New York residents may have heard that a married couple was convicted of defrauding NASA on Nov. 20. The accused individuals are a 53-year-old engineering professor at Lehigh University and his wife, a 41-year-old doctor of physics. The pair owns a startup company called ArkLight that was allegedly used to commit fraud.
New York residents may be interested to learn that, on Nov. 17, a woman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges after she was found to be involved in a breach at The Michaels Companies, Inc. The 28-year-old California woman and a co-conspirator reportedly conspired to steal approximately 94,000 debit and credit card numbers.
A New York women was taken into custody on Nov. 9 after she was accused of collecting $18,000 in welfare benefits even though she was employed. The 34-year-old Oneida resident reportedly collected welfare over the course of a year from two different state welfare agencies.
On Oct. 29, it was reported that two groups who were accused of being involved in a used clothing scam in New York agreed to pay approximately $750,000 in restitution. The charity that was found to be at fault was Thrift Land USA, which will be required to disclose that it is a for-profit charity in the future.
Bail has been set at $20,000 for an individual who allegedly embezzled more than $90,000 from a New York youth baseball organization. The 56-year-old man, the treasurer of the organization, was taken into custody at his residence on Oct. 16, 2015, and he was arraigned later that day. He now faces one count of grand larceny.
A person or entity that conducts a transaction that aims to conceal the source of ill-gotten money may be engaging in money laundering. Often, money laundering is part of a tax evasion scheme and may involve the use of dummy corporations or holding companies to conceal the source of the cash. These corporations or holding companies often claim to perform services that are typically paid for in cash.
It may be in the best interest of business professionals throughout New York to understand more about the role big data solutions have in white-collar crime investigations. The financial investigators can work more effectively now that these big data applications make searching, monitoring and tracking more of a science than an art. The recent innovations are being paired with graphical outputs and analytic models that are more user-friendly, thus making these investigators more productive.
On Sept. 21, a man pleaded guilty before a judge in New York to one charge of securities fraud for an alleged bitcoin scheme. The 33-year-old man admitted that he had misinformed people who had invested their bitcoins in his company, Bitcoin Savings and Trust. According to an assistant U.S. attorney, the man was paying off old investors with money from new investors while only investing a fraction of the bitcoins his company received.
Health care fraud is unfortunately prevalent in New York and around the country. In one of the latest cases to receive publicity, a California surgeon has been indicted on charges related to an alleged fraud scheme. The report stated that the surgeon and 14 associates were accused of obtaining approximately $150 million illegally from insurance companies.
New York executives may have heard about a recent pronouncement on white collar crime by the U.S. Department of Justice. For most corporate personnel, the least favorable scenario is providing an admission of guilt to the federal government. Often times, these individuals would rather settle and pay exorbitant fines than plead guilty to the crimes they’ve been accused of committing. Even when it comes to being placed under the supervision of a monitor, the outcome is far more attractive than a guilty plea.