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Nestled at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains, Sheridan, Wyoming, is the sort of place where an out-of-towner can pick up a pair of cowboy boots to sport at a nearby rodeo. But a new commodity has been rivaling the popularity of the area’s Western wear: cheap company incorporations — with no travel necessary for far-flung customers.

In the spring of 2020, in an attempt to avert an economic collapse amid COVID-19 shutdowns, the U.S. government began dispensing billions of dollars in emergency loans to American businesses to maintain their payrolls. Among the millions that received the Paycheck Protection Program funds was a Wyoming-registered firm called the Alo Group, which received $531,562 to support the wages of 36 U.S.-based employees the firm said it had, according to public records.

But it’s unclear whether the Alo Group was a legitimate business. The firm has no public profile, and on a state corporate filing it listed a disposable email address — vayapef199@homapin.com — at a domain name that has been used by scammers, according to the fraud detection firm IPQS. After it received the large COVID relief payment, the Alo Group switched its listed mailing address to a building in China, according to corporate records, before dissolving completely for failing to file required state paperwork.

The Alo Group traces its origin to a single-story storefront in Sheridan that is a hotspot in the state’s thriving corporate formation industry. The small building is home to the Sheridan office of Registered Agents Inc., a national corporate services firm; more than 266,000 companies incorporated using the address of this modest office between 2019 and 2024, according to an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists analysis of information provided by the data firm OpenCorporates.

Firms like Registered Agents file official paperwork on behalf of businesses and, in doing so, can be used to help mask the true owners.

Companies registered at the Sheridan storefront are listed in a half-dozen criminal indictments of people across the country who allegedly stole millions in COVID relief payments from the federal government, according to an ICIJ analysis. Hundreds more companies that together received tens of millions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans share the same  Sheridan address: 30 N. Gould St. Some of these appear to be legitimate firms, but dozens, like the Alo Group, have little trace of aboveboard business.

Registered Agents told ICIJ that it works closely with law enforcement and does not have extensive ties to the firms it helps administer. “Our address and business name appear as a registered agent on thousands of business entity records with the Wyoming Secretary of State, which has been misconstrued as us having a controlling interest in, or extensive relationship with, those entities,” Dan Mahoney, a spokesperson for the company, said in an emailed statement. “This is simply not the case.”

The fraud indictments add to growing evidence that Wyoming is a major new destination for people outside the state — including criminals, suspected North Korean sanctions evaders, and those with wealth of dubious origin — to incorporate secretive limited liability companies, or LLCs, and other entities to hold and move cash. In December, ICIJ reporting showed that the state had overtaken Delaware in its rising per capita number of incorporations, leaving officials in the least populated U.S. state grappling with how to oversee a proliferation of anonymous shell companies.

Tara Berg, the county assessor for Wyoming’s Fremont County, told ICIJ that over the past several years residents have begun complaining about shell companies that, in an apparent attempt to appear legitimate, have falsely used the residents’ home addresses on corporate filings. “We have people bringing us stacks of mail that they’re getting for these companies at their addresses,” Berg said. “People are panicked.”

A small storefront with big questions

Wyoming is similar to most states in that its laws allow individuals to form shell companies with no requirement to disclose the true owners to government authorities or anyone else. But in recent years the state’s corporate services industry has promoted itself as offering a particularly potent mix of legal features that can pile extra layers of secrecy onto anonymous entities. This includes its booming business of unregulated trusts that can interlock with anonymous LLCs registered in the state to create a secretive structure that wealth managers call the “cowboy cocktail.” These layers of corporate secrecy can help shield a person’s assets from creditors, tax authorities and former spouses seeking assets during divorce proceedings.

As part of its 2021 Pandora Papers investigation, ICIJ and The Washington Post revealed that more than a dozen ultrawealthy foreigners had selected Wyoming to establish this trust structure. Among them were a Russian billionaire and an associate of a Dominican dictator, according to ICIJ’s findings. A 2021 promotional document from a Cyprus-based corporate services firm highlighted that Wyoming was “overtaking the Cayman Islands, Singapore and New Zealand” as the preferred location for forming LLCs and trusts. Wyoming “is not a target of the Inland Revenue Services to discover unreported taxes,” the document stated, appearing to refer to the name used by several national tax authorities around the globe.

Registered Agents provides corporate formation services across the U.S. and, according to a 2024 report in Wired magazine relying on the accounts of several former employees, the firm maintained a practice of listing fictional names of people on corporate filings. The Wired story said that six allegedly fake names were listed as officers for 887 of businesses registered to the Sheridan office at 30 N. Gould St. Last year, companies registered at the address were linked to a suspected North Korean money-laundering network and a separate cyber sabotage campaign targeting journalists around the world. Registered Agents said that Wired’s claims were “patently wrong” but did not comment further.

The firm told ICIJ that it offers crucial help to law enforcement. “Registered agents provide an avenue for legal notices to be served on companies that would otherwise be difficult to locate,” Mahoney said in a statement. “Registered agents also collect required contact information not currently requested on Secretary of State records, which can make it easier for law enforcement and state and federal agencies to locate business owners who might otherwise be difficult to contact.”

We are just not being proactive in protecting our citizens from the fraud that’s obviously here.

— Fremont County assessor Tara Berg

The millions in U.S. federal dollars that poured into shell companies registered at the nondescript, yellow-brick Wyoming storefront reflected a convergence of the state’s booming registration business with the federal government’s hurried and often haphazard dispensing of COVID relief payments.

A 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office criticized the federal Small Business Administration, which dispensed the relief payments, for lacking sufficient controls to prevent and detect fraud. The report said that anonymous firms often abetted the fraud. Of 989 recipients of allegedly fraudulent loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and a related federal program, more than 70% were identified as shell companies or fictitious entities, the report found.

It’s easy to form these kinds of companies in Wyoming. For a small storefront, 30 N. Gould St. has accounted for a significant share of the state’s rising number of incorporations. An analysis using data from OpenCorporates shows that Registered Agents’ Sheridan address accounts for more than 40% of all new incorporations in Wyoming between 2019 and 2024.

Many people seeking to set up firms in Wyoming have little other connection to the state. This appears to be true for firms registered at 30 N. Gould St. listed in federal fraud indictments.

Such cases include that of Andrew Marnell, who pleaded guilty to bank fraud and money laundering and was sentenced in 2023 in a Los Angeles federal court for using shell companies to obtain nearly $9 million in PPP loans for hundreds of fictitious employees. Marnell spent the proceeds on, among other items, Rolex watches, a Range Rover and a Ducati motorcycle, according to federal prosecutors. One of the key firms in his scheme, Slatestone LLC, was registered at 30 N. Gould St. and received more than $1.3 million to support 75 people the firm claimed to employ, according to prosecutors.

According to a 2024 indictment and corporate records, a Florida-based man named Jared Dean Eakes established an array of shell companies — all registered at 30 N. Gould St. — that took in $4.8 million in fraudulent loans from the federal government. Eakes, a former Merrill Lynch financial adviser and broker, also allegedly used companies registered at the address to steal more than $2 million from people who transferred him funds believing he was a private wealth manager, according to the indictment. Eakes pleaded not guilty to the charges and the case is pending.

In August 2024, Andre Shammas, in San Diego, pleaded guilty to helping to set up shell companies, including one registered at 30 N. Gould St., to defraud the government’s emergency relief program and obtain more than 40 PPP loans with a total value exceeding $5 million.

Registered Agents says it’s serious about illegal conduct. “We take appropriate steps to terminate service as a commercial registered agent when necessary or required,” Mahoney said.

ICIJ analyzed the 50 companies registered at the Sheridan address that received the largest sums in PPP loans — totalling $15.5 million.  For more than half of those companies, ICIJ could find little evidence of legitimate business and could not locate anyone to discuss their business. Twenty-one of those latter firms have since been dissolved by the state due to not paying taxes.

Like dozens of other firms that ICIJ analyzed, the Alo Group’s paperwork was initially filed by Registered Agents with no hint of a business purpose, a location of its activities or identification  of its ownership. In its initial filing, the firm listed Riley Park as its only public representative, along with the 30 N. Gould St. address. Wired magazine later identified Park’s name as one of the allegedly fake aliases used by Registered Agents. There is no suggestion that Registered Agents’ customers were aware of any fictitious names being listed on their forms.

On April 30, 2020, the Alo Group filed its first required annual statement. The filing included a new name: “Syed B,” listed as the firm’s president. (ICIJ could not determine who this person is — or whether such a person ever existed.) A few months later, the SBA approved the Alo Group for the $531,562 loan to support its payroll of 36 employees as listed on its loan application, according to public records.

ICIJ tried several phone numbers and email addresses listed on the Alo Group’s corporate records but did not receive any response. In the 2020 filing, the firm listed a secondary address at a storefront in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Representatives for the local economic development organization and the regional chamber of commerce said they’d never heard of the firm. The county clerk’s office said it had no files relating to the firm.

In 2021, the Alo Group switched its listed mailing address to a suburb of Hangzhou, China, while keeping 30 N. Gould St. as its Wyoming registration. The Chinese street address — 969 W. Wen Yi Rd., Yuhang District — matches that of the global headquarters of ecommerce giant Alibaba, one of China’s largest private firms. In a statement to ICIJ, a spokesperson for the Alibaba Group said the company had nothing to do with the Alo Group. “There is no affiliation in any manner, and we have no knowledge regarding the company or its business interests,” the spokesperson said. The company said that no firms unrelated to Alibaba Group have a presence at its Wen Yi Road headquarters.

In February 2022, after failing to file its required annual statement, the Alo Group was dissolved administratively.

In a statement, Registered Agents told ICIJ that it has no affiliation with the Alo Group, apart from serving as its registered agent, and said it has no visibility into the Alo Group’s business activities.

Sheridan County Assessor Paul Fall said he had never heard of the Alo Group. Wyoming requires many businesses to report the value of their property within the state in order to be taxed. The masses of firms registered at 30 N. Gould St. do not appear to have generated a windfall for the county, Fall said. “We know the great majority of the companies there are not doing business here.”

Possible solutions, old challenges

Fraud in PPP loans has attracted the attention of Congress members who support President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s aggressive cost-cutting campaign by what’s known as the Department of Government Efficiency. In a Feb. 20 letter to the head of the SBA, a group of House Republicans blasted the agency for being “unwilling and unable to recoup funds from COVID fraud.” The lawmakers indicated that DOGE would work with the SBA to address fraud in the COVID-era programs. One of those lawmakers already has introduced a bill to keep people with fraud convictions from receiving assistance from the SBA.

At the same time, Wyoming officials are looking for ways to keep fraudsters out of the state. Last year, they took a rare action against three shell companies registered at 30 N. Gould St.: The secretary of state dissolved the firms after they were named in an FBI affidavit that described a complex North Korean sanctions evasion scheme.

A Wyoming legislative committee formed to examine possible solutions has advanced several bills that would increase oversight of the state’s booming corporate registration business. These include a bill streamlining the state’s ability to dissolve companies that submitted false records to a registration agent and a separate bill to crack down on use of Wyoming shell companies. One bill that streamlines the state’s elimination of companies used by foreign adversaries was signed into law on Feb. 24, according to Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray.

“Despite the opposition we’ve received from some of the registered agent community regarding our strong stance against fraud, we are going to continue to do all we can to take fraud and foreign adversaries on in Wyoming,” Gray told ICIJ in an emailed statement.

None of the bills would require firms to declare their true owners — a common impediment to law enforcement officials seeking to trace dirty money. A federal law enacted in 2021 mandates the collection of ownership information of companies across the country, but it has been bogged down by delays and legal challenges. On Sunday, the Treasury Department announced it would suspend enforcement of the requirement that U.S. companies report their ownership to the new database.

Tara Berg, the Fremont County assessor, said Wyoming should take a tougher approach toward discouraging firms from listing bogus information on corporate records.

“It’s too easy on the front end to enter false information and pay $65 — the state of Wyoming has its money and you have a corporation,” Berg said. “We are just not being proactive in protecting our citizens from the fraud that’s obviously here.”

Partially due to this ease, more than 169,000 companies were incorporated in Wyoming in 2024, three times more than five years ago, an ICIJ analysis of data provided by OpenCorporates found.

If Wyoming indeed tightens regulation of its corporate formation industry, its customers may simply go to another state with looser rules. Corporate agents in Nevada, South Dakota and Alaska have increasingly attracted far-flung clients, while lawmakers in Delaware are considering new business-friendly rules to recover business lost to Wyoming and other states. Indeed, Wyoming’s booming rate of change appears to have cooled in 2024, OpenCorporates data shows.

Gregory Coleman, an expert in white-collar crime and former FBI agent, said the ease of incorporating shell companies in Wyoming isn’t special on a national — or even global — level.

“Whether it’s Wyoming or somewhere else,” he said, “the bad guys will find the path of least resistance every time.”

Contributors: Agustin Armendariz, Jesús Escudero, ​​Sam Ellefson

Russia is not interested in ending the war in Ukraine due to threats in the social and economic spheres. Previously, we noted that the failure of negotiations in Washington between the U.S. and Ukraine might have occurred because the Russians were not ready to sign a peace agreement. We are convinced that the Kremlin leadership, which in its composition and function has become increasingly similar to the Politburo of the late Soviet Union, fears that ending the war with Ukraine could lead to consequences similar to those following the end of the war in Afghanistan in 1989.

The return of Soviet veterans from the Afghan war (1979-1989) had significant social consequences in the Soviet Union and later in post-Soviet states:

1. Rise in Crime: Many veterans, struggling to reintegrate into civilian life, became involved in criminal activities. Their combat experience made them valuable recruits for emerging organized crime groups in the 1990s, contributing to a surge in violence and crime in post-Soviet societies.
2. Social Alienation: Afghan war veterans (known as “Afghantsy”) often felt neglected and misunderstood by society and the government. They faced difficulties finding employment and lacked sufficient mental health support, leading to widespread issues of isolation and mental health crises.
3. Homelessness and Poverty: Economic hardships and inadequate support from the state led to poverty among many veterans. Some became homeless, while others struggled with substance abuse, particularly alcohol.
4. Mental Health Crisis: Many veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition not widely recognized or treated in the Soviet Union at the time. This contributed to high rates of depression, suicide, and substance abuse.
5. Political Activism: Discontent among veterans helped fuel political movements. Many veterans became vocal critics of the government, participating in protests and supporting nationalist and opposition groups, contributing to the social and political instability of the 1990s.
6. Impact on Families: The war’s psychological toll also affected veterans’ families, leading to domestic violence, family breakdowns, and generational trauma.

The Afghan war’s legacy created a generation of disillusioned and marginalized veterans, which is a scenario the Kremlin may fear repeating with veterans of the war in Ukraine.

Since 2023, Russia has seen a sharp rise in violent crimes among individuals who returned after participating in combat operations in Ukraine. A similar surge in crime was observed in the 1990s after soldiers returned from Afghanistan. These individuals formed the backbone of criminal groups in the post-Soviet space, committing violent crimes due to their combat experience. The Russian authorities involved a large number of convicts serving prison sentences in the war in Ukraine. Therefore, we believe that these individuals will likely continue their criminal activities after demobilization. Their involvement in numerous war crimes in Ukraine suggests that the brutality of their offenses may persist.

While ending the war may slightly reduce state orders for the defense sector, this reduction will impact employment, as will the demobilization of some military units. This will increase pressure on the Russian job market.

We also believe that ending the war will lead to the disclosure of data on Russian personnel losses, creating negative political pressure on the country’s leadership. It will also result in public discontent among veterans of this war regarding the military and political leadership’s actions in terms of supply and management.

Russia may not want a peace agreement for several reasons:

1. Strategic Interests: Russia aims to maintain its influence in Ukraine and the broader region. A peace agreement that solidifies Ukrainian sovereignty could undermine Moscow’s geopolitical goals.
2. Economic Incentives: The Russian military-industrial complex benefits financially from ongoing conflict through budget allocations and corruption schemes. Peace could threaten these revenue streams.
3. Political Leverage: The conflict in Ukraine allows Russia to exert pressure on the West and test NATO’s resolve. Keeping the situation unstable could serve Moscow’s broader foreign policy objectives.
4. Domestic Politics: The Kremlin may use the war to rally nationalist sentiment at home, distract from internal issues, and maintain control over the population.
5. Avoiding Accountability: A formal peace agreement might lead to international investigations into alleged war crimes and human rights abuses, increasing the risk of accountability for Russian leaders.
6. Economic Sanctions: Russia might not want to engage in a peace process that requires concessions that could lead to prolonged or intensified sanctions, potentially harming its economy.
7. 4. Social Unrest and Discontent
8. Veterans returning with unaddressed grievances—such as inadequate pay, poor conditions, and mistreatment by commanders—could become politically active and critical of the government.
9. Protests and unrest could emerge, driven by veterans and their families, similar to the social movements that followed the Afghan war.
10. 5. Increased Pressure on Social Services
11. The state may struggle to meet the social and medical needs of returning soldiers, especially if the economy is under strain from sanctions and the costs of war.
12. Veterans and their families might place additional pressure on already stretched social welfare systems.
13. 6. Potential for Paramilitary Movements
14. Disenchanted veterans could be recruited into nationalist or extremist groups, contributing to internal instability and violence.
15. Former soldiers could also be used by political factions as enforcers or in private military companies, maintaining their militarized lifestyle.

The Council of the European Union added Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex to their latest sanctions package last week for being “closely associated with EU-sanctioned Russian banks,” marking the council’s first time sanctioning a crypto exchange.

The sanctions to Garantex– which the U.S. already sanctioned in April 2022– come nearly a year after an investigation by Eesti Ekspress and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that a firm with multiple connections to Garantex co-owns a debt-collection business with a convicted gang leader and has ties to Rosneft, the Kremlin-tied oil firm.

“This package continues targeting actors responsible for circumventing EU sanctions, including through third countries,” the EU announcement reads. “The European Union remains ready to step up pressure on Russia.”

Originally registered in Estonia as Garantex Europe, Garantex was founded in 2019 by Stanislav Drugalev, a Russian tech specialist, and Sergey Mendeleev, a local politician in Moscow; Aleksandr Ntifo-Siao, the company’s commercial director, co-owned the company.

Garantex became the largest crypto currency exchange in Russia, with offices at one point in one of Moscow’s top business locations, the Federation Tower skyscrapers. The company found a niche as a way to convert rubles into other currencies, which became more difficult after the invasion of Ukraine amid sanctions on Russian banks and Moscow’s own capital controls.

Garantex also allows people to use cryptocurrencies to make foreign transfers. Customers deposit rubles in cash at Garantex’s offices to receive the equivalent value in a cryptocurrency, which then is exchanged with a traditional currency. With cryptocurrencies, the transactions themselves are visible on a public ledger, known as a blockchain, but the parties’ identities are shielded.

ICIJ’s 2024 investigation revealed that within weeks of one of the exchange’s three founding shareholders dying under suspicious circumstances, another was replaced in corporate records by a shareholder linked to Rosneft.

Based on court and corporate records and a review of transactions on the Garantex exchange, the investigation also found that Garantex– which had been sanctioned for moving money for criminals and later associated with a terror group close to Hamas – was used by other designated terror groups, including Hezbollah, as well as drug gangs in Ukraine and other criminal actors.

In a statement to ICIJ in 2024, Garantex declined to comment on its corporate structure or its affiliate’s Russian government and criminal ties.

Garantex said it seeks to prevent the use of the exchange for illicit activities and actively cooperated with European and U.S. authorities until the U.S. imposed sanctions on the exchange in April 2022. The company said it still cooperates with other international law enforcement agencies.

“Not only do we stay away from facilitating criminal financial activities, but we also do our best to help prevent them, particularly by trying to initiate a revival of cross-border cooperation aimed at investigating and preventing illicit transactions,” the statement said.

As the Trump administration continues slashing the federal workforce, a familiar target of budget cuts is squarely in the crosshairs: the IRS. And mass firings at the tax agency last month may soon benefit wealthy Americans, who were a key focus of President Biden’s efforts to strengthen tax enforcement.

Some audits of rich individuals and corporations are at immediate risk of being closed prematurely without action due to a lack of personnel to complete them, according to several current employees at the tax agency. The handful of imperiled audits that agents described in general terms to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists could amount to millions of lost dollars in public revenue from wealthy people and corporations, although agents said this likely represents only a sliver of the agency’s lost revenue stemming from the firings.

“All of a sudden, these cases are going to be closed and we’re going to look like idiots,” said a senior revenue agent, who works within the IRS’s Large Business & International Division, which audits the country’s wealthiest taxpayers. “There is no one left to work them. The remaining agents have full caseloads.”

The firings and orphaned cases are a major setback in the IRS’s quest to address high-end tax dodging. As part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS received $80 billion in new funding, in part to help the agency’s faltering efforts to audit wealthy individuals and large corporations, who are believed to commit an outsized portion of tax cheating. But Congressional Republicans have since been able to eliminate half of that new money. The IRS has now become a primary focus of the new administration’s aggressive cost-cutting effort led by billionaire Elon Musk.

It remains unclear how many employees the Large Business & International Division (LB&I) lost as a result of the recent terminations; the IRS did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The IRS’s Small Business and Self-Employed Division, which audits businesses with assets under $10 million, reportedly lost the largest number of employees in last month’s termination of more than 6,000 IRS staff members. That office has in recent years employed more agents than LB&I. 

Agents said that LB&I’s ranks had significant numbers of new employees still on probationary status that is required of recent hires. Such probationary employees have fewer job protections and accounted for the bulk of last month’s firings.

Current and former IRS agents ICIJ spoke with emphasized that many of the now-terminated probationary employees were anything but inexperienced hires; in many cases they had decades of accounting knowledge that was critical to some ongoing cases. These agents had been recruited into the recent IRS effort to match the sophistication of the corporate tax industry, which deploys legions of highly-paid accountants and tax attorneys to construct and defend complex tax savings structures for the ultrawealthy.

Some terminated probationary employees in LB&I included specialists hired to help agents with highly technical corners of tax law, agents said. The loss of these experts could put the agency in a difficult position. Lacking such in-house specialists previously snarled audits of some of the largest American taxpayers.

Wesley Stanovsek, a recently-terminated probationary revenue agent within LB&I said some of his fellow trainees brought with them extensive knowledge of pass-through entities, which can form into large webs of LLCs that pass earnings and tax burdens on to investors. Pass-throughs have become a favored tool for large-scale tax dodging and an area in which the IRS was trying to match the expertise of the private tax bar.

“They were probationary in name only,” said Stanovsek, who was a part of LB&I’s Global High Wealth unit that audits ultrawealthy people. “There was a high baseline aptitude required to be a part of Global High Wealth.”

Stanovsek said he left the agency with multiple open audits. Although he doesn’t know the status of those cases since being terminated, he said their future looked dim. “There will be no one to pass those cases onto,” Stanovsek said. “I don’t think they will be seen to completion.”

These cases are going to be closed and we’re going to look like idiots,

— a senior revenue agent in the IRS

Probationary revenue agents in LB&I were generally given a small number of training cases in their first year, and some of these were substantial audits, according to several agents. Each audit involving an ultrawealthy person could encompass a review of multiple intricate tax returns.

One probationary revenue agent in LB&I who took the Trump administration’s much-publicized buyout offer last month told ICIJ that his cases are now in the process of being closed. Another agent within LB&I told ICIJ that an audit of a corporation believed to have underpaid its taxes appears doomed after multiple team members were terminated late last month.

Because in-house tax specialists sometimes assist agents with only specific issues within a wider audit, some cases that lost those experts may still move forward but with a narrower scope, agents said. These specialists also help agents keep track of complex elements of tax law to strengthen audit findings that taxpayers may eventually challenge in court.

The loss of such specialists could have big consequences. In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department estimated that the top 1% of Americans accounted for 28% of the “tax gap” — the disparity between taxes owed and taxes collected — totaling an approximate $163 billion each year. In a 2022 directive, the Biden administration barred the IRS from using its new funding to increase audits of taxpayers earning less than $400,000 annually, although the IRS’s watchdog has criticized the agency’s implementation of that order.

Last year, ICIJ reported that after years of lobbying by high-end private tax attorneys, LB&I had adopted a far more lenient stance toward the wealthiest taxpayers than seen in the IRS divisions that audit ordinary taxpayers and small businesses. Even as its staff levels began to increase, LB&I seldom made criminal referrals on cheating by major businesses or ultrawealthy people. Some agents raised concerns over possible industry influence within the office, especially among high-level hires coming to the tax agency from major law firms or accounting firms. Agents in the division also said they were not well-equipped to send out civil demands for information known as summonses, which can secure necessary data for audits.

Late last year, however, the division appeared to be addressing some of these challenges, holding mandatory trainings for all managers and agents in the division who participate in audits on how to craft and enforce summonses, according to records ICIJ obtained through a records request. These training sessions were required for new trainees and longtime agents alike and included instruction on how to confront the tactic of taxpayers withholding records based on claims of legal privilege.

Audits of billionaires and large corporations can sometimes be adversarial proceedings in which attorneys for the taxpayer aggressively seize upon any technical misstep or apparent weakness in the approach of IRS audit teams. In this setting, the perception of a strong tax agency can help agents secure a baseline level of cooperation from taxpayers under audit while discouraging big-dollar tax-cheating in general, agents said. An agency struggling with mass-firings and abandoned cases could send the opposite signal.

“These cases will set a terrible precedent,” said one current agent within LB&I. “The taxpayers will see us struggling. When they see us struggle, they will make sure to make us struggle even more.”

Jamal Simmons, who served as communications director for former vice president Kamala Harris, is now pitching disgraced ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo as a top Democratic contender for the White House in 2028.

“If Andrew Cuomo becomes mayor of New York, he could very well be Trump’s chief antagonist starting in 2026, which could give Democrats a voice to rally around, however imperfect a messenger he may be,” Simmons told The Hill.

Cuomo, who is reportedly preparing a run for New York City mayor, resigned as the state’s governor in 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment and backlash over his administration’s handling of COVID-19 deaths. Cuomo allegedly made unwanted advances toward multiple women in his office, according to a five-month investigation by the state attorney general’s office. During the pandemic, his Department of Health “misled the public” and concealed the deaths of thousands of senior citizens after he signed an executive order that forced nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, according to an audit by the state comptroller’s office.

Simmons has a history of floating unusual ideas. Soon after Harris’s defeat to President Donald Trump, Simmons suggested that then-president Joe Biden resign to make Harris the first female president for two months. The move, Simmons argued, would help Democrats by improving the party’s image and undercutting Trump’s “45-47” merchandise branding.

Some Democrats expressed their support for Cuomo, though they refrained from saying he should run for president.

Former New York Democratic Party executive director Basil Smikle told The Hill that Cuomo makes “people feel like he’s fighting for them.”

“Candidates can’t just sell their good governance,” Smikle said. “They have to be in the fight and [Cuomo] proved that during the first Trump administration.”

“I don’t think we’re looking for purity anymore or we shouldn’t be,” one strategist said of Cuomo.

Aides who worked with the former governor are less sure.

“There is absolutely no good reason for [Cuomo] to run for president,” one former aide said. “He’s too damaged and people won’t let that go.”

The post Former Kamala Comms Director Thinks Andrew Cuomo Would Be a Good Presidential Candidate in 2028 appeared first on .

(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he “wouldn’t be opposed” to using private forces to assist with deportations, but officials like Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan are already doing a “phenomenal” job.

Trump made the remarks in the Oval Office in response to a question from NewsNation correspondent Kellie Meyer during a joint press conference with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

According to a report by Politico, a group of military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, proposed the idea of using a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a “small army” of private citizens empowered to make arrests for mass deportations to The White House.

Politico writes that this would be an estimated $25 billion.

However, when asked about this on NewsNation’s “On Balance,” Prince denied the report.

“This is not some idea of a private army,” Prince said Tuesday. “It was a memo generated to describe how to achieve the logistics necessary to move the millions of people that they intend to deport.”

This story is developing. Refresh for updates.

US President Donald Trump said he “[couldn’t] believe [he] said that” when asked by a reporter while meeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

With U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent overtures toward Russia, on the streets of Moscow, many welcome what they see as a thaw in relations with Washington, and what some hope is the beginning of the end of their country’s isolation from the West. Jonathan Spier narrates this report.

Five local nonprofits were honored this week at the 2025 Brooklyn Org Spark Breakfast for their outstanding contributions to advancing racial justice in New York City’s biggest borough.

The event, held for the first time at Barclays Center, served as a platform to celebrate the chosen organizations’ impact on their communities and highlight the essential role nonprofits play in addressing systemic inequality.

Each winner was presented with a $100,000 grant, no strings attached, to support their ongoing work — work Brooklyn Org President and CEO Jocelynne Rainey said “embodies the greatness of Brooklyn” at a particularly crucial time.

“At a time when nonprofits have been rocked by federal funding freezes, rescinded government grants, and an onslaught of executive orders and legislation threatening our capacity to provide essential services to children, families, and older adults, these five nonprofits represent the values that unite us as Brooklynites,” Rainey said in a statement. “Diversity, inclusivity, equity, justice, belonging, compassion.”

“Brooklyn Org is proud to honor these organizations as a sign of our unwavering commitment to supporting our Brooklyn community and the nonprofits that are the backbones of our neighborhoods,” she went on.

This year’s honorees included:

Brooklyn Book Bodega

Founded in 2019, Brooklyn Book Bodega aims to provide access to and ownership of books for children and families across the city. Their mission is to create 100+ book homes for kids aged 0-18 in New York City. Through free literacy-based community programming and volunteer efforts, they bring books to local neighborhoods and collaborate with educators, city officials, and community organizations to ensure that literacy is integrated into social and family services.

“Being recognized by the Spark Prize is incredibly special because it validates what we’ve always believed: when we come together as a community to support youth literacy, we’re strengthening New York for all of us,” said Rebecca Cohen and Seema Aghera, co-founders of the Brooklyn Book Bodega. “Having books in all the different spaces and places where kids spend their time is transformative. We’ve seen the impact firsthand, from mothers reconnecting with their children through reading to teachers telling us their students have become the strongest readers in their school.”

The Spark Prize will help the organization expand its outreach and programming, they said.

Brownsville Community Culinary Center

Since its founding in 2015, the Brownsville Community Culinary Center has worked to increase access to healthy food and provide culinary vocational training to residents of Brownsville. Their multi-week culinary workshops help neighborhood youth learn valuable skills while working alongside industry professionals. The Center also offers fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant foods to the community, creating a space for both nourishment and personal development.

The Spark Prize comes at a crucial time for the organization, which last year launched a funding push to stay afloat.

“After COVID we got hit and we were unable to recover for a variety of reasons,” Chairman Chris Kossifos told Brooklyn Paper in January 2024.

Without proper funding, Kossifos said certain perks like the diabetes wellness program could be cut altogether. “That’s a program that we don’t want to see go and it’s helped so many people,” he said. “In fact, it’s helping them today. It’s helping them every single day.”

In a statement, Executive Director and Executive Chef Alexis Aquino said BCCC will use the Spark Prize to expand its reach in Brownsville, “and increase the longevity and quality of life of our neighbors.”

Community Help in Park Slope (CHiPS)

Founded in 1971, CHiPS began as a soup kitchen serving hot meals to residents of Park Slope and Gowanus. Since then, it’s grown to include pantry and breakfast programs, as well as the Frances Residence, a supportive housing initiative for single, expectant, and new mothers. CHiPS remains committed to serving “anyone who comes to our door,” ensuring that no one is turned away due to their circumstances.

“For over 50 years, CHiPS has stood as a beacon of hope at the intersection of Park Slope and Gowanus, serving hot meals and providing shelter to our neighbors in need. This recognition from the Brooklyn Org Spark Prize will help us increase our visibility across Brooklyn and allow us to reach even more New Yorkers facing food insecurity and homelessness,” said CHiPS Executive Director Peter Endriss. “Our success has always come from the community — our volunteers and supporters who keep our doors open and our meals hot —  and the Spark Prize strengthens our ability to continue this vital work for the next 50 years.”

Last May, the organization expanded its mobile food pantry program with funding from U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman.

Good Call

Founded in 2016, Good Call leverages technology to address the challenges faced by low-income New Yorkers navigating the criminal justice system. With a focus on early legal intervention, Good Call has provided critical support to over 10,000 individuals from marginalized communities, helping to reduce arrests and disrupt the cycle of mass incarceration. Their work continues to challenge systemic inequities and ensure fairer treatment for Brooklyn residents.

The group’s co-founder and CEO, Jelani Anglin, recalled its humble beginnings as a hotline for those looking for legal representation.

“[It] has evolved to use technology, community engagement, and policy advocacy to advance the idea that access to justice isn’t just a privilege, but a fundamental right that everyone deserves,” Anglin said in a statement. “The Spark Prize will help us invest additional resources towards our goal of providing free, immediate access to legal support to empower our communities and promote a fairer justice system for all.”

Technology for Families in Need (TechFIN)

TechFIN, founded in 2013 by Shadan Deleveaux and Nigel Frankson, aims to close the digital divide by providing low-income families across New York City with refurbished computers. By repurposing unused technology from corporate environments, TechFIN has empowered thousands of families with the tools needed to succeed in an increasingly digital world, ensuring equal access to education, job opportunities, and more.

“We are thrilled that Brooklyn Org has recognized the value of our work using donated corporate computers to create digital equity for low-income families across New York City,” said Nigel Frankson, co-founder and Chairman of TechFIN. “The Brooklyn Org Spark Prize will allow us to help transform the lives of moms who cannot fully access job opportunities or health care services and their kids who are forced to complete homework assignments on their phone all because they don’t have a computer in the home.”

The FBI confirmed that North Korea is responsible for the record-breaking cyber heist at the crypto exchange Bybit.

FBI links the recent Bybit hack to North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor as details of the $1.5B cyber heist emerge.

Last week, the crypto exchange Bybit suffered a sophisticated cyberattack, threat actors transferred over 400,000 ETH and stETH worth more than $1.5 billion to an unidentified address.

The Bybit hack is the largest cryptocurrency heist ever, surpassing previous ones like Ronin Network ($625M), Poly Network ($611M), and BNB Bridge ($566M).

The attack that masked the signing interface compromised Bybit’s ETH cold wallet, allowing threat actors to redirect funds to an unknown address.

“Bybit detected unauthorized activity involving one of our ETH cold wallets. The incident occurred when our ETH multisig cold wallet executed a transfer to our warm wallet. Unfortunately, this transaction was manipulated through a sophisticated attack that masked the signing interface, displaying the correct address while altering the underlying smart contract logic.” reads the statement published by the company on X. “As a result, the attacker was able to gain control of the affected ETH cold wallet and transfer its holdings to an unidentified address.”

Bybit’s security team, leading blockchain forensic experts, and partners are investigating the security breach. The company assures users and partners that all other cold wallets remain fully secure, client funds are safe, and operations continue without disruption. Maintaining transparency and security is a top priority, and the company will provide updates as soon as possible.

Bybit speculated that attackers likely exploited a vulnerability in the Safe.global platform’s user interface but shared no technical details.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou assured customers that the exchange would remain solvent even if the stolen funds were not recovered. Bybit stated it has over $20 billion in assets under management and will use a bridge loan if needed to ensure user funds remain available.

Zhou also highlighted that all other cold wallets managed by the exchange are secure.

Blockchain cybersecurity firm Elliptic was among the first research teams that attributed the cyber heist to the notorious North Korea-linked APT Group Lazarus, however, Bybit has yet to confirm it.

“Almost $1.5 billion in crypto was stolen from Bybit today. That makes it by far the largest crypto heist of all time. It’s also potentially the largest single theft of any kind, ever.
We’re working to help exchanges and law enforcement to trace and freeze these funds. The more difficult we make it to benefit from crimes such as this, the less frequently they will take place.” said Elliptic Co-founder Tom Robinson. “*Update* It’s now been confirmed that North Korea’s Lazarus Group were behind this hack..”

Cybersecurity firm Arkham Intelligence also attributed the attack to the Lazarus APT group.

On Wednesday, the FBI published a Public Service Announcement that attributes the billionaire heist to the group TraderTraitor.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this PSA to advise the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange, Bybit, on or about February 21, 2025. FBI refers to this specific North Korean malicious cyber activity as “TraderTraitor.”” reads the advisory. “TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains. It is expected these assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency.”

The FBI also published a list of Ethereum addresses that are holding or have held assets from the theft, and are operated by or closely connected to North Korean TraderTraitor actors.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, FBI)