Fraud in the News

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How many $jpm bankers does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, they just foreclose on the house. #AskJPM — @moneymcbags

Tweet, one of thousands, in response to JPMorgan’s call for questions to ask an executive. According to the Nov. 14 Bloomberg article “JPMorgan’s #AskJPM Twitter Hashtag Backfires Against Bank,” by Dawn Kopecki, JPMorgan responded, “#Badidea! Back to the drawing board,” less than six hours after its original post. The social media tracking service Topsy reported that JPMorgan’s first tweet drew more than 6,000 responses, Kopecki wrote. The U.S. Justice Department has launched numerous ongoing investigations against the company. 

What if he used his energy to spark good deeds?

He left his blood and hair in a canoe, along with a gun and a suicide note. But fraudster Travis Scott didn’t quite set up the scene correctly to fake his suicide — a bullet remained in the chamber of the shotgun and his car wasn’t parked nearby, among other clues. 

Scott fled to Canada, where he assumed the identity of a toddler who had died. He’d faked his suicide after he’d pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering for filing a false claim with an insurance company and receiving a $11.4 million payment. He used the money to buy airplanes, cars, a house and yacht. Scott was eventually caught 82 days later when he tried to fill a bogus prescription for anxiety pills at a pharmacy. On Nov. 18, he was sentenced to 12 years and eight months in prison for the false insurance claim in which he stated that lightning had damaged his supercomputers. “In a statement before the sentencing,” according to an article in the Daily Mail Online, “the 36-year-old fraudster said that if he were released he could use his technological skills to reimburse the money he stole.” Unsurprisingly, the judge didn’t buy his argument. (“Fraudster who faked his own suicide by leaving a shotgun and his blood in a boat to avoid jail for $11.5 million scam is sentenced to 12 years behind bars,” Daily Mail Online.)