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Anonymous ID: 1df147 May 21, 2026, 1:38 p.m. No.24631080   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1096 >>1103 >>1108 >>1119

DOJ Charges 15 in $90 Million Minnesota Fraud Schemes

‘This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota,’ Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the National Fraud Enforcement Division, says.

 

Criminal charges have been filed against 15 accused fraudsters in Minnesota, involving more than $90 million in taxpayers’ dollars, federal officials announced on May 21 at a news conference in Minneapolis.

“This is the beginning of our work in Minnesota,” Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the National Fraud Enforcement Division, said.

McDonald took the helm of that newly formed Department of Justice (DOJ) division less than two months ago.

He alleged that the suspects “systematically pilfered” seven different government-benefit programs, treating them as “their personal piggy bank.”

Officials revealed the new charges shortly after a federal judge sentenced a convicted fraudster to nearly 42 years in prison. Prosecutors said Aimee Bock, now 45, was the “mastermind” behind $242 million illegally taken from the Federal Child Nutrition Program. The organization that Bock headed, Feeding Our Future, operated the nation’s largest COVID-19 pandemic fraud scheme, officials said.

Bock and dozens of other suspects were charged beginning in 2022. That was three years before Minnesota’s estimated $9 billion in government-program fraud rose to national prominence and inspired President Donald Trump to launch a nationwide fraud-enforcement effort.

The latest accusations involve programs such as autism services and Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services, which the state shut down because of fraud.

In 2020, the housing-assistance program was budgeted for $2.5 million annually. But by 2024, it “ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million,” because of fraud, McDonald said.

“The same trends exist for other Minnesota-run taxpayer-funded programs,” he said, noting that the autism program cost taxpayers $600,000 just six years ago but “skyrocketed to over $400 million.” McDonald attributed that exponential increase to fraud, not need for services.

Calling the new prosecutions “unprecedented,” McDonald said they include “the highest loss amount ever charged in a Medicaid case in Minnesota, and the largest autism-fraud scheme ever charged by the Department of Justice.”

The defendants’ names and further details about the charges were not immediately available.

“The common theme throughout these cases is fraudsters exploiting vulnerable people” and programs, McDonald said.

The defendants used disabled people “like lottery tickets … to generate millions of dollars,” McDonald said, adding that the ill-gotten gains were used to buy real estate, luxury vehicles, and expensive jewelry.

He said the suspects were determined to reap money no matter what the cost to others.

In one case, a client died after failing to receive care for which an alleged fraudster billed Medicaid, McDonald said.

“We will not … tolerate this greed and deceit,” he said.

In recent months, President Donald Trump’s administration has focused on fraud, producing “450 fraud-enforcement actions” nationwide, he said.

The efforts are expanding, McDonald said, announcing that 15 additional prosecutors have been hired.

“If you see something that seems too good to be true, tell us,” he said, referring to anyone in Minnesota or the rest of the United States.

McDonald noted that parents were being paid kickbacks to enroll their children in some of the programs.

He urged citizens: “Speak out. Help us win the fight against fraud.”

And he warned fraudsters: “Eat, drink, and be merry today. Because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered.”

McDonald said he would “claw back every dollar you have stolen from the American people.”

Also speaking at the news conference, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the indirect costs of fraud are high, too.

“Fraud drives up health care costs for all Americans. It weakens public trust. It drains taxpayer resources, and threatens the long-term stability of both Medicaid and Medicare,” Kennedy said. “If we fail to confront the fraud aggressively, these programs will not survive for future generations in the form Americans rely upon them today.”

He commended Trump and Vice President JD Vance for “carrying out the most aggressive anti-fraud effort in American history.”

Kennedy said fraud cases often take years, or even decades, to assemble, but in these cases, prosecutors and investigators worked with “a precision and speed that is unprecedented in the history of law enforcement.”

 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/doj-charges-15-in-90-million-minnesota-fraud-schemes-6034048

Anonymous ID: 1df147 May 21, 2026, 1:42 p.m. No.24631100   🗄️.is 🔗kun

US Invests $2 Billion in IBM, Other Firms to Boost Quantum Computing

IBM, GlobalFoundries, and several emerging firms are set to benefit from one of the government’s largest quantum-related investments to date.

 

The U.S. Department of Commerce is awarding $2 billion to IBM and eight other American quantum computing companies in an effort to secure the nation’s lead in the race to build the world’s most powerful computers.

IBM is set to receive half of that amount to launch a new subsidiary called Anderon, which the company described in a statement Thursday as “America’s first pure-play quantum foundry.”

“This initiative represents one of the most significant commitments by the U.S. Government to date in quantum R&D to position the United States to manufacture most of the world’s quantum wafers,” IBM said, referring to the specialized wafers used to produce quantum computing chips.

Quantum computers process information using qubits, which rely on the laws of quantum mechanics. Because qubits are highly vulnerable to decoherence—the loss of their quantum state due to interference from their surroundings—quantum-grade wafers must meet extraordinarily high standards of purity and structural precision to support stable, reliable performance.

IBM said it would match the award by investing an additional $1 billion into Anderon, “with additional investors expected” as the company grows.

Thursday’s awards also included $375 million for contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries to build a domestic factory capable of producing components for several different types of quantum machines, according to the Commerce Department.

Other firms, including D-Wave, Rigetti Computing, and Infleqtion, will receive about $100 million each, while Diraq is set to receive up to $38 million to tackle key technical hurdles that have slowed the development of more powerful quantum computers.

The funding comes from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a $280 billion package aimed at boosting domestic high-end semiconductor manufacturing, reducing reliance on overseas supply chains, and countering China’s technological influence and competition.

In exchange, the Commerce Department said it will take a “minority, non-controlling” equity stake in each company to “enhance the return for the U.S. taxpayer.”

“These strategic quantum technology investments will build on our domestic industry, creating thousands of high-paying American jobs while advancing American quantum capabilities,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

Investors have been pouring money into quantum computing firms because the technology is expected to solve problems beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputers. That could lead to major advances in fields such as medicine, finance, and transportation, from designing new drugs to testing advanced car materials to simulating complex market behaviors.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, quantum computing could generate as much as $1.3 trillion in value across these industries by 2035.

The expectations stem from the fact that quantum systems operate fundamentally differently from classical computers, which process information using bits that can exist in only one of two states at a time, either 0 or 1. A qubit, by contrast, can exist in a combination of both at the same time, allowing quantum systems to process information far more efficiently.

Quantum computing’s power can grow even further when multiple qubits are linked through a phenomenon known as “entanglement.” Under the laws of quantum mechanics, entangled qubits can become correlated in ways that dramatically expand what these systems can do at exponential scales.

 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/us-invests-2-billion-in-ibm-other-firms-to-boost-quantum-computing-6034204