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FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange formerly helmed by fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried , has agreed to pay $12.7 billion to customers blindsided by Bankman-Fried's deceptions covering up FTX's flagrant misuse of customer funds.

In an order yesterday, US District Judge P. Kevin Castel said that FTX must pay $8.7 billion in restitution to victims of Bankman-Fried's fraudulent scheme, as well as disgorge another $4 billion in "gains received in connection with the violations" to further compensate customers who suffered significant losses.

According to Ian McGinley , the division of enforcement director for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), "this multi-billion-dollar recovery for victims" is "the largest such recovery in CFTC history." And the CFTC "achieved it with remarkable speed," McGinley boasted.

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Just before the Fourth of July holiday, Elon Musk moved to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he intentionally misled Twitter investors in 2022 by failing to disclose his growing stake in Twitter while tweeting about potentially starting his own social network in the weeks ahead of announcing his plan to buy Twitter.

Allegedly, Musk devised this fraudulent scheme to reduce the Twitter purchase price by $200 million, a proposed class action filed by an Oklahoma Firefighters pension fund on behalf of all Twitter investors allegedly harmed claimed. But in another court filing this week, Musk insisted that "all indications"—including those referenced in the firefighters' complaint—"point to mistake," not fraud.

According to Musk, evidence showed that he simply misunderstood the Securities Exchange Act when he delayed filing a Rule 13 disclosure of his nearly 10 percent ownership stake in Twitter in March 2022. Musk argued that he believed he was required to disclose this stake at the end of the year, rather than within 10 days after the month in which he amassed a 5 percent stake. He said that previously he'd only filed Rule 13 disclosures as the owner of a company—not as someone suddenly acquiring 5 percent stake.

Enlarge / Ten milligram tablets of the hyperactivity drug, Adderall, made by Shire Plc, is shown in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Thursday, January 19, 2006. (credit: Getty | Jb Reed )

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday warned that a federal indictment of an allegedly fraudulent telehealth company may lead to a massive, nationwide disruption in access to ADHD medications—namely Adderall, but also other stimulants—and could possibly increase the risk of injuries and overdoses.

"A disruption involving this large telehealth company could impact as many as 30,000 to 50,000 patients ages 18 years and older across all 50 US states," the CDC wrote in its health alert .

The CDC warning came on the heels of an announcement from the Justice Department Thursday that federal agents had arrested two people in connection with an alleged scheme to illegally distribute Adderall and other stimulants through a subscription-based online telehealth company called Done Global.  The company's CEO and founder, Ruthia He, was arrested in Los Angeles, and its clinical president, David Brody, was arrested in San Rafael, California.

Enlarge / Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc., center, arrives at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, Texas, US, on Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Holmes surrendered to authorities on Tuesday to begin her 11 1/4-year sentence after she was convicted by a jury last year of defrauding investors in the blood-testing startup. Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images (credit: Getty | Bloomberg )

Disgraced biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes has arrived at a federal prison in Texas to begin her 11-year, three-month sentence for defrauding investors of her defunct blood-testing start-up, Theranos.

Press and photographers stationed outside the women's prison camp in Bryan, Texas, captured what appeared to be Holmes exiting a gray SUV with New York state plates and making her way into the facility flanked by facility staff at around 12:30 pm local time. Shortly afterward, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to the Associated Press that Holmes was indeed in custody at the facility, FPC Bryan, which is about 100 miles northwest of Houston, Texas.

(credit: YouTube | Sky News )

The facility houses about 655 female inmates who are required to work in the cafeteria or a manufacturing facility, with pay starting at $1.15 per hour, according to The New York Times . Like other inmates, Holmes will don prison-issued khaki pants and shirts in pastel green, gray, or white during her stay. She will have no Internet access but can buy a radio or an MP3 player from the prison commissary and listen to "non-explicit" music. When she's not working or listening to prison-approved music, she can partake in leisure activities such as "table games" and arts and crafts.

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AI models designed to closely simulate a person’s voice are making it easier for bad actors to mimic loved ones and scam vulnerable people out of thousands of dollars, The Washington Post reported .

Quickly evolving in sophistication, some AI voice-generating software requires just a few sentences of audio to convincingly produce speech that conveys the sound and emotional tone of a speaker’s voice , while other options need as little as three seconds . For those targeted—which is often the elderly, the Post reported—it can be increasingly difficult to detect when a voice is inauthentic, even when the emergency circumstances described by scammers seem implausible.

Tech advancements seemingly make it easier to prey on people’s worst fears and spook victims who told the Post they felt “visceral horror” hearing what sounded like direct pleas from friends or family members in dire need of help. One couple sent $15,000 through a bitcoin terminal to a scammer after believing they had spoken to their son. The AI-generated voice told them that he needed legal fees after being involved in a car accident that killed a US diplomat.

Enlarge / Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of Theranos, arrives for motion hearing on Monday, November 4, 2019, at the US District Court House in San Jose, California. (credit: Getty | Yichuan Cao )

Nearly a decade ago, Theranos touted a revolutionary diagnostic device that could run myriad medical tests without having to draw blood through a needle. Today, the startup’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes, goes to court, where she’s facing 12 criminal counts for statements she made to investors and consumers about her company’s technology.

Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University at the age of 19. Driven by her phobia of needles, Holmes wanted to create diagnostic tests that use blood from finger pricks rather than from needles. The idea caught on, attracting well-connected board members like Henry Kissinger and James Mattis, drawing over $400 million in investments from wealthy investors including Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch, and securing lucrative partnerships with Walgreens and Safeway. At its peak, Theranos was worth over $9 billion.

But Theranos’ myth started unwinding in 2015 when a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the company had been performing most of its tests on traditional blood diagnostic machines rather than its own “Einstein” device. The company’s own employees doubted the machine’s accuracy.

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