Press Releases Archive

An indictment was unsealed yesterday in the Northern District of Texas charging two co-founders of Blueacorn, a lender service provider, in connection with a scheme to fraudulently obtain COVID-19 relief money guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The Justice Department today unsealed an indictment charging Russian national Aleksandr Viktorovich Ryzhenkov (Александр Викторович Рыженков) with using the BitPaymer ransomware variant to attack numerous victims in Texas and throughout the United States and hold their sensitive data for ransom.

A Ukrainian national was sentenced today to 13 years and seven months in prison and ordered to pay over $16 million in restitution for his role in conducting over 2,500 ransomware attacks and demanding over $700 million in ransom payments.

A California man previously extradited from Mexico was sentenced yesterday to 4 years in prison for his role in two high-yield investment fraud schemes in which he and his co-conspirators defrauded elderly and other vulnerable victims out of millions of dollars.     

A Serbian man has been extradited to the United States, where he faces charges in two separate federal indictments in the Northern District of Texas and Eastern District of New York for his alleged participation in coordinated cryptocurrency and binary options schemes.

The Justice Department announced today the results of a coordinated, nationwide enforcement action to combat COVID-19 fraud, which included 718 enforcement actions – including federal criminal charges against 371 defendants – for offenses related to over $836 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud.

A federal jury convicted two Texas men today for their role in a scheme to fraudulently bill TRICARE – the health care program for U.S. service members and their families – for compounded creams that were medically unnecessary and procured through kickbacks and bribes. 

A federal jury in Dallas convicted a Texas man today for receiving and possessing images of child sexual abuse.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges today against 10 defendants in multiple states in connection with multiple business email compromise (BEC), money laundering, and wire fraud schemes that targeted Medicare, state Medicaid programs, private health insurers, and numerous other victims and resulted in more than $11.1 million in total losses.

A Texas doctor pleaded guilty today for his role in a $54 million scheme to defraud Medicare by prescribing durable medical equipment and cancer genetic testing without ever seeing, speaking to, or otherwise treating patients.

From Aug. 23 to 25, a delegation of U.S. Attorneys, their criminal division chiefs, and Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force chiefs (OCDETF) from eight border districts traveled to Mexico City to participate in a series of briefings and meetings on security cooperation matters including efforts to combat transnational criminal organizations and efforts to counter the illegal trafficking and smuggling of firearms, narcotics and people. The last meeting of Southwest Border U.S. Attorneys in Mexico took place in March 2020.