For nearly four years, sixty people in and around North Carolina believed a man named Trevor Vernon was quietly making them rich. The CFTC says the quarterly updates were fiction and the trading was catastrophe.
Phillip Collins of Robeson County, North Carolina pleaded guilty on June 29 to wire fraud conspiracy in a COVID-era SBA loan scheme. The pattern is small, ordinary, and still running through other names.
A North Carolina billionaire treated thousands of retirees' annuities like one big personal checking account. On May 26, 2026, a federal judge handed him 12 years and a $1.6 billion bill. About 30,000 of the people he owed were already dead.