Michael Smith, 54, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $8 million after pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors say he created up to 10,000 fake accounts to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs billions of times between 2017 and his 2024 arrest, spreading plays across many tracks to avoid detection. In one example cited by the Justice Department, his bots generated 80.9 million fraudulent family-plan streams in April 2023, compared with 9.3 million for Taylor Swift's entire catalogue that month.
thequietus.com
· 2026-10-08
David J. Rush, a former CIA officer, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for fabricating a fake top-secret 'special access program' to siphon government funds. Investigators recovered over $46 million in gold bars, luxury cars, watches and more than $2 million in cash from his home. Prosecutors say Rush lied about his education and military background to gain his CIA position and later exploited his authority over intelligence spending to run the scheme for more than a year.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-07
U.S. Postal Inspection Service seized the domain LabelsBank.com and indicted Faheem Akram, 33, of Pakistan, for allegedly running a site that sold counterfeit USPS postage labels at a flat $2 rate regardless of package weight or destination. Investigators say over 5,000 customers bought more than 5.1 million fake labels, causing USPS losses exceeding $126 million. Akram faces conspiracy, counterfeit postage, and wire fraud charges.
postalemployeenetwork.com
· 2026-09-29
Jury selection begins in a long-running federal case against Huawei Technologies, which faces charges including wire and bank fraud, trade secret theft, and violating U.S. sanctions on North Korea. Prosecutors also allege Huawei equipment helped Iran surveil protesters during 2009 demonstrations. Huawei has called the government's case 'demonstrably false' and previously sought to have it dismissed as vague and overreaching.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-08
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