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Alley-Oops! George Mason Basketball Team Duped By Sham Travel Agent In $100K Scheme: Feds Alley-Oops! George Mason Basketball Team Duped By Sham Travel Agent In $100K Scheme: Feds
Alley-Oops! George Mason Basketball Team Duped By Sham Travel Agent In $100K Scheme: Feds The George Mason University men's basketball team planned an exciting summer trip to the Bahamas, but instead, they were left grounded after an Atlanta travel agent allegedly pocketed over $100,000 without booking a single ticket or hotel room. Maurice Eugene Smith, 44, is facing charges of wire fraud for allegedly scamming the Patriots out of their international trip, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. In June 2023, GMU representatives began planning the trip with a company referred to as "Company A" in court records.  Smith, operating through…

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by Zak Failla
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$10M Cryptocurrency 'Pig Butchering' Scheme Leads To Domain Seizures In Virginia: DOJ $10M Cryptocurrency 'Pig Butchering' Scheme Leads To Domain Seizures In Virginia: DOJ
$10M Cryptocurrency 'Pig Butchering' Scheme Leads To Domain Seizures In Virginia: DOJ Federal officials in Virginia have seized domains used to further fraudsters’ “pig butchering” cryptocurrency schemes, according to authorities. The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the measure in an effort to curtail the spread of these schemes, which led to losses of more than $10 million to its victims. According to federal prosecutors, “in pig butchering schemes, scammers encounter victims on dating apps, social media websites, or even random texts masquerading as a wrong number,” slowly gaining trust until proposing the idea of making a business inve…

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by Zak Failla
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Lorton Drug Dealer Who Caused Woman's Overdose Sentenced To 22 Years In Prison Lorton Drug Dealer Who Caused Woman's Overdose Sentenced To 22 Years In Prison
Lorton Drug Dealer Who Caused Woman's Overdose Sentenced To 22 Years In Prison A Lorton man was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for causing a woman to die from a drug overdose, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said.  Julian Velasquez, 36, distributed counterfeit Xanax containing fentanyl to the woman, labelled as a 29-year-old E.M., who accidentally overdosed in August 2020, the office reports.  Velasquez, who gave E.M. the fake pill, did not call for help after finding her unresponsive on August 9, 2020. Instead, he called his friend and drug customer, 27-year-old Enoel Comsti of Vienna, to help …

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by David Cifarelli & Josh Lanier