Michelle Acker pleaded guilty this week to a six-year wire fraud that drained more than $670,000 from an elderly woman and her friend. The mechanism was a voice on the phone, an emergency that never ended, and an insurance agent who never existed.
A pensioner in her seventies was drained of R14 million (about $780K USD) by a romance scam crew operating out of Cape Town between 2017 and 2018. Eight years later, the Hawks are still making arrests. The money is still gone.
David L. Johnson, a 66-year-old Greenwich antiques dealer, pleaded guilty on July 21, 2026 to laundering more than $2.1 million he took from an elderly client who trusted him with her power of attorney, her will, and her trust. He kept stealing after she was in the ground.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba pleaded guilty on July 6 to taking $50,000 from undercover FBI agents posing as hotel developers. The money came in five neat checks labeled as campaign contributions. That label was the machine.
A Romanian woman was arrested in Békés County on suspicion of collecting cash and gold from elderly Hungarians who believed their sons were in jail. She was the last link in a chain that started with a phone call and ended at a stranger's front door.
Bob Hunter ran a Springfield retirement shop called The Summit Group of Missouri. For years, his clients got statements showing their money was right where it should be. On June 11, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. The statements were the crime.