Fraudster gets 30-year prison sentence, Social Security fraud and more

Fraudster gets 30-year prison sentence for $1 billion Ponzi scheme

The owner of a California-based solar energy firm is going to prison for 30 years after orchestrating a $1 billion Ponzi scheme that lured big-name investors, including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Jeff Carpoff’s company, DC Solar, built mobile solar generators, which carried tax credits and were designed to be used at sporting events, musical festivals and on construction sites. The business model looked sound, but the venture ultimately failed.

Carpoff and his co-conspirators, including his wife, Paulette, hid their losses by fabricating demand for the generators and falsifying financial statements and leases. And as in any classic Ponzi scheme, they also used money from new investors to pay existing ones.

The fraudsters funded a luxurious lifestyle with the ill-gotten gains, purchasing real estate across the Western U.S. and the Caribbean, a minor league baseball team, a NASCAR sponsorship, a private jet and a classic car collection. (See “A solar firm owner is sentenced to 30 years over a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme,” by Joe Hernandez, NPR, Nov. 10, 2021.)

Social Security fraud isn’t her only problem

When Nancy Shedleski’s husband died in 2015, she didn’t have a funeral or burial for him. The Las Vegas woman also didn’t tell the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) that he was dead, and now she’s facing fraud charges for collecting over $120,000 of her husband’s benefits.

But fraud charges might not be her biggest problem because Shedleski told investigators she dismembered her husband’s body and threw the remains in the garbage. (See “‘No Hospitalization, No Funeral, No Burial,’ Woman, Formerly of Clairton, Accused of Dismembering Husband’s Body,” by Jessica Guay, KDKA CBS 2, Oct. 26, 2021.)

The SSA started scrutinizing Shedleski in 2019 after an anonymous tip about her husband’s disappearance. Investigators soon learned that the husband last received care from a hospital near Pittsburgh in 2015. Shedleski initially told investigators that her husband was traveling.

International effort leads to arrests of REvil hackers

Romanian police, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and European law enforcement agency Europol have arrested two hackers allegedly affiliated with REvil, the group accused of some of 2021’s biggest cyberattacks.

The two Romanians arrested on Nov. 4 are suspected of infecting about 5,000 victims with ransomware and absconding with about half a million euros in illicit payments. (See “REvil: Day of reckoning for notorious cyber gang,” BBC, Nov. 8, 2021.)

The operation is part of a bigger crackdown on the criminal enterprise with the DOJ recently announcing it has clawed back some $6 million in cryptocurrency from the gang.

Europol has also set up an operation called GoldDust to specifically bring REvil to justice. As of November 2021, it had arrested seven hackers belonging to the group in Romania, Ukraine, South Korea and Kuwait.

In May 2021, REvil targeted JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, which ultimately paid the hackers $11 million in ransom. Later that year, the group attacked software firm Kaseya, demanding a record $70 million to restore its systems back to health.