On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department filed civil injunctions against five Jackson Hewitt franchises, including the corporations that operate the franchises and 24 people who work at those franchises. The corporations in question operate over 125 Hackson Hewitt locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Raleigh-Durham.

Farrukh Sohail owns the five corporations in this suit, and these corporations prepared and filed over 105,000 tax returns last year. It is alleged that he and the other individual defendants encouraged fraudulent tax return preparation at his Jackson Hewitt franchises.

The “pervasive fraud” allegations include filing tax returns based upon fake wage forms, deducting fake business expense, and fraud related to the earning income tax credit. The government is claiming that these actions cause $70 million in losses to the U.S. Treasury.

Employees and managers of the Jackson Hewitt locations in question are also accused of receiving kickbacks from customers who had fraudulent returns filed.

John Burch, a former stockbroker with Wachovia Securities, has pleaded guilty to federal charges of laundering over $300,000 received through bribery and racketeering. Burch opened multiple brokerage accounts during 2001, 2002, and 2003 to launder criminal proceeds from Milt Morris. Transactions were broken down into small deposits to hide the transactions. Burch also lied to U.S. Postal Inspectors and IRS agents when questioned about the transactions. He is likely to get three to five years in prison.

I read a great post on the Bankruptcy Law Network. Of course, their example is exactly like a situation someone recently brought to my attention. Jonathan Ginsberg writes the following:

Here’s how one version of a classic mortgage fraud scheme works: my client is approached by a friend or acquaintance with an opportunity to participate in a profitable real estate investment. The “friend” has a friend who is in the real estate business and he knows of a neighborhood where there are good deals on rental properties. In many cases these rental properties already have tenants. The “friend” can also arrange financing in which my client does not have to put any money down and the debt service (i.e., the mortgage) will be covered by the rental income.

A story in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported on the Denis Waitley credential problem, as well as another Usana executive with credential problems. After trading closed on Friday, Usana announced that director Waitley was stepping down after an “error” with his credentials. The fact is that Waitley did not have the Masters degree that was listed in SEC filings and Usana promotional materials. It also appears that his Ph.D. is from a diploma mill and not an accredited university, but the company did not admit or deny that allegation.

Additionally, according to WSJ:

In several filings with the SEC, including a proxy statement filed two weeks ago, Usana has said that its executive vice president of research and development, Timothy Wood, earned a master’s degree in environmental sciences and a Ph.D. in biology, both from Yale University

Yale says Mr. Wood’s degrees were both in forestry, not biology. He earned a master’s in forest science from Yale’s professional school of forestry in 1972 and, in 1980, a Ph.D. in forestry and environmental studies from Yale’s graduate school, according to the university. Mr. Wood didn’t return repeated telephone calls for comment.

Wow. What will turn up next?