Part 2:
"The Justice Department has charged five people in a crackdown on 'ghost student' loan fraud,"....
And the problem as I surmised without having even read the story:
"If accepted, student aid is distributed first to schools to cover tuition and fees, but any leftover money is deposited into bank accounts controlled by the fraudsters."
And then the part that gets disturbing because of the assumptions being made about those receiving the money into their bank accounts:
"Dozens of Americans have opened bank accounts to act as money mules for fraudsters, the DOJ said."
... so someone receiving money into their bank account doesn't necessarily know the source of the funds. They just know they've been paid and will assume it's for whatever the scammer tells them. In other words someone selling the scammer cryptocurrency won't know they're being used to launder ill-gotten gains. They are at least potentially a VICTIM unless a scammer has for reasons unknown told them the truth about the source of the funds. That seems unlikely and it's all the more reason I find what the DoJ does absolutely disgusting.
The DoJ is contributing to the problem while convicting, prosecuting, or convincing innocent people just trying to get by to take a plea deal in exchange for testimony against folks who also may or may not be the scammer.
The scammers are often overseas and outside the reach of law enforcement so it's often the case the people arrested aren't even the people doing the real harm.
The government literally testified during the Crypto6 case as a perfect example that the agent whose sole job it was to go after scammers HAD NEVER CAUGHT A SCAMMER IN HER 20 or 30 year career (I forget now if she said 20 or 30, but you can look it up either way).
"The Justice Department has charged five people in a crackdown on 'ghost student' loan fraud,"....
And the problem as I surmised without having even read the story:
"If accepted, student aid is distributed first to schools to cover tuition and fees, but any leftover money is deposited into bank accounts controlled by the fraudsters."
And then the part that gets disturbing because of the assumptions being made about those receiving the money into their bank accounts:
"Dozens of Americans have opened bank accounts to act as money mules for fraudsters, the DOJ said."
... so someone receiving money into their bank account doesn't necessarily know the source of the funds. They just know they've been paid and will assume it's for whatever the scammer tells them. In other words someone selling the scammer cryptocurrency won't know they're being used to launder ill-gotten gains. They are at least potentially a VICTIM unless a scammer has for reasons unknown told them the truth about the source of the funds. That seems unlikely and it's all the more reason I find what the DoJ does absolutely disgusting.
The DoJ is contributing to the problem while convicting, prosecuting, or convincing innocent people just trying to get by to take a plea deal in exchange for testimony against folks who also may or may not be the scammer.
The scammers are often overseas and outside the reach of law enforcement so it's often the case the people arrested aren't even the people doing the real harm.
The government literally testified during the Crypto6 case as a perfect example that the agent whose sole job it was to go after scammers HAD NEVER CAUGHT A SCAMMER IN HER 20 or 30 year career (I forget now if she said 20 or 30, but you can look it up either way).