Senior / Family

The letters said the money was safe. The money was already gone.

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.

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Pump & Dump

The ticket was worth a euro. The clerk knew it was worth millions.

In 2012, a man in A Coruña handed his usual lottery slip across a counter and was told it was nearly worthless. The clerk and his brother, a state lottery official, tried to pocket the €4.7 million themselves. Fourteen years later, a court finally named what happened at that counter.

Pump & Dump

The Eight Percent Fund paid eight percent. Until the day it paid nothing.

For three decades, Miles Burton Marshall did taxes for his neighbors in Hamilton, New York, and sold them shares in something he called the Eight Percent Fund. On June 11, 2026, a judge entered $85 million in judgments against him for 988 people who thought they had savings.

MLM / Affinity

The minister knew everyone's first name. That was the lock.

Federal prosecutors say Winston Batino, a minister at the Chicago Church of Christ's North Ministry Center, spent five years collecting money from about 40 of his own congregants for luxury rehab facilities that never existed. The pews were the pipeline.

Pump & Dump

The letters kept arriving. The account never existed.

Bob Hunter, 72, sold executives in Springfield, Missouri a polished retirement product and then spent their money. The statements he mailed back were the lock on the door.

Pump & Dump

The halal label was the lock. The key was 36 percent.

The Enforcement Directorate arrested Nowhera Shaik's personal assistant on June 3, 2026, in a case that ran a faith label over a Ponzi engine. Roughly 172,000 investors were promised up to 36 percent. The returns, the agency alleges, were never paid.

The Daily Brief

The badge on the business card was the whole pitch

Mark Tell · Jun 3

The badge came off in 2012. The pitch did not.

Mark Tell · Jun 2

The man in Malta thought he was in love. He was a deposit slip.

Mark Tell · May 30

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 treasurer brought the no-risk investment to the board. She also owned the company.

Mark Tell · May 21

The sea scooter surfaced. So did the wig and the Swiss francs.

Mark Tell · May 21

She thought she was helping him through customs. She was paying the room he worked in.

Mark Tell · May 19

The patriot economy paid thirteen percent. The interest came from the next believer.

Mark Tell · May 13

The FTC said she sold a pie in the sky. The settlement let her keep the plate.

Mark Tell · May 13

The pay raise is the reform. The pay raise is also the target.

Mark Tell · May 2

The Eight Percent Fund ran for thirty years. The math was always wrong.

Elena Ruiz · May 1

The ladder only goes one direction when you are standing at the bottom

Mark Tell · Apr 30

They sold her safety and then the door closed behind her

Mark Tell · Apr 30
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