Recovery Scams

She inherited her father's Porsche shop. Then she sold the same car twice.

Andrea Doherty took over her father's classic Porsche business in Fallbrook after he died in 2021. Federal prosecutors say she then sold consigned cars she did not own, twice, and forged a signature to close the last one.

Latest
Ponzi / Pyramid

The premium got paid. The policy never existed.

Brendan and Lisa Lawler ran a small insurance brokerage in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Federal prosecutors say the premiums their clients paid never reached the insurers. The paperwork said otherwise.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The store was 150 square feet. The redemptions were half a million a month.

Antonio Bonheur ran a 150-square-foot storefront in Mattapan that pulled more SNAP money in a month than a full supermarket. Federal prosecutors say the store had no refrigerator, almost no food, and a bank structure built to hide what the register was actually doing.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The self-checkout was the counter. The refund desk was the register.

Darwin Alberto Corea Calderon was sentenced this week for a three-year scheme that drained more than $464,000 from Home Depot stores across the Carolinas. The mechanism was smaller than a Ponzi and older than the self-checkout aisle.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The courier drove eight days. The grandmother lost everything in one.

Xin Liu was the hand at the door. The voice on the phone was someone else, somewhere else, and the cash she collected over eight days in July had a name on it that belonged to a woman who thought she was saving her grandson.

Recovery Scams

He spun tale after tale for fifteen years. The wire transfers told a quieter one.

Franklin Ikechukwu Nwadialo got five years in federal prison this week for a romance fraud that drained $3.5 million from eight people over fifteen years. The court called it devastating. The wire chain called it a business.

The Daily Brief

The check went to Brooklyn. The voice on the phone was in Jamaica. The money was already gone.

Ray Delgado · Jun 26

The checkbook on the couch was the whole pitch.

Mark Tell · Jun 20

The down payment was the product. The pool was the prop.

Elena Ruiz · Jun 18

The register at Taste of India rang up groceries nobody carried out

Mark Tell · Jun 12

The invoice was real. The bank account belonged to someone else.

Mark Tell · Jun 4

The detective who knew the paperwork was the lock and the key

Elena Ruiz · Jun 3

The mayor sold the house to his business partner and stayed in it

Ray Delgado · Jun 2

The relief line had a back door, and the chef knew where it opened

Mark Tell · May 29

He was too ashamed to say he lost it. So he kept taking more.

Mark Tell · May 28

The statements kept arriving. The money had already left.

Elena Ruiz · May 28

The contractor with the company laptop knew which holds to remove

Elena Ruiz · May 25

Seven Alaskans never knew their names tried to fly north without them

Elena Ruiz · May 21

The relief program had a door. He walked through it eighty-five thousand times.

Elena Ruiz · May 19

The Ferrari was leased. The gold was a story. The investors were the inventory.

Elena Ruiz · May 6
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