John McAfee was the creator of the McAfee anti-virus software and helped start a multi billion dollar industry but he holds some unusual opinions (including that taxation is illegal) and has come to the interest of the Police in various countries over the years since he sold his company to Intel.

He was arrested in Spain over tax evasion charges and faces extradition to the US.

Prosecutors say he failed to file tax returns for four years, despite earning millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story.

If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison.

In a statement the US Justice Department said Mr McAfee allegedly evaded tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees. As a result, it is alleged, he failed to file any tax returns from 2014 to 2018.

He is also accused of concealing assets, including a yacht and real estate property, in the names of others.

The government regulator alleges that Mr McAfee made over $23m by “leveraging his fame” and recommending seven cryptocurrency offerings between 2017 and 2018, which allegedly turned out to be “essentially worthless”.

The SEC is seeking to impose a civil penalty on him, and remove any “allegedly ill-gotten gains”, with interest. It also wants to permanently ban him from serving as an officer or director of any listed company, or any company which files reports to the SEC.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

The job of the National Crime Agency (NCA) is described as leading the fight against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cyber crime and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders.

However, criminals are posing as National Crime Agency officers over the phone in an attempt to con people and steal from them.

The scammers target the elderly and some victims have lost their life savings.

The NCA has so far recorded hundreds of  reports of scammers claiming to be NCA officers and they often give a bogus NCA identity number.

The criminals warn victims about a banking scam and persuade them to allow remote access to their computers, or to hand over personal information and bank details.

Sometimes they ask their targets to move the money to a “safe” bank account.

One case involved a 70-year-old man from London who transferred his life savings of £350,000 out of his account after scammers pretended to be NCA officers and staff from an IT security company. The victim allowed the men remote access to his computer after they said he had been hacked and needed to move his money to safe account.

Members of the public should be aware that an NCA officer will NEVER:

• Ask for remote access to your computer via phone, email or online
• Ask you to verify personal details such as passwords, account numbers or card details via phone, email or online
• Ask you to transfer or hand over money via phone, email or online
• Threaten you into providing this information

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

Nathan Wyatt of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire has been jailed for five years in the USA.

He was a key member of the hacking team known as The Dark Overlord.

Their speciality was stealing confidential information such as medical records, client files and personal information then ransoming those files back to the owner.

The ransom was between $75,000 and $300,000 but the FBI do not believe any of the companies paid that ransom.

Those companies did suffer financially due to the cost of the intrusions, fixing the problems and dealing with clients.

Nathan Wyatt pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated identity theft and computer fraud and was also ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution.

The only question left is “If none of the companies paid the ransom, how is he rich enough to pay the restitution?”

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

Three men have been jailed after defrauding elderly bank customers of more than £390,000 and laundering the cash through multiple fake accounts.

Taminder Virdi from Ilford, and Abubakar Salim from Leyton, who both worked at the same TSB branch in Stoke Newington in 2014, transferred funds out of customer accounts into 65 fraudulent beneficiary accounts they had opened.

These accounts were controlled by accountant Babar Hussain from East Ham.

Officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) were alerted to their activity when one of the eight victims, all of whom were in their 70s, reported that £56,000 had been transferred out of their bank account without consent. That money was then deposited into seven beneficiary accounts opened in different names.

Hussain was arrested in 2016 and officers recovered a number of fraudulently obtained genuine driving licenses, which Virdi and Salim used along with fake gas and electric bills to open up the beneficiary accounts.

When he was interviewed, Hussain claimed that part of his work in the community involved opening and managing bank accounts for those just arriving in the UK with no fixed address.

Messages on Hussain’s mobile phone identified other victims of fraud, where Virdi and Salim abused their position within the bank to access their accounts and transfer money into beneficiary accounts.

Virdi was arrested in 2016 and Salim in 2017.

Following the internal investigations, TSB reported the incidents to the police and assisted the NCA fully with the investigation.

All three were charged with fraud by abuse of position and money laundering.

Hussain was jailed for five years and four months.

Virdi and Salim were found guilty in April 2019 and were sentenced to three years and six months and four years respectively.

Mike Hulett, Head of Operations at the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said:

“Hussain is a professional money launderer who used his accountancy knowledge to steal hundreds of thousands of pounds from elderly banking customers.

All the customers who lost money were fully reimbursed by the banks.

If you have any experiences with this kind of scam do let me know, by email.