Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Federal prosecutors have unveiled sweeping fraud charges against the top leadership of a failed subprime auto lender, accusing them of engineering a years-long deception that helped fuel a billion-dollar collapse and left roughly 100,000 borrowers and investors in limbo. The case centers on Tricolor, a Dallas-based company that pitched itself as a lifeline for people…
Senators racing to finish a landmark cryptocurrency framework suddenly find their bill moving faster just as a high-stakes fight over credit card “swipe” fees gets pushed to the sidelines. The decision to ice a crackdown on those fees, long championed by retailers and fiercely opposed by banks, has cleared procedural obstacles for the digital asset…
Corporate Minnesota is being forced off the sidelines. After weeks of aggressive immigration raids, a fatal shooting and mass walkouts, the chief executives of Target and other major employers are now publicly urging federal authorities to pull back. Their plea is not only about values, it is about a labor force that is literally disappearing…
Tiny firms that once chased down cheating spouses or missing relatives are now landing lucrative federal deals to help track undocumented immigrants. Under President Donald Trump, immigration enforcement has quietly opened the door to a new class of contractors, turning small private investigators and data brokers into key players in a national hunt for people…
Across the country, private car sellers are discovering that the stranger in their driveway is not a bargain hunter but the opening move in a tightly scripted fraud. The so‑called “oil in the engine” scheme uses staged breakdowns and fake mechanics to bully owners into slashing their asking price on the spot. Sheriffs from California…
Maryland’s unemployment system is now defined less by the lifeline it offered during the pandemic than by the financial wreckage that followed. A deep blue state that prides itself on competent government is confronting audits that flag nearly $1.29 billion in overpayments, hundreds of thousands of repayment letters, and a politically explosive finding that most…
Elizabeth Holmes, once celebrated as a visionary of Silicon Valley, is now a convicted fraudster serving an 11 year sentence and ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to victims of Theranos. After losing her appeals, she is turning to the one person who can unilaterally change her fate, President Donald Trump, asking him to…
Vice President JD Vance is escalating his war on pandemic-era fraud, arguing that a sprawling California scheme has eclipsed the already notorious Minnesota scandal. Framing the issue as a test of whether public benefits truly serve American citizens, he is now tying together welfare abuse, immigration politics, and a new federal crackdown. His claim that…
Self checkout was sold as the future of retail, a frictionless way to grab groceries and get out the door. Instead, a surge in theft and mounting public backlash is pushing some of the country’s biggest chains to rip out machines and rethink the entire model. The quiet reversal now unfolding in big-box aisles and…
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is facing a formal ethics complaint that cuts to the heart of how the Department of Justice polices the fast‑moving world of cryptocurrency. At issue is whether the official overseeing key financial crime cases could fairly regulate an industry in which he personally held a significant stake while also serving…