Murielle Misczak ran the books at a German-language daycare in Brooklyn and rerouted tuition checks into accounts she controlled. She pleaded guilty this week. The receipts read like a fever dream.
A federal jury in South Carolina convicted Demani and Tanya Bosket this week in a transnational email-compromise ring that drained more than $25 million from people in the middle of the largest transactions of their lives. The pitch was not a pitch. It was a forwarded thread.
Steven Hendren pleaded guilty in St. Louis federal court to wire fraud after pulling $284,840.44 out of a Missouri pandemic housing program by inventing tenants, leases, and rent rolls. The money was supposed to keep people in their homes. Some of it went to a 2020 GMC Yukon.
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.
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.
A federal indictment unsealed this week in the Western District of Washington alleges a Frisco, Texas couple ran a curse-removal scheme that pulled more than $2 million from a single Washington victim. The machinery kept running, prosecutors say, even when one operator was behind bars.