Kelvin Lyles of Atlanta, GA along with several hundred cohorts (by proxy) stole personal ID’s and produced illicit income amounting to about $350,000. The victims were retailers, credit card companies and banks through their ATM machines. This may be called synthetic identity fraud because the 300 or so accomplices were not real people.
Tracking down Mr. Lyles took some time but a postal inspector apprehended him and he received 46 months of incarceration. If you are searching for romance via the Internet, beware. According to the FBI $210 million was lost to fraudulent romance and dating sites by 15,000 innocent victims in 2017.
There are many forms of lying including fraudulent counterfeiting and Ponzi schemes. Ponzi schemes attract investors with promises of high returns and low risk. These investment pyramid schemes collapse when not enough new investment funds are received to cover the illicit spending of money from earlier investors. Bernard Madoff is incarcerated for 150 years for his estimated $65 billion rip-off in 2008.
H&R Block the huge tax preparation firm reports that 52% of taxpayers who signed up on the ‘Healthcare Marketplaces’ underestimated their earnings to receive subsidies. Some filers deliberately underestimated their earnings while some may have not known what their income would be. When the IRS found the under-reported incomes, the healthcare subsidy recipients had to pay differences that amounted to millions of dollars.
We and other nations have imposed trade restrictions on North Korea due to their nuclear threats toward neighbors as well as the USA. Among the trade restrictions is importation of oil for heating, travel and other domestic uses. Recently Japan released photos of a tanker transferring oil to a N. Korean ship, violating international sanctions. Investigating the ownership of the suspected tanker, the address in Hong Kong was located on the 23rd floor office of a building that was staffed by people that knew almost nothing about the company. A little diversion from truth and fact?
Probably no one reading this column has heard of a company named ‘Retail Equation’ that monitors customer purchases for big retailers like Best Buy and Home Depot. The National Retail Federation estimates that for each $1 billion of sales, more than $12 million in returned merchandise is fraudulent.
Voting in elections for public office is both a right and a responsibility for voting-age citizens of every country. But is voter fraud an issue in our elections? On January 18th, 2017 then President Obama stated that voting fraud was ‘fake news.’ However a Pew Foundation Research report that same year reported that there were 1.8 million deceased registrants on the rolls and 226 counties in 42 states had more actual voters than were registered.
In 2013 the NYC Department of Investigation decided to check the veracity of their voting system using 63 investigators. Only one of the NYCDOI voters was rejected. One election official referred to the practice of bussing voters in some neighborhoods from poll to poll for multiple voting with no consequences.
Of stunning import, the former Deputy Director of the vaunted Federal Bureau of Investigation, Andrew McCabe was fired from his job for alleged lack of ‘candor’ in testimony under oath on multiple occasions. Both McCabe and former FBI Director James Comey kept notes of all interactions with President Trump apparently reflecting their disdain for the president, his policies and his conduct. McCabe is now out of a job and his pension of $1.8 million appears to be at risk.
The world’s people spend trillions of dollars annually to forestall fraud, assure security at airports, train and bus stations, stadiums and theaters because a tiny proportion of the world’s population is intent on destruction or access by deceit to something they don’t deserve.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is all about the ‘new’ word ‘post-truth.’ She explains that the word does not mean the same as ‘postwar’ or ‘postgame’ but it means that the traditional meaning of the word ‘truth’ is unimportant and/or irrelevant.
Relating these concepts to publications such as books, magazines and newspapers, the suggestion rises that what you are reading is ‘post-truth’ that can be interpreted according to your own notion of facts and fallacies.
President Reagan said it best, “Trust but verify.”
