Ponzi / Pyramid

The offering plate had a bank account behind it, and the account was his

A federal indictment unsealed this month alleges Richard Reinaldo Garcia turned faith into a wire-transfer instruction, routing more than $3.2 million from over fifty believers into accounts named for a ministry that mostly existed on paperwork.

Latest
Crypto

The call came from support. The support did not exist.

Federal prosecutors say a 19-year-old Canadian on an expired visa and his 28-year-old Miami co-defendant ran a $13M crypto theft operation built on phone calls. The crime scene was not a smart contract. It was a voice on the other end of the line.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The goddess promised the blockchain could not steal. The smart contract was the theft.

Olena Oblamska called herself the goddess of Forsage and told investors the blockchain made fraud impossible. A federal indictment in Oregon says the code itself was the trap.

Pump & Dump

The marketplace died in 2019. The wallet woke up in 2022.

Federal prosecutors say Owe Martin Andresen sat on millions in administrator commissions from the shuttered Dream Market, then converted them to gold bars shipped to his door. The wallet he thought had gone quiet had been watched the whole time.

The Daily Brief

The delivery man at the door was the last private moment of his life

Nico Reyes · May 12
Daily at 6AM Eastern

See the pitch they're running today.

Financial crime intelligence. The patterns, the tells, the playbook. Daily at 6AM before anyone asks you for money.

By subscribing you agree to receive the daily MarkTell digest. Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.