A 33-year-old man has been arrested and charged in the US for allegedly acting as a money mule for a group of Nigerian-based scammers, helping to launder millions of dollars in fraud proceeds. Samuel D. Marcus is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, six counts of illegal monetary transactions, and one count of money laundering involving illegal concealment.

According to the indictment, from approximately July 2023 through December 2025, Marcus, who was employed as a logistics specialist with the US Department of Defense, was in contact with individuals in Nigeria who allegedly orchestrated a range of wire fraud schemes, including romance scams, cyber fraud, tax fraud, financing fraud, and business email compromise (BEC) schemes that collectively caused millions of dollars in losses.

The fraudsters allegedly used a network of US-based money mules to move and disguise the stolen funds. Victims transferred money into bank accounts managed by the intermediaries, including Marcus, who would convert the funds into cryptocurrency and then move the assets to foreign accounts.

Prosecutors also allege that Marcus lied to the authorities about the source of the money, including by sending fake invoices to make transactions appear legitimate.

If convicted on all counts, Marcus faces a maximum possible sentence of 100 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and fines totaling up to $2 million.

A hacker pleads guilty to breaching hundreds of Snapchat accounts

A hacker has pleaded guilty to compromising Snapchat accounts of nearly 600 women to steal nude photos, which he kept, sold, or traded online.

The defendant, 26-year-old Kyle Svara, admitted in US federal court to phishing access codes from hundreds of victims between May 2020 and February 2021. Prosecutors said Svara targeted roughly 570 victims and unlawfully accessed at least 59 Snapchat accounts to download private, compromising images.

According to court documents, Svara used social engineering tactics to gather victims’ email addresses, phone numbers, and Snapchat usernames. He then sent more than 4,500 text messages impersonating Snapchat representatives to trick victims into providing access codes. Svara advertised his hacking “services” online, offering to break into women’s Snapchat accounts for clients and trading stolen images, often directing contacts to the encrypted messaging app Kik.

One of Svara’s clients was former Northeastern University track and field coach Steve Waithe, who paid him to hack accounts belonging to students and members of the university’s women’s track and field and soccer teams. Waithe was sentenced in March 2024 to five years in prison for cyberstalking, cyber fraud, and sextortion involving at least 128 women. Svara also independently targeted women in Illinois and students at Colby College in Maine.

Svara now faces charges including aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, and making false statements related to child pornography. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 18, 2026.

Scammers charged in $3 million online gambling fraud scheme

Two men are facing charges for orchestrating a years-long scheme that defrauded FanDuel and other online gambling platforms out of roughly $3 million by using stolen identities.

29-year-olds Amitoj Kapoor and Siddharth Lillaney were arrested and later released on a $300,000 bond each. Authorities say the pair purchased the personally identifying information of approximately 3,000 victims from Dark Web marketplaces and the Telegram messaging platform, then used the data to create thousands of fake accounts on sites including FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM between April 2021 and 2026.

Prosecutors allege the defendants subscribed to background-check services such as TruthFinder and BeenVerified to help bypass identity verification systems. Kapoor maintained a spreadsheet to organize stolen data, including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers, and discussed methods for quickly opening accounts in text messages with Lillaney.

The scheme allegedly took advantage of sign-up bonuses from online gambling sites. If Kapoor and Lillaney won a bet using a bonus bet, the winnings were transferred to a virtual stored-value card backed by an FDIC-insured financial institution. FanDuel allowed account holders to use the cards to make deposits to and withdrawals from their FanDuel accounts. Kapoor and Lillaney then transferred the proceeds of their scheme from the stored-value cards to bank and investment accounts they controlled.

Both men are charged with conspiracy to commit wire and identity fraud, wire fraud, identity fraud, aggravated identity theft, and multiple money laundering offenses. If convicted on all counts, they could face decades in US prison.

Chinese crypto scammer sentenced to 20 years for $73.6M fraud scheme

A US court has sentenced a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis in absentia to the statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison and three years of supervised release for his role in a massive international cryptocurrency investment fraud. The defendant, Daren Li, 42, is currently a fugitive after cutting off his ankle electronic monitoring device and fleeing in December 2025.

Li pleaded guilty on November 12, 2024, to conspiring to launder proceeds from cryptocurrency scams and related fraud schemes operated out of scam centers in the Kingdom of Cambodia. According to court documents, Li and others involved in the scheme contacted victims through social media, phone calls, text messages, and online dating apps. They gained trust by pretending to be professionals or romantic partners, often using encrypted messaging apps to communicate.

Once trust was built, they directed victims to fake websites that looked like real cryptocurrency trading platforms and convinced them to invest in fraudulent schemes. In other cases, victims were tricked into believing they were speaking with customer service or technical support and were persuaded to send money to fix nonexistent issues.

As part of his plea deal, Li admitted that the conspiracy earned at least $73.6 million. About $59.8 million of the money was routed through US shell companies to hide its source. So far, eight co-conspirators have pleaded guilty. Li is the first person sentenced who directly received and controlled the stolen money.

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The developer behind the JokerOTP service arrested in the Netherlands

Dutch police have arrested a 21-year-old man from Dordrecht as part of an ongoing cybercrime investigation into the JokerOTP software capable of intercepting one-time passwords - temporary codes often sent by text message or email to provide additional security for online logins and transactions.

The JokerOTP bot allowed criminals to automatically call victims and trick them into entering their one-time passwords, allowing unauthorized access to accounts.

The suspect is the third person arrested in connection to JokerOTP. Previously, two individuals were arrested as part of a joint international operation that dismantled JokerOTP, a sophisticated phishing tool used to steal over £7.5 million. The arrests took place on April 22nd, with a 24-year-old man detained in Middlesbrough, England, and a 30-year-old man was arrested in the Netherlands.

According to Dutch police, the arrested suspect sold the bot to other cybercriminals via a Telegram account and was found to be in possession of the bot’s license keys.

In the meantime, Polish authorities have arrested a hacker behind one of the major database leaks in the country’s history, which occurred in 2018. The incident involved the popular Polish online electronics marketplace Morele.net and affected two million customers.