Posted on 11/01/2026 3:13:32 AM PST by DFG
The Justice Department unveiled charges against five people accused of orchestrating a sophisticated campaign to rip off federal financial aid by enrolling “ghost students” who existed only on paper — seizing about $750,000 in ill-gotten funds.
The network operated in the US and Kenya, where a phony safari company banked the loot after applying to and then enrolling phony students in college, using stolen identification.
The Kenyan scheme is believed to have netted about $2 million.
Three of the five defendants — Mabed Utate-Alberto, Patricia Perez and George Mendez — were charged in New Jersey for acting as “money mules” opening bank accounts to send about $1.3 million to Kenya. Two Kenyan citizens were indicted in Nebraska and Virginia.
“This is organized fraud at scale,” assistant attorney general for fraud Colin McDonald said at a press conference, where he dubbed the effort “Operation Ghostbusters.”
“Investigators believe this fraud has been ongoing since at least 2021, potentially reaching several hundred million dollars lost. In California, nearly 1/3 of community college applications submitted in 2024 were reportedly flagged as fraudulent.”
McDonald said that the fraud is difficult to catch, especially with online classes, as the scammers use artificial intelligence to complete coursework and give the impression of attendance, sometimes even hiring actual people to appear on-screen using the stolen identifications.
Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent, describing himself as a former low-income student, said that the new case “sends a warning that we are serious to fraudsters, both at home and abroad.”
The Education Department has started to require applicants to show ID to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, Kent said, resulting in “nearly $600 million in savings in just six months.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Who you gonna call?
arrests?
If Obama had a son...
“ The Education Department has started to require applicants to show ID to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form…”
They just now started asking for ID?
Our entire Federal bureaucracy needs to be burned to the ground.
L
Burn, then salt the ground our Government walked on. Build back better!
Waiting for the usual douchebags to screech this is a distraction from Trump’s threat to democracy, his low poll numbers, it’s not widespread, blah blah blah.
It’s getting to the point to find anything that isn’t a scam
“All it took was a new president”
President Trump and VP Vance need to create a high level summary of all the financial and vote fraud they have uncovered and are prosecuting. There are so. Any of these mind-numbing fraud stories pouring out that it is impossible to see the forest for the trees.
This should have been done six months before the midterm election to make hay. Democrats are running with “affordability” but this criminal fraud could have been pinned on them. Imagine how much more “affordable” life would be if your taxes were cut by half!
Too bad we don’t have an extradition agreement with Kenya.
It only saved us $600 million so nothing to see here. /sarc
I read elsewhere about this immigrant - he came here in April of 2024 and by Nov of 2025 he had assimilated enough with other like minded grifters to start his fraud.
A few years ago, there was a much worse Kenyan scheme operating in Washington DC.
“”as the scammers use artificial intelligence to complete coursework””
Another great benefit of AI....
Virginia…I’ll bet the defunct prestigious Virginia International University or the more recent Fairfax University of America in the same building in Fairfax, Va were involved. Prestigious because they had a sign at the route 29 exit of the Fairfax County Parkway guiding the fraudster aliens to the 3-story “campus”. No one actually attended the “school” or received an education there.
Congress could fix this easy by not allowing funds go directly into “student” hands.
The way it works is that money does go directly to the school but any leftover funds do indeed go to the student.
Money also goes to students in work-study arrangements.
So Congress need only indicate that excess funds are returned to the Treasury and funds ONLY go to schools. Refunds for timely class cancellations also go back to the treasury.
But Congress won’t do something so simple because they are in on the grift.
There is the face of someone who would kill Americans just for fun.
I WONDER HOW PROUD OBAMA IS OF THIS SCHEME???
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