MARYLAND NEWS

Defendants Advertised MVA Drivers Licenses on Instagram for $600. Source: Maryland Attorney General

 A 38-year old Denton woman pleaded guilty to one count of Medicaid Fraud  stemming from allegations that she was practicing nursing without a license. Source: Maryland Attorney General

After a seven-day trial, a federal jury found a 77 year old Owings Mills man guilty of 13 counts of fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of filing false tax returns, and one count of aggravated identity theft… According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the man defrauded life-insurance companies by securing more than 40 life-insurance policies. The scheme included misrepsenting policy applicants’ health, wealth, and existing life-insurance coverage… Also, he defrauded individual investors to receive funds that he used to pay premiums on the fraudulently obtained life-insurance policies. He concealed the fraud by transferring the proceeds to multiple bank accounts, including accounts in the name of trusts. He then filed false individual income-tax returns for 2018 and 2019, which concealed the fraudulent proceeds from each year, approximately $5.7 million and $2 million, respectively. Source: US Attorney District of Maryland

Block, Inc., the parent company of Cash App, has agreed to pay $80 million in a settlement with Maryland and 47 other states over violations of bank secrecy and anti-money laundering laws, according to Maryland Department of Labor's Office of Financial Regulation. Maryland will receive approximately $1.6 million from the settlement. Source: WJZ, CBS News Baltimore

Members of the Maryland Legislature are allocated funds to award legislative scholarships to students attending Maryland colleges or for Maryland students attending colleges outside of Maryland that offer programs unavailable at any Maryland institution. According to the charging document, the former legislative aide worked for a Maryland State Senator and used her position to allocate $20,000 of scholarship funds from the Senator’s Office to her own educational institution without the knowledge or consent of the Senator. She continued to access the Senator’s email address after she no longer worked in the Senator’s Office to ensure she continued to receive the scholarship funds. Source: Maryland State Prosecutor

Defendant allegedly failed to report millions in poker winnings and falsely omitted more than $14 Million in debts to obtain loan.  Source: US Attorney, District of Maryland

Source: WMAR2news.com

Baltimore County officials were fooled three times by a roofing contractor accused of fraud despite warning signs, according to a new inspector general’s report.

The county’s system of checks and balances failed because county officials awarded a second contract to the Baltimore-based company that was found to have committed fraud and perjury in Baltimore City and was under investigation on fraud allegations by the Baltimore County Inspector General. Source: WBAL.com

The new top executive of the New Jersey agency dedicated to rooting out corruption and fraud claims principal residency in two states while working a second full-time job in Washington, D.C.

The chief executive officer of the State Commission of Investigation on Monday, listed a recently-purchased Maryland home as her principal residence and voted in Tinton Falls, records show. She is also scheduled to teach four classes three days per week at Howard University this semester.

Source: Mike Davis and Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press via MSN.com

When suspicious text messages started popping up on the phones of students working for the University of Maryland's Justice for Fraud Victims project, they knew something wasn't right. These weren't your typical spam texts. They were sophisticated job offers, supposedly based on "recommended resumes" that none of the students had ever submitted.

But these weren't typical students either. As volunteer fraud investigators working with real victims, they'd developed a keen eye for deception.

"The timing was almost uncanny," says Samuel Handwerger, CPA, accounting lecturer and faculty advisor for the project at Maryland's Robert Smith School of Business. "Our students were receiving these suspicious job offers right as the Federal Trade Commission was uncovering a massive surge in similar scams nationwide."

Working with university faculty and law enforcement, they're now helping spread awareness across campus and into the broader community about these evolving threats.

Source: https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu