Ponzi / Pyramid

The deed was real. The signature on it was borrowed from a dead man.

Alicia England filed fake deeds using stolen identities from the living and the dead, then sold houses she never owned to buyers who found the listings on Facebook Marketplace. On July 14, 2026, a federal judge sent her to prison for 75 months.

Latest
Ponzi / Pyramid

The realtor on the phone was an inmate with a contraband cell

Seth Adam Depiano was already serving twelve years for a $24M real estate Ponzi when prosecutors say he built another one from inside federal prison. The second machine ran on contraband phones, dead people's houses, and a 26-year-old who just pleaded guilty.

Pump & Dump

Two hundred and thirty-three checks over nine years, and nobody in Colby saw a thing

Federal prosecutors say a Colby, Kansas controller forged 233 checks and moved $753,575 out of her employer's account over nearly nine years. The alleged machine was one person, one signature line, and a room with no second set of eyes.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The lab in Los Angeles billed for tests that were never ordered by doctors who never knew

James Shuford Price III pleaded guilty in federal court on June 24 to running a Los Angeles lab that billed taxpayer-funded health programs for tens of millions in respiratory tests, many authorized by physicians who had never heard of the patients. The doctors did not know their names were on the paperwork. Neither did most of the patients.

The Daily Brief

The checkbook on the couch was the whole pitch.

Mark Tell · Jun 20

Two sisters, eighty thousand dollars, and a phone full of numbers that were never theirs

Mark Tell · Jun 11

The photograph cost five hundred dollars. The list inside it cost six thousand people their names.

Elena Ruiz · Jun 10

The spreadsheet had names, socials, and a column for what each identity earned

Elena Ruiz · Jun 10

The mailbox was the machine. Six years it ran on other people's names.

Elena Ruiz · Jun 8

The relative who died in 1977 kept collecting checks until last week

Mark Tell · Jun 3

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 refund went to the preparer. That is the whole crime.

Mark Tell · May 8

The straw student was the product. The classroom was the cover.

Mark Tell · May 6

The teller smiled. The driver's license was a costume.

Mark Tell · May 6

The job that hired you before you finished the interview

Mark Tell · Apr 30

He wore a wig to the loan closing and walked out with millions

Elena Ruiz · Apr 29
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