DOJ's first crackdown on AI-assisted "ghost students" seizes $750K+ in crypto
Ars Technica AI · rss · 2026-10-31
The DOJ has charged five individuals in the first broad federal crackdown on "ghost students"—fraudsters who steal hundreds of Americans' identities to pose as college students and siphon student loans, partly using AI.
After data analysis flagged likely fraudsters, the DOJ seized over $750,000 in cryptocurrency from a network associated with Kenyan nationals. Assistant AG McDonald called it "the first international seizure of its kind in Kenya" and warned the crackdown has only just begun.
More from Safety
- Expert panels map 21 clinical AI risks; adversarial tests show autonomous care still unsafe — AleksandraFaust · 2026-10-31
- AI security's dark age: agents can probe every endpoint and attack surface — graceisford · 2026-10-31
- AI dinner takeaways: orgs shipping 5x faster, yet GDP isn't growing 30% a year — graceisford · 2026-10-31
- Android hit by 'SMS of death' bug tracked as CVE-2026-58882 — l4rz · 2026-10-31
- Debating ExploitBench: would 96.8% from a flash model break the nonlinear-intelligence thesis? — teortaxesTex · 2026-10-31
- Jhaddix: AI-Powered Bug Bounty Hunters Are the Cutting Edge — Don't Kill Your Program Now — rez0__ · 2026-10-31