentenced to three years on probation and ordered to pay the same restitution. ...

On Oct. 26, 2017, Gray showed up in a wheelchair for an examination at the Battle Creek VA Medical Center, the government said.

He said he had not walked in 10 years and could not use his left hand. But he was seen minutes later walking into a restaurant and holding leftovers in his left hand on the way out, federal prosecutors said. ...

His acquaintances told investigators they had not seen Gray in a wheelchair except for his VA appointments ...
FULL STORY: https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazo...65k-in-benefits-from-us-veterans-affairs.html
 
Update.

Five years after claiming she was kidnapped and abused, a California woman has admitted in court that she faked the entire thing.

... Prosecutors say the faked kidnapping wasn't impulsive, and that she planned it. Papini is ordered to pay more than $30,000 worth of psychiatric treatment for which she billed a state victim compensation fund and which is now part of her restitution. Aside from the victim compensation, she must also repay nearly $128,000 in disability payments, according to the Associated Press.

"I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me," Papini said in a statement released by her attorney, William Portanova, reported earlier by Newsweek. "I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done."

Papini faces up to 25 in prison or additional fines of up to $250,000. She is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

https://www.newsweek.com/ashamed-sherri-papini-pleads-guilty-faking-abduction-1698775

Update.

A California woman who faked her own high-profile kidnapping has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for making false statements to the FBI.

Sherri Papini, 39, went missing in November 2016 after going for a run. She appeared three weeks later on Thanksgiving claiming two Hispanic women had kidnapped her, sparking a multi-state manhunt. The FBI later concluded she was staying at an ex-boyfriend's house and had injured herself as part of the scheme.

In a US District Court in Sacramento on Monday, Papini apologised, saying she was guilty of lying and "dishonour".

"I am so sorry to the many people who have suffered because of me - the people who sacrificed for the broken woman I was, the people who gave willingly to help me in a time that I so desperately needed help," she said, reading from a prepared statement. I am choosing to humbly accept all responsibility."

Under an April deal with prosecutors, Papini pleaded guilty to one count each of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud.
In a sentencing memo, Papini's lawyer William Portanova blamed the hoax on her "painful early years [that] twisted and froze her in myriad ways".

Mr Portanova had asked for minimal prison time, telling the court the humiliation of her actions would be its own life sentence. In exchange for Papini's guilty plea, prosecutors sought a lighter sentence - between eight and 14 months in custody - far below the 25 year maximum she could have faced.

Papini also agreed to pay $300,000 (£231,000), part of which will cover the costs of the police investigation. She will also spend three years under supervised custody after her release from jail.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62957627
 
A "self-taught pathology assistant" who illegally performed autopsies for a fee has been convicted and fined more than US $700,000. He's still facing wire fraud charges relating to bilking over 300 people out of fees for autopsies that didn't result in reports being issued to the contracting clients. ...

Update ... Parcells has now been sentenced to over 5 years in prison for wire fraud.
Kansas man sentenced to more than 5 years for performing illegal autopsies

A Kansas man has been sentenced to five years and nine months after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud connected to performing an illegal autopsy, the US Department of Justice said.

Shawn Lynn Parcells, 42, of Topeka, used his business National Autopsy Services LLC to “obtain fees from more than 350 clients for a total amount of $1,166,000,” according to court documents, the DOJ said in a release Monday. “In many cases, the defendant failed to provide an authentic completed report.”

In the case he pleaded guilty to in May, Parcells used false credentials to convince a client he was qualified to conduct an autopsy, the DOJ said in a release. Parcells received $5,000 and gave the client an emailed copy of a final report that appeared to be written by Parcells, but no pathologist took part in the exam or report, the release said. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/20/us/shawn-parcells-sentenced-illegal-autopsies/index.html
 

“Pig butchering,’ a crypto scam costing investors millions


So-called “pig butchering” is when a scammer builds up trust with their victims before eventually pressuring them to deposit more and more of their crypto assets into bogus digital wallets or websites controlled by the scammer.

The name refers to how scammers “feed their victims with promises of romance and riches before cutting them off and taking all their money,” according to an FBI report.

And you may have already encountered the latest iteration of this scheme.
″‘Pig butchering’ scammers usually send a message via Whatsapp, text or another app like Tinder, as if it was intended for someone else, often with an attractive person’s profile photo.”

Instead of asking for a large sum of money up front, the scammers slowly work to convince their targets to move their cryptocurrency away from legitimate exchanges and onto fraudulent websites controlled by the scammer that look like authentic trading platforms.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/pig-butchering-crypto-scam-costing-investors-millions.html

maximus otter
 
Ian Brown fans somewhat disappointed

He turned up for £40-a-ticket gig in Leeds with no band, just backing tracks, & entertained with some of the most out-of-tune karaoke style ‘singing’ you could ever wish to hear.

Short video at link.

He played an open air gig near me a few years ago & I caught a bit of the set from outside. His singing was no more in tune then. Dreadful.
 
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/tech/meta-china-russia-influence-campaigns/index.html
Facebook parent company Meta announced Tuesday it had detected and shut down two separate networks of fake accounts engaged in covert influence operations run from China and Russia.


The Chinese network was small and received barely any attention, but it did include some accounts that posed as Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, according to a Meta report released Tuesday. Meta publicly detailed the takedown as it remains on high alert for foreign interference in the US midterm elections, a Meta spokesperson told CNN. Ben Nimmo, Meta’s global threat intelligence lead, told CNN it was the first time the company had seen Chinese accounts targeting Americans in this way. “They were running fake accounts that pretended to be Americans and try to talk like Americans and they were talking about really divisive domestic issues like abortion and gun control,” he said.


The company has shared details of the Chinese accounts with the FBI, a Meta spokesperson said.


The Russian campaign, on the other hand, was vast. It pushed pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, included thousands of accounts and pages across multiple social media platforms and spent more than $100,000 on ads on Facebook and Instagram.


Meta did not attribute either campaign to specific entities within China or Russia, or to the Chinese and Russian governments, instead saying only the accounts that were part of the campaigns were run out of the respective countries.
 
Ian Brown fans somewhat disappointed

He turned up for £40-a-ticket gig in Leeds with no band, just backing tracks, & entertained with some of the most out-of-tune karaoke style ‘singing’ you could ever wish to hear.

Short video at link.

He played an open air gig near me a few years ago & I caught a bit of the set from outside. His singing was no more in tune then. Dreadful.
That's it, I'm dusting off my Stone Roses albums and having a listen. It's been a while.
 
Making money off the fleeing Russians:

“Contact queuing on the Kazakh border for the second day says that locals have a business where they get two cars in the queue and then let people cut in between them. Selling spots for $500 and can do as many as they want. “So you get why I’ve been here two days,” he says.” Link here.
 
A distressing con,

A cancer charity boss who put public donations into plans to build a giant Welsh dragon has been ordered by the High Court to pay more than £117,000 to local cancer causes.

Simon Wingett's foundation ran a shop in Wrexham Maelor Hospital. But not one donation was made by the time it closed in 2018, and the dragon was never built.

Mr Wingett invested £410,000 of the charity's earnings into a project for the 210ft sculpture in Chirk, Wrexham. The bronze dragon had planning permission to be erected on a former colliery site near the A5. He had long claimed it would become a tourist attraction to rival well-known landmarks such as the Angel of the North.

His charity, Frank Wingett Cancer Relief, was set up by his father to buy equipment and resources for cancer patients in Wrexham and the surrounding area, after he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1980s. Its last payment in 2011 to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board was for £4,500.

Following an investigation by the Charity Commission, which began in 2017, Mr Wingett was banned from acting as a trustee of any charity for 10 years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-63071584
 
Fake CISO Profiles On LinkedIn Target Fortune 500s

Security researcher Brian Krebs writes: Someone has recently created a large number of fake LinkedIn profiles for Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles at some of the world's largest corporations. It's not clear who's behind this network of fake CISOs or what their intentions may be. But the fabricated LinkedIn identities are confusing search engine results for CISO roles at major companies, and they are being indexed as gospel by various downstream data-scraping sources. [...] Rich Mason, the former CISO at Fortune 500 firm Honeywell, began warning his colleagues on LinkedIn about the phony profiles earlier this week. "It's interesting the downstream sources that repeat LinkedIn bogus content as truth," Mason said. "This is dangerous, Apollo.io, Signalhire, and Cybersecurity Ventures." [...]

Again, we don't know much about who or what is behind these profiles, but in August the security firm Mandiant (recently acquired by Google) told Bloomberg that hackers working for the North Korean government have been copying resumes and profiles from leading job listing platforms LinkedIn and Indeed, as part of an elaborate scheme to land jobs at cryptocurrency firms. None of the profiles listed here responded to requests for comment (or to become a connection).

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/09/fake-ciso-profiles-on-linkedin-target-fortune-500s/
 
Quite a con artist.

Florist, solicitor, publican, horse trader... Buttevant woman Catherine O'Brien has had many guises, but they all have one thing in common — an ability to make people believe they can make money with her. Ann Murphy follows the trail of destruction left in the wanted woman's wake

... There is nothing ordinary about Catherine O’Brien, a woman described by neighbours as someone who kept herself to herself, and who did not mingle with others in the estate. She is known to many as Catherine, while those who thought themselves close to her call her Kate or Katie. She is ultimately a Walter Mitty-type character, someone with many different personas.

One neighbour, who has been living just a few doors down from Catherine’s for two years, says she has never seen her. Another who knows her vaguely says she has not been seen for several months.

He says gardaí have also been looking for her and says that there have been people in and out of the house in the months since Catherine was last seen. They include an older man, and two women.

Currently the whereabouts of Catherine O’Brien are not known. But she is a wanted woman. Many people are convinced that she is lying low, with just a few trusted people knowing of her whereabouts.

Given that the plaque on the wall outside her front door shows two horses, there is a certain irony in the fact that horses have helped played a role in her downfall.

The Buttevant native is currently the subject of a bench warrant issued at Gorey district court in June of last year, following her conviction on 34 counts of animal cruelty under the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013. This related to the seizure of thoroughbred horses in a malnourished state in Ballygarrett in Wexford in 2019. ...

Catherine, who has two grown-up daughters, also failed to turn up in court in February for a Proceeds of Crime hearing in the High Court in Dublin. A decision was made in favour of the Criminal Assets Bureau, allowing the retention by the State of a 2015-registered Land Rover Discovery. ...

Although she did not go on to become a solicitor, she has previously let people believe she is a solicitor or legal mediator, even providing legal advice to some. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40988198.html
 
Free accommodation for a year.

For almost a year, William Curry, a recent high school graduate from Vestavia Hills, Alabama, pretended to be a student at the prestigious Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and lived in multiple dorms during that time. Last week, he was caught residing in a dorm basement. According to the Stanford Daily, the university was aware of Curry and booted him from campus multiple times, but he kept returning, and that he also allegedly harassed multiple students. From the Stanford Daily:

[In January 2002,] living just a thousand or so feet away from where he was initially caught, Curry introduced himself as a transfer student from Duke University. He began to integrate himself into campus social life, creating a Tinder account and spending time with various groups of students, according to Murray House residents.

https://boingboing.net/2022/11/02/m...anford-student-lived-in-dorms-for-a-year.html
 
One of my Facebook contacts (Joanne Lee) writes:

Over on Twitter in recent days, I have been gripped by the so-called ‘#receptiogate' scandal, in which an expert on medieval manuscripts called out another ‘scholar’ for plagiarism and brought down a house of cards involving a faked research institute website populated with fictional staff made from stock photography and photoshopped interiors. The further uncovering of a whole series of unacknowledged sources in the scholar’s publications result in threats, doxxing, Twitterbots, weird AI generated emails and much more. It is rather as if the late Umberto Eco had been at work crafting an updated fiction.
 
This might be the wrong place to ask this but are the identity theft bureaus like' Lifelock 'worth it or not?
Or is it enough to just be very careful with who you give your private info to both on and offline?
And who are the most suceptible to indentity theft,,is there a certain targeted group...?
 
This might be the wrong place to ask this but are the identity theft bureaus like' Lifelock 'worth it or not?
Or is it enough to just be very careful with who you give your private info to both on and offline?
And who are the most suceptible to indentity theft,,is there a certain targeted group...?
I don't know anything specific as to the effectiveness of identity theft protection. I do know that anyone can be scammed. It just takes the right circumstances. Usually when you are dealing with a crisis, minor or otherwise, and are distracted enough to not really put thought into what you are being told or what you are being asked.

There are many online videos where people (usually called white hats) show how easy it is to get personal information from people.

Years ago, I saw a tv episode (Marketplace on CBC, I think) where a stranger, with a clipboard, came up to random people and asked if they'd take a survey. The questions asked were:
what is your mother's maiden name,
what high school did you go to
what is your pet's name.

People unquestioningly answered. These are all security questions that are used to "protect" online users.

The person collecting the information then showed the people how easy it was to get their personal information.

I've seen this happen in another program where the person called the bank, utility or whatever to say that they couldn't get into their online account and requesting a password change. They were able to do this with only a little information.

Identity theft can be done at both ends - user and agency. It is only as secure as the people involved. So, you need to stay vigilant.
 
I don't know anything specific as to the effectiveness of identity theft protection. I do know that anyone can be scammed. It just takes the right circumstances. Usually when you are dealing with a crisis, minor or otherwise, and are distracted enough to not really put thought into what you are being told or what you are being asked.

There are many online videos where people (usually called white hats) show how easy it is to get personal information from people.

Years ago, I saw a tv episode (Marketplace on CBC, I think) where a stranger, with a clipboard, came up to random people and asked if they'd take a survey. The questions asked were:
what is your mother's maiden name,
what high school did you go to
what is your pet's name.

People unquestioningly answered. These are all security questions that are used to "protect" online users.

The person collecting the information then showed the people how easy it was to get their personal information.

I've seen this happen in another program where the person called the bank, utility or whatever to say that they couldn't get into their online account and requesting a password change. They were able to do this with only a little information.

Identity theft can be done at both ends - user and agency. It is only as secure as the people involved. So, you need to stay vigilant.
I always advise people to never ever give out personal information to people in the street, even if they appear to have some sort of authority. (Police an exception provided their identity is provable). You never know the use they are going to make of it. The same with banks and the like making cold calls. Always as well to never give out for example your mothers real maiden name.
 
As to security questions, I use at least one that I would never have an answer to, such as “what was your first pet’s name?”. Then I make up a fake answer. As long as you know the answer, it’s ok. If, for some reason, the topic comes up in casual conversation, the fake answer would never be given. Also, if the answer is only used to verify you online, ie not spoken, then you can make whatever random set of letters you want.

The funny thing about people is that if someone approaches them with a clipboard, they often give that person some authority.
 
A lot of people seem to be being hit with the text message 'Hi Mum, I've broken my phone and I'm using a new one...' scam, whereby you are persuaded to give 'your child' money, which the scammer then takes.

I am puzzled by this. I mean, I've got all my kids' bank details (sigh, it's quite often necessary). So even were I to be hit with this scam and caught on a bad day, and believed it to be one of my five kids...I'd just transfer the money to their bank account. What is the story that the scammers come up with that persuade the person being scammed to send money to a third-person account?
 
A lot of people seem to be being hit with the text message 'Hi Mum, I've broken my phone and I'm using a new one...' scam, whereby you are persuaded to give 'your child' money, which the scammer then takes.

I am puzzled by this. I mean, I've got all my kids' bank details (sigh, it's quite often necessary). So even were I to be hit with this scam and caught on a bad day, and believed it to be one of my five kids...I'd just transfer the money to their bank account. What is the story that the scammers come up with that persuade the person being scammed to send money to a third-person account?
May be that those people are not familiar with options for transferring money. They obviously don't ask any question that could only be answered by a person who knows them, as part of the identification process.
 
A lot of people seem to be being hit with the text message 'Hi Mum, I've broken my phone and I'm using a new one...' scam, whereby you are persuaded to give 'your child' money, which the scammer then takes.
As a Town Councillor, an email hit the inbox of several fellow councillors from - blatantly fake - the Town Clerk claim to be in a meeting and could they purchase and send several apple vouchers to them.
Cue the mindless terror of 'the system has been hacked!', 'how has this happened?', 'why has this attack been done on **** Town Council?' etc.
I tried explaining to folks; the Town Clerk tried explaining to them. A 'docket' had to be raised with the I.T. firm contracted out to manage our I.T. This I.T. firm used it's fee to tell the councillors that while they'd blocked that particular email, they couldn't actually do anything to stop it; they advised - as I had done before - not to reply but ignore and delete such blatant stupidity.
One particularly self-important councillor (not me honestly) still demanded the Town Clerk 'how had this security breach' had happened and what were the motives? :thought:
 
As a Town Councillor, an email hit the inbox of several fellow councillors from - blatantly fake - the Town Clerk claim to be in a meeting and could they purchase and send several apple vouchers to them.
Cue the mindless terror of 'the system has been hacked!', 'how has this happened?', 'why has this attack been done on **** Town Council?' etc.
I tried explaining to folks; the Town Clerk tried explaining to them. A 'docket' had to be raised with the I.T. firm contracted out to manage our I.T. This I.T. firm used it's fee to tell the councillors that while they'd blocked that particular email, they couldn't actually do anything to stop it; they advised - as I had done before - not to reply but ignore and delete such blatant stupidity.
One particularly self-important councillor (not me honestly) still demanded the Town Clerk 'how had this security breach' had happened and what were the motives? :thought:
That's kind of like when people get the "computer has a virus" popup and think it's already on the computer. Not if you don't click on the link.

People, in general, don't seem to understand some basic concepts of how computers can and are hacked. They aren't interested in learning about the technology and it's risks to using it. They expect others to prevent these things from happening.

This technology is in your home. Do you want to wait until something happens before you consider finding out how to protect yourself.

When I first started using the internet, I asked questions of people who I knew had experience with it. Now, I often goo*le for information or clarity if I don't understand or am suspicious of something. People seem afraid of asking questions and seeking knowledge:dunno:.
 
That's kind of like when people get the "computer has a virus" popup and think it's already on the computer. Not if you don't click on the link.

People, in general, don't seem to understand some basic concepts of how computers can and are hacked. They aren't interested in learning about the technology and it's risks to using it. They expect others to prevent these things from happening.

This technology is in your home. Do you want to wait until something happens before you consider finding out how to protect yourself.

When I first started using the internet, I asked questions of people who I knew had experience with it. Now, I often goo*le for information or clarity if I don't understand or am suspicious of something. People seem afraid of asking questions and seeking knowledge:dunno:.
It's like the people on Facebook sending 'warning' messages - if you friend this or that person they will get into your computer and steal ALL YOUR INFORMATION. It's not quite that easy, and that's not why they are trying to 'Friend' you - the scam will be more subtle than that.
 
A lot of people seem to be being hit with the text message 'Hi Mum, I've broken my phone and I'm using a new one...' scam, whereby you are persuaded to give 'your child' money, which the scammer then takes.

I am puzzled by this. I mean, I've got all my kids' bank details (sigh, it's quite often necessary). So even were I to be hit with this scam and caught on a bad day, and believed it to be one of my five kids...I'd just transfer the money to their bank account. What is the story that the scammers come up with that persuade the person being scammed to send money to a third-person account?
My sister got caught with one of these scams. She got a txt from her daughter from a new number. The story was her daughter’s phone had broken she’d had to get another quickly. She didn’t have her banking set up on it yet & had to pay a bill quickly - could my sister pay her bill by transferring money to the third party.

Amazingly my sister transferred the money to the tune of around £800 to this 3rd party. She went to her bank to do it & the bank queried as to was she sure about it etc.

Dunno what it says about my sister… Her bank actually refunded about half the money after a while.
 
It is amazing how people will fall for scams despite warnings from banks. I would have spoken to offspring to ensure that it was actually them. Having said that I don't give out my mobile number even to companies that state it's "required" information. (in that case I just give out a made up number.)
 
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