Looking Back: 8 Major Fraud Cases from 2024
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Fraud Section is in the business of bringing down large-scale fraudsters. And in 2024, business was booming.
“Last year, the average fraud loss per individual charged of over $35 million—and the percentage of gatekeepers (executives and medical professionals) charged—over 35 percent—were at all-time highs, demonstrating the section’s continued focus on prosecuting the worst offenders committing the biggest crimes,” wrote Glenn Leon, Fraud Section chief, in the forward of the section’s annual report released in January 2025.
The Fraud Section also reached more corporate resolutions than it did in 2023, rising to approximately $2.3 billion—triple 2023’s total. These resolutions were with companies around the globe, including in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Spain, South Africa, and Switzerland.
“These companies operated across a range of industries, such as telecommunications, defense contracting, software services, commodities trading, aircraft services, and management consulting,” according to the annual report. “Moreover, the schemes were geographically widespread and included bribery of officials in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South and East Asia.”
Below is a snapshot of some of the section’s high-profile fraud cases from the past year.
1. Bribery: United States vs. Gunvor S.A.
International commodities trading company Gunvor S.A., based in Switzerland, pled guilty to conspiring to violate anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in March 2024. As part of the guilty plea, Gunvor agreed to pay a criminal penalty and forfeiture amount of more than $661 million.
Between 2012 and 2020, Gunvar engaged intermediaries with the knowledge that some of their consulting fees would be used to bribe Ecuadorian officials to secure business with the country’s state-owned and controlled oil company, Petroecuador.
“As part of the scheme, Gunvor managers and agents attended meetings in the United States and routed bribe payments through banks in the United States using shell companies controlled by Gunvor’s co-conspirators,” according to the annual report. “In total, Gunvor earned more than $384 million in profits from the contracts it corruptly obtained.”
2. Loans: United States vs. Manuel Chang
A U.S. federal jury convicted former Mozambique finance minister, Manuel Chang, for his role in a $2 billion fraud, bribery, and money laundering scheme.
At trial, prosecutors showed that Chang and his co-conspirators ensured that a Credit Suisse subsidiary and another foreign investment bank arranged for more than $2 billion in loans to companies owned and controlled by the Mozambican government.
“The proceeds of the loans were intended to fund three maritime projects for which the shipbuilding company was to provide the equipment and services; and Chang and his co-conspirators falsely told banks and investors, including those in the United States, that the loan proceeds would be used not to pay bribes to government officials,” the report said.
Chang, however, used some of the loan proceeds to pay bribes and kickbacks, including $7 million to himself in exchange for securing funding for the loans. Each of the borrowers then “defaulted on their loans and proceeded to miss more than $700 million in loan payments, causing substantial losses to investors.”
Chang was sentenced in January 2025 to 102 months in federal prison for his role in the scheme.
Credit Suisse entered a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2021; its UK subsidiary pled guilty. The firm paid roughly $473 million as part of a global coordinated resolution.
3. Corruption: United States vs. SAP SE
Global software company SAP SE entered a three-year DPA with the DOJ and paid more than $220 million to resolve an investigation into violations of the FCPA to bribe government officials in South Africa and Indonesia.
In the resolution, SAP admitted that between 2013 and 2018 it made bribe payments and provided other items of value to benefit South African and Indonesian officials, including cash payments, political contributions, wire transfers, and other luxury goods purchased during shopping trips.
4. Medicare: United States vs. Alexandra Gehrke, Jeffrey King, Bethany Jameson, and Carlos Ching
The Fraud Section’s Healthcare Fraud Unit charged four defendants in the first prosecuted case of fraudulent Medicare claims for amniotic wound allografts.
The defendants, Alexandra Gehrke, Jeffrey King, Bethany Jameson, and Carlos Ching, orchestrated a scheme around the application of expensive wound grafts that was intended to cause losses of more than $900 million for federal health care programs and secondary insurers; the scheme netted actual losses of $600 million.
“Gehrke and King received hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful kickbacks from the wholesale distributor of the grafts in exchange for ordering its products,” according to the report. “Gehrke diverted over $100 million of these kickbacks to personal bank accounts and tens of millions of dollars to medically untrained ‘sales representatives’ who were responsible for identifying the Medicare patients, assessing the patients’ wounds, ordering or recommending the ordering of the grafts to be applied to the wounds, and referring the patients to King.”
King operated a company that contracted licensed nurse practitioners that included Jameson and Ching. These practitioners would then apply grafts to patients, even if they were not medically necessary and without conducting independent assessments of patients’ health conditions.
5. Conspiracy: United States v. McKinsey & Company Africa
McKinsey & Company Africa Ltd, a subsidiary of McKinsey Company that operates in South Africa, entered a three-year DPA with the DOJ and agreed to pay more than $122 million in connection with an information charging conspiracy to violate bribery provisions of the FCPA.
During a four-year period, a senior partner at McKinsey Africa agreed to pay bribes to officials at two South African state-owned entities—Transnet SOC Ltd and Eskom Holdings Limited.
“As part of the scheme, McKinsey Africa obtained sensitive confidential and non-public information from Transnet and Eskom regarding the award of lucrative consulting contracts and submitted proposals for multimillion-dollar consulting engagements, while knowing that South African consulting firms with which McKinsey Africa had partnered would pay a portion of their fees as bribes to officials at Transnet and Eskom,” according to the report. “As a result of the bribery scheme, McKinsey and McKinsey Africa earned profits of approximately $85 million.”
6. Visas: United States v. Jeromy Pittmann
A U.S. federal jury convicted U.S. Navy Reserve commander Jeromy Pittmann for a bribery scheme that involved Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for Afghan nationals. The U.S. State Department issues SIVs in a limited quantity each year to Afghan nationals hired as translators for U.S. military personnel.
At trial, prosecutors showed that Pittman received bribes from Afghan nationals in exchange for drafting, submitting, and verifying fake letters of recommendation for Afghans applying for SIVs—many of whom Pittman did not actually know. An intermediary would pay Pittman the bribe money and create false invoices to show Pittmann was receiving money for legitimate work not related to his military service.
7. Crypto: United States v. Shane Hampton
A U.S. federal jury convicted Shane Hampton for orchestrating a scheme to manipulate the price of the HYDRO cryptocurrency and defraud investors.
Hampton was the head of financial engineering at Hydrogen Technology. He, along with co-conspirators, hired an outside firm to run an automated trading system—or bot—to manipulate the price of HYDRO on a cryptocurrency exchange by flooding the market with fraudulent orders.
“Hampton and his co-conspirators executed approximately $7 million in ‘wash trades’ and placed over $300 million in ‘spoof trades’ for HYDRO through the bot, which fraudulently induced retail investors to purchase HYDRO,” the report said. “Hampton was sentenced to two years and 11 months in prison. Michael Kane—who was Hydrogen Technology’s CEO and pleaded guilty in 2023—was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.”
8. Contract Fraud: United States v. Raytheon
Raytheon Corporation entered a three-year DPA with the DOJ to resolve an investigation into two separate defective-pricing schemes to defraud the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), including for the provision of PATRIOT missile systems and a radar system.
Under the DPA, Raytheon admitted that employees provided false and fraudulent information to the DOD during contract negotiations with the United States for the benefit of a foreign partner—one purchasing a PATRIOT missile system and the other to operate and maintain a radar system—to mislead DOD into awarding the contracts at inflated prices.
“These schemes to defraud caused the DOD to pay Raytheon over $111 million more than Raytheon should have been paid on the contracts,” according to the report. “Raytheon agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $146,787,972 million and $11,203,009 in victim compensation.”
Megan Gates is the editor-in-chief of Security Technology. Connect with her at [email protected] or on LinkedIn.