Latest Fraud Headlines
All the headlines from our Fraud Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Alleged 2018 Staged Vehicle Crash Leads to Arrest of 4 in Louisiana
Feb 7 2019 // Detectives with the Louisiana State Police Insurance Fraud/Auto Theft Unit – Lafayette Field Office on Jan. 31 arrested four Crowley residents in relation to a vehicle crash that authorities say was staged in an...
Former Agents in Washington Charged with Theft for Writing Fake Policies
Feb 5 2019 // Three Pierce County, Wash. residents were charged with crimes related to insurance fraud in Pierce County Superior Court The charges follow investigations by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s Criminal...
Louisiana Insurance Exec Arrested for Theft of Nearly $1M
Feb 5 2019 // An insurance business owner and former official for a Louisiana port has been arrested for stealing nearly $1 million from his clients, authorities said. Kristian Gaudet, 45, of Cut Off, was charged with two counts of...
Thefts, Scams of Cryptocurrencies Surge 400% to $1.7 Billion in 2018
Jan 30 2019 // Cryptocurrencies stolen from exchanges and scammed from investors surged more than 400 percent in 2018 to around $1.7 billion, according to a report from U.S.-based cyber security firm CipherTrace released on Tuesday. Of...
Southeast Officials Focus on Curbing Fraud, Rising Auto Rates, Flood Insurance, Distracted Driving
Jan 29 2019 // For the seventh year in a row, the Florida insurance industry, regulators, and consumer advocates will push for reforms to the state’s assignment of benefits issue that has now become an insurance crisis, according...
Metals Financing Fraud Lawsuits Reveal Risks of Relying on Paper Receipts
Jan 28 2019 // When the man running one of London’s biggest metals brokerages found a new client who wanted to finance large volumes of nickel held in warehouses in Asia, he thought the deal promised major rewards. Less than a year...
718 Fraud Cases Referred to Nebraska Insurance Department in 2018
Jan 28 2019 // The Insurance Fraud Prevention Division (IFPD) at the Nebraska Department of Insurance received 718 case referrals of potential insurance fraud last year, according to the department’s Winter 2018 newsletter. Of...
AmWINS Launches Social Engineering Crime Insurance Product
Jan 28 2019 // AmWINS Group, Inc., a global distributor of specialty insurance products and services, has launched a new product designed to protect insureds against social engineering losses while also providing education and risk...
Jones Named Anti-Fraud Director at Kansas Insurance Department
Jan 25 2019 // Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt has appointed Dennis Jones as director of Anti-Fraud at the Kansas Insurance Department (KID). Jones brings over 30 years of legal experience having previously served as a city...
Anti-Fraud Specialist FRISS Expands into France
Jan 24 2019 // FRISS, the provider of fraud and risk solutions for the property/casualty insurance industry, announced the opening of its French office in Paris. At the same time FRISS is expanding their team, led by the country manager...
Houston Company to Pay $250K in Workers’ Comp Fraud Case
Jan 23 2019 // A Houston company has pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation premium fraud in a case that spanned four years, the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation announced. According to the...
Former Iowa Agent Convicted of Insurance Fraud
Jan 23 2019 // A former Iowa insurance agent has been convicted of insurance fraud following an insurance fraud investigation by the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau. The division reported that Joy Marie Heldt, age 48, of...
Accounting Fraud Pushes UK’s Patisserie Valerie into Insolvency
Jan 23 2019 // U.K. entrepreneur Luke Johnson’s efforts to save Patisserie Valerie failed as an accounting scandal pushed the bakery chain’s parent into insolvency, threatening as many as 2,800 jobs on Britain’s...
Commodities Broker Files $284M Suit Alleging Metals Fraud – in Echo of Natixis/Marex Case
Jan 23 2019 // Broker ED&F Man has filed a $284 million lawsuit against two Hong Kong companies, alleging that they knowingly provided fraudulent warehouse receipts for nickel stored in Asia, court documents show. The two Hong Kong...
$1.4M Batman Comic Collection Stolen from Florida Storage Unit
Jan 22 2019 // A Florida man is reaching out to the comic-collecting community, hoping to reclaim nearly 450 valuable comic books that were recently stolen. The Sun Sentinel reports that Randy Lawrence posted on social media last week...
Marex Spectron’s Metals Financing Deal Triggers Fraud Lawsuit, Insurance Dispute
Jan 18 2019 // Commodities broker Marex Spectron was warned by one of its executives about the risk of fraud before it finalized a metals financing deal with French bank Natixis that triggered a $32 million lawsuit by the lender, court...
Unlicensed Adjuster Arrested for Stealing $14K from Homeowners After Irma
Jan 18 2019 // An unlicensed insurance adjuster has been arrested over unlicensed public adjusting activities and the filing of false and fraudulent liens on individuals’ homes following Hurricane Irma, according to a statement...
North Carolina Businesses Without Workers’ Comp Coverage Fined $3.2M
Jan 17 2019 // The North Carolina Industrial Commission’s Compliance and Fraud Investigative Division collected more than $3.2 million in penalties and issued 289 criminal charges at the end of the first two quarters of Fiscal Year...
Criminalizing 1st-Time DUIs in Wisconsin Is a Tough Sell
Jan 16 2019 // With a new Democratic ally in the governor’s office, a handful of Republican lawmakers are pushing for Wisconsin to join the rest of the country and criminalize first-offense drunken driving. On paper it might look...
U.S. Charges Traders, Ukrainian Hackers with Stealing SEC Filings on Corporations
Jan 16 2019 // U.S. authorities on Tuesday charged a suspected Ukrainian computer hacker and several traders with scheming to trade on market-moving corporate earnings news stolen from a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission...
