Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – On March 18, 2026, ASHISH KAPOOR, a/k/a “Romy Kapoor,” (“KAPOOR”) age 28, a national of India, pled guilty on March 18, 2026 to Transportation of Child Pornography and Possession of Child Pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2252(a)(1), (a)(4)(B), (b)(1), and (b)(2), announced U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
SAN DIEGO – Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of California filed 132 border-related cases this week, including charges of bringing in aliens for financial gain, reentering the U.S. after deportation, and importation of controlled substances. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California is the fourth-busiest federal district, largely due to a high volume of border-related crimes. This district, encompassing San Diego and Imperial counties, shares a 140-mile border with Mexico. It includes the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the world’s busiest land border crossing, connecting San Diego (America’s eighth largest city) and Tijuana (Mexico’s second largest city).
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – On March 25, 2026, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Rafael Ángel Méndez-Nieves, a 51-year-old man from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, for child exploitation and weapons charges, announced W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. On March 26, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations special agents arrested Méndez-Nieves.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
JOHN MURIUKU WAMUIGAH, 36, a citizen of Kenya, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven to approximately 23 months of imprisonment, time already served, for his participation in a business email compromise scheme that operated out of multiple countries, including the United States.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – On March 19, 2026, YANCY MATIRNE (“MATIRNE”) and ERROL POINTS (“POINTS”), both from New Orleans, were charged on Marchs 19, 2026 in a three-count indictment by a federal grand jury, announced U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle.
Source: United States Department of Justice
The owner of a telemedicine company pleaded guilty today to organizing and leading a $46.2 million Medicare fraud conspiracy that spanned more than six years.
According to court documents, Christopher Harwood, 43, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, admitted that he owned and operated a telemedicine company called TelevisitMD. Harwood and his co-conspirators targeted Medicare patients through aggressive telemarketing campaigns, inducing them to accept orthotic braces and genetic tests that they did not need. Harwood paid doctors to approve orders for these braces and genetic tests. These doctors did not follow Medicare’s rules for telemedicine visits, did not have real medical relationships with the Medicare patients, and often signed orders for orthotic braces and genetic tests without any meaningful interaction with the Medicare patients. Harwood then sold the signed doctors’ orders to durable medical equipment (DME) supply companies, laboratories, and marketers who were part of the scheme.
Harwood also owned and operated multiple DME supply companies based in Florida that he used to bill Medicare millions of dollars for orthotic braces that Medicare patients did not want or need. In total, at least $46.2 million in false and fraudulent claims were submitted to Medicare as part of Harwood’s scheme. Medicare paid $17.9 million based on these claims, and Harwood personally received more than $10.4 million from the fraud scheme.
Harwood pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud and agreed to pay $17.9 million in restitution. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date. Harwood faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG); and Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office made the announcement.
HHS-OIG and FBI investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Owen Dunn of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section is prosecuting the case.
The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of eight strike forces operating in federal districts across the country, has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Spokane, Washington – First Assistant United States Attorney Pete Serrano announced on October 15, 2025, that former Riverside School District employee Dallas Michael Shuler who formerly pled guilty to 12 felony counts pertaining to the online exploitation of children was sentenced on March 25, 2026, to 360 months (30 years) of imprisonment followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.As indicated in court pleadings and hearings, in May of 2024, the FBI Spokane Office was contacted due to a child sexual abuse material video which had been posted online. When questioned about the video, Mr. Shuler indicated he had been in contact with the minors depicted in the video and had requested they produce the sexually explicit material. Further investigation into Mr. Shuler’s electronic devices and online accounts showed Mr. Shuler had engaged in hands-on sexual abuse of at least three minor children and had filmed the abuse. He also engaged in online sexual exploitation of children with dozens of additional victims, many of whom were contacted and victimized through Snapchat. The charges pled to encompass sexual exploitation against 37 different minor children.At the sentencing hearing, AUSA Rebecca Perez spoke to the incredible breach of trust at the core of Shuler’s crimes due to his position as an educator and a coach. Throughout his hundreds of online contacts with minors, Shuler consistently sought out children from the Riverside School District, indicating his ultimate goal of physical sexual contact with children. Mr. Shuler usually posed as a young teenage girl to attempt to entice his target audience of young teenage boys On three separate occasions, Mr. Shuler filmed himself engaging in sexual contact with children and subsequently distributed those images and videos of child sexual abuse material. AUSA Perez further explained that Mr. Shuler’s actions were not a momentary lapse in judgment; rather, they were a consistent pattern which went on for years and was only stopped by the actions of the FBI and Spokane County Sheriff’s DepartmentDuring one online conversation with another online child predator, Mr. Shuler bragged about how good he was at committing these crimes. He noted “I have tons of stuff like that,” in referring to sexually exploitative material. He went on to note, “I baited the boys and did it myself” and “I got those boys to do stuff haha,” going on to brag that as a result he had “content you won’t find anywhere else.”The impact of Shuler’s crimes was best captured by victims and parents who provided impact statements, two of whom spoke at the sentencing hearing. They expressed their profound sense of anger, sadness, and betrayal due to Shuler’s conduct. All expressed that Shuler’s crimes had dramatically altered their lives and their sense of security in their community.Shuler declined to speak at sentencing. There has been and continues to be no expression of remorse from Mr. Shuler.First Assistant United States Attorney Pete Serrano said, “Shuler is one of the most prolific child predators to be sentenced in this district. No others compare. He was relentless in his pursuit of child victims. The long sentence was merited by the offenses committed on vulnerable children in this case.”“As a school district employee, Mr. Shuler was entrusted with the children of this community, whom he held a responsibility to safeguard and guide as a role model,” said W. Mike Herrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office. “It was a horrifying betrayal of that trust to abuse his access to children by exploiting them both in person and online, as Mr. Shuler did again and again, causing harm to the children of his community at a truly shocking scope and scale. Tragically, no prosecution can undo what these children suffered or fully erase its record from the Internet. Still, our case team, partner law enforcement agencies, and prosecutors hope this sentence sends a strong message to a predator who would not stop hurting children, and to anyone elsetempted to follow in his footsteps.”This case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.This case is being investigated by the FBI, in cooperation with the United States Secret Service, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department, and the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca R. Perez.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Pablo Soria-Porras, Sergio Solano-Sanchez, Eduardo Benitez-Jacinto, and Jesus Diaz Iniguez, who are all illegal aliens from Mexico, face federal charges after law enforcement seized approximately 44 pounds of methamphetamine and two firearms in drug trafficking operations in and around Douglasville and South Fayetteville, Georgia this week.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Ashaad Anthony Turner, 24, a previously convicted felon, was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to 30 months in federal prison for unlawfully possessing a stolen, loaded firearm while intending to distribute marijuana in Northwest Washington, D.C., announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
LAS VEGAS – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada is set to begin presenting evidence in the trial involving alleged members and associates of La Mara Salvatrucha, commonly referred to as MS-13. This phase of the trial is scheduled to begin on March 30, 2026, before United States District Judge Gloria M. Navarro in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.