As the scandal around his mayoral campaign fund-raising grows, City Comptroller John Liu insists he's still running for mayor in 2013. He also said that his campaign treasurer 25-year-old Jia "Jenny" Hou, arrested for fraud, was not set up for a fall: "Jenny is a very capable young individual and she is capable as compared to anyone of any age. I’m not hanging anyone out to dry." more ›

In this economy, you can't just click on those "Single Mom Makes $500 a Day At Home" ads—you have to get proactive when it comes to making a living. Inside Edition went to 5th Avenue ("the Avenue of Avenues," as they put it), to find a female entrepreneur who is pulling herself up by the bootstraps crutches with a begging scam that will probably ruin the reputation of the genuinely infirm. more ›

Last year, a globe-trotting Torah rescuer who called himself the "Jewish Indiana Jones" was accused of being a fraud. And now, Baltimore bookshop owner Menachem Youlus has admitted that he is indeed a fraud: “Between 2004 and 2010, I falsely represented that I had personally obtained vintage Torah scrolls — in particular ways, in particular locations — in Europe and Israel,” he said in court yesterday. “I know what I did was wrong, and I deeply regret my conduct.” And he isn't even the real Jewish Indiana Jones! more ›

What is it about day care centers that seems to bring out the worst in New Yorkers? 54-year-old supervising FDNY safety inspector Carlos Montoya was arrested on Friday for accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of bribes from day care centers. According to Manhattan's U.S. attorney Preet Bharara [pdf], Montoya, who has been a safety inspector since 1993, "was responsible for certifying that day care centers throughout the city complied with fire safety standards," but "allegedly solicited bribes to look the other way, potentially compromising the safety of the children who attended these centers.” According to the Times, Montoya has been released on $100,000 bond. more ›

Romanian ATM skimmers strike again! In yet another sign we need to get better about monitoring our bank statements, the U.S. Attorney's office today announced that the Secret Service arrested Laurentiu Iulian Bulat [PDF] and charged him with participating in a fraud ring that managed to steal at least $1.5 million from HSBC customers. According to the complaint, Bulat and his friends hit up more than 40 ATMs in Manhattan, Long Island and Westchester in less than a year. more ›

Grinchy fraudsters are wiping out holiday gift cards before the intended recipients can even get to the mall and go wild buying beer pong supplies at Spencer Gifts. In one of his Sunday Special press conferences, Senator Schumer surfaced at Greeley Square and West 33rd Street to warn shoppers about about the devious scam. more ›

City Councilman Larry Seabrook was thrilled yesterday after a jury remained deadlocked on fraud charges against him— those charges included accusations that he got kickbacks from a contractor he recommended to work on the new Yankee Stadium, funneled hundreds of thousands to his mistress and her relatives, and altered a receipt for a $7 bagel to $177. Seabrook, a Democrat who represents the Bronx, said, “I continue to have faith and certainly have faith in God and faith in the jury system and hoping that the jury would come to the conclusion and that’s what we’ll live with, what was said. And we’ll continue to keep the faith." more ›

Yesterday, a trader who worked for Bernard Madoff for four decades pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. David Kugel said, "I am deeply sorry for my actions and the harm suffered by the victims." more ›

NYC Comptroller John Liu's hopes of running for mayor in 2013 are being thrown into question as the federal authorities' investigation into his campaign fundraising has resulted in the arrest of one of his fund raisers on fraud charges. Liu said, "I am saddened by what I read today. If it is true, then the conduct was clearly wrong and my campaign was not told the truth." more ›

At the Securities and Exchange Commission, it seems that totally dropping the ball on Bernard Madoff's massive is not a fire-able offense. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Eight Securities and Exchange Commission employees have been disciplined over their handling of the $50 billion Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, but none were fired, an agency spokesman said Friday. A ninth individual left the agency after receiving notice of a proposed disciplinary action, according to the spokesman." more ›

Three years after the NY Times reported on rampant disability fraud among Long Island Rail Road employees, the federal authorities have arrested ten people for their roles in perpetrating the billion-dollar scam. According to the Times, "Most of the people — those charged in the case include seven former railroad workers accused of making false pension claims, the two doctors and a former federal railroad pension agency employee who helped the workers file the claims — were taken into custody in the early morning hours at their homes by F.B.I. agents and state investigators, the people said." more ›

Nine years after Science Applications International Corporation bled the city's coffers of $600 million for Mayor Bloomberg's timekeeping fiasco that no one seems to care about, the company has fired three executives linked to the project. In a letter obtained by the Daily News, SAIC's CEO wrote to employees yesterday, "The kind of behavior we have seen in CityTime is criminal and is an affront to everything SAIC stands for as a company." It's unclear whether he scribbled in the margins, "But we're still keeping the cash." more ›

Earlier this week, a 36-year-old Bronx woman admitted to stuffing her dead 73-year-old roommate in a suitcase and leaving him in front of an abandoned house in Williamsbridge. Monica Exum claimed she had nothing to do with his death, and did this because she was scared. But it's now been revealed that things weren't even that clear-cut: Exum allegedly cashed longtime boyfriend Johnny Davis's Social Security checks and bank funds for three months after he died. more ›

Earlier this summer federal prosecutors charged ex-Citigroup VP Gary Foster of embezzling millions from the bank into personal accounts and yesterday he plead guilty to one count of bank fraud. The legally blind banker now faces a maximum of ten years in the slammer for making off with $22.9 million between September 2003 and June 2011. more ›

While we debate Hizzoner's white lies about the Goldsmith imbroglio, keep in mind there is a much pricier scandal that should make everyone thoroughly pissed. Back in June, Mayor Bloomberg finally admitted in a press conference that the $740 million CityTime disaster was in fact not a "pretty good job" as he'd previously stated, but a debacle that "nobody paid as much attention to it as they should have, from me on down, and we’re going to find out who did what." However, three sources tell the Post that at least one city official did pay attention, and warned Bloomberg's advisors that CityTime was a huge waste of money, and should have been scrapped. more ›

All this time, we thought Harrison Ford was the Jewish Indiana Jones—but it turns out that Menachem Youlus, who has been going around the world rescuing lost Torahs, has dubbed himself the "Jewish Indiana Jones." But now he's been accused of giving a bad name to Jewish Indiana Jones's everywhere. more ›

According to federal prosecutors, former Citigroup Vice President Gary Foster "used his knowledge of bank operations to commit the ultimate inside job." While at the bank Foster, 35, allegedly used his knowledge to embezzle $19.2 million into a personal bank account in a series of secret money transfers. more ›

When an inside trading scandal is as puny as the one against Winnie "The Poohster" Jiau (hedge funds paid her $200K for tips, which is how much Lloyd Blankfein's iPad case cost) it's only natural to seize on the more titillating aspects of the case, like how a witness against her somehow testified about his bad mushroom trip. Totally told you to stay away from those purple ones bro! more ›

A Washington Heights doctor faces up to 15 years in prison for allegedly running a $700,000 scam in which he falsely diagnosed his patients with HIV in order to fraudulently bill Medicaid. Suresh Hemrajani, 57, was arraigned today on felony charges of grand larceny, fraud and falsifying business records. According to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Hemrajani would immediately prescribe medications for the patients on their very first visits, and send the bill to Medicaid. The investigation is still ongoing, but prosecutors believe that the patients participated willingly in the scam. more ›

You may remember the "Fabulous" Fabrice Tourre, the mid-level Goldman Sachs trader who the SEC cherry-picked last year to make an example of. Goldman scrounged around in their manatee-leather couches and found $500 million to settle charges of fraud and gee they were really sorry. An article in today's Times seems to confirm what most people knew all along: Tourre was a scapegoat and his superiors should have been targeted for investigation, but weren't. more ›

We knew there was a reason that the sun is shining today. After some speculation that he would step down after a somewhat tumultuous turn at the helm of Goldman Sachs, CEO Lloyd Blankfein has indicated that he will remain vampire squid-in-chief for at least a couple of years. Who would give up a cafeteria like this? The Post breaks down Blankfein's "report card" as being a "mixed bag," noting that while the firm has crushed competitors like JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, Blankfein has presided over a tumble in profits and a "p.r. trainwreck" following the $550 million settlement with the SEC over fraud related to subprime mortgages. more ›

After a hard day of just being a friggin' hero, pulling your fellow man out of the twisted, flaming wreckage of a highway pileup, a guy is entitled to $1,200 of body work on his Expedition, a little $21,000 shoulder surgery and maybe a cold one, right? But the NYPD has slapped the cuffs on Gabriel Hernandez, a Bronx resident who is accused of insurance fraud after authorities viewed a tape of the accident that shows Hernandez wasn't actually involved in the accident. more ›

Corporate travel agent and paranormal romance novelist Victoria Wofford threw herself on the mercy of the court yesterday at her sentencing for Grand Larceny. Last May, Wofford pleaded guilty to making a whopping $25 million in fraudulent charges against American Express over the course of four years. Using two defunct business travel accounts belonging to one of her clients, she racked up millions in debt, using the money to develop software, purchase an apartment in Florida, invest in a restaurant chain, and support herself while she penned Lifelines, a "bewitching paranormal murder mystery" about "a beautiful redhead criminal lawyer and her past lives and loves as an ancient warrior and as a survivor in a burning Atlanta Civil War battle." more ›

A scientist who was previously convicted for misappropriating government funds to pay for his sex change has been slapped with a $4 million dollar bill from the government to go along with the time she served in a women's prison. more ›

It must have seemed like a marvelous idea for a group of friends looking for a way to make some extra money, but the police arrested eight people and are seeking a ninth for committing insurance fraud by staging a three-car crash in the Bronx last summer. The cops found surveillance video (watch it below) from W. 168th St. and Cromwell Ave. in High Bridge which showed a rather slow-moving crash. The Post says, "In one particularly memorable scene, one of the drivers actually backs up for a do-over." Practice makes perfect? more ›

The California blonde accused of fraud was in New York City yesterday pleading not guilty to charges. She allegedly conspired with David Birnbaum (of Brooklyn) and Vladimir Zuravel (of Queens) by posing as a member of the Guggenheim family and attempting to hawk fake investments. more ›