Blog posts with "conspiracy"

“European banking giant Credit Suisse has pleaded guilty to helping American clients avoid paying taxes by concealing assets in illegal, undeclared bank accounts — becoming the largest bank to plead guilty to a criminal charge in 20 years,” as reported by Democracy Now, which described the plea deal as follows: Credit Suisse will pay about $2.6 billion in penalties and hire an independent monitor. But the bank will not be required to turn over the names of the Americans who used the ba...

According to a recent Department of Justice press release, 107 doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals were charged with $452 million dollars of fraudulent Medicare billing in a single takedown by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force. The health care professionals were accused of fraud-based crimes such as conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, kickback violations, and money laundering relating to “a variety of alleged fraud schemes involving various medical tr...

  In an Orlando Sentinel article by Susan Jacobson entitled Elderly who trusted high- living couple now face nightmares, former clients spoke out about Ross and Linda Littlefield, who were “charged with 10 counts of fraudulently using the Lentzes' credit cards, one count of fraudulently using their personal-identification information and one count of engaging in a scheme to defraud for at least $20,000 but less than $50,000.” Following are excerpts from the article: When her husband's Al...

On June 24, 2011, the law office of Campbell Law P.A. filed a lawsuit for civil damages in the Circuit Court of Osceola County, Florida against disbarred-attorney Linda Vasquez Littlefield based on allegations that she and her former husband, Ross Littlefield, operated a criminal enterprise that defrauded elderly clients out of their life savings. Campbell Law brought this suit on behalf of individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia, as well as their representatives, who claim the ...

Shahin Kashanchi was arrested a couple of days ago on charges of scheming with his brother-in-law Hassan Nemazee to defraud Citibank and HSBC of $290 million. Nemazee was arrested on August 25, 2009 and indicted for using fraudulent documents to secure loans from the victim banks, and executing a ponzi scheme against them by paying partial proceeds of the loans from one bank to the debts owed to the other and likewise.   Many of the fraudulent documents used in Nemazee's scheme were allegedl...

In the headlines is the news that Cisco may be acquiring Skype. Mind you, this is a rumor from one of TechCrunch's "more reliable sources," so it is hard to say how much truth is actually in it. According to the post, this pre-IPO acquisition of Skype would be for somewhere in the ballpark of $5 billion.   Though not a new rumor, Google had supposedly also jockeyed for this position. Skype would be a natural fit for Google's gradual expansion into the voice market, alongside its Gchat, GTalk...

  "Preemptive counterattack" is taking on a whole new meaning. Though the US military has long maintained a policy of securing its networks and reserving a right to attack those who attack its networks, the issues of going on the offensive is now being discussed. This is not a new issue, but it has come to light recently due to increasing attacks on US networks and changes in the legal and political spheres. Critics are already pointing to the fact that these types of attacks often cause uni...

In an interesting New York Times article, the author examines the basic functions of Russian cyber criminal networks and why they often go unpunished. Here are a few quotes:  Law enforcement groups in Russia have been reluctant to pursue these talented authors of Internet fraud, for reasons, security experts say, of incompetence, corruption or national pride. Underscoring the nationalistic tone of much of Russian computer crime, one site [hacker site that exchanged credit card numbers to ai...

In an interesting use of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), a state run refinery group, claims that Daimler AG paid bribes to one of its staff. An interesting move for a company that could be potentially liable for soliciting bribes if charges were filed in the US.   As the article below notes, this was part of a wider investigation of bribery charges against Daimler by the United States Department of Justice. Potentially, US prose...

In a great article by Ben Bain at GCN, he stresses the need for an improved educational system to better prepare students for future cyber-security threats. Here is the article: "Strengthening education in science, technology, engineering and math is crucial to U.S. cybersecurity efforts, a senior Homeland Security Department official said today. Richard Marshall, director of global cybersecurity management in the Homeland Security Department’s National Cybersecurity Division, said improvi...