Press Releases

A complaint has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to forfeit the Motor Tanker Skipper – a crude oil tanker seized by the United States on the high seas in December 2025 – and approximately 1.8 million barrels of crude oil cargo supplied by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), the state-owned oil company of Venezuela. As alleged, the Skipper and its cargo are forfeitable as property affording a person a source of influence over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), a designated Foreign Terrorist

Today, the Justice Department and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) filed a statement of interest [ADD LINK] in Collision Communications Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., et al. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The statement reaffirms the importance of preserving incentives to innovate, which are key to growth and dynamic competition in the U.S. economy and fundamental to the U.S. patent system.

A Florida man was sentenced to 55 months in prison and three years of supervised release for possessing approximately 450 fraudulent, stolen or counterfeit access devices, which included others’ credit card numbers, social security numbers, and means to gain access to bank accounts.

Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates located in Atlanta, Georgia, has agreed to pay $4.75 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by receiving kickbacks in exchange for referrals of gastrointestinal pathology services and by performing certain gastrointestinal pathology services that were not medically reasonable or necessary.

Carlos Frate, 41, a former Maui Police Department officer, was sentenced today to 65 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for using unreasonable force against an arrestee. Frate previously pled guilty in August 2025 to one count of deprivation of rights under color of law.

A Maryland man was sentenced today to life in prison for forcibly sexually assaulting two minor girls in Burkina Faso in 2022 and 2023. After a two-week trial in October 2025, a federal jury in the District of Maryland convicted Fode Sitafa Mara, 41, of four counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, as well as one count each of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor and attempted obstruction of justice.

Today, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced it has filed federal lawsuits against five states — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey — for failure to produce their full voter registration lists upon request. This brings the Justice Department’s nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia.

A superseding indictment unsealed today charges René Arzate-García, also known as “La Rana,” alleged Tijuana plaza boss for the Sinaloa Cartel, with Narcoterrorism and Material Support of Terrorism in connection with trafficking massive amounts of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States.

A federal jury in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, convicted an Illinois woman and man for running illegal multimillion-dollar pyramid schemes in at least four different states.

A Parker, Colorado woman pleaded guilty today to willfully failing to pay over employment taxes for more than a decade.

The owner of two telemedicine companies was sentenced today to 7 years in prison and ordered to pay $27.9 million in restitution for his role in a scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare for unnecessary durable medical equipment.

Tommy Schaefer, 32, of Chicago, was arrested in international air space on a flight back to the United States yesterday to face a three-count indictment in the Northern District of Illinois charging him with one count of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, one count of conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. national, and one count of obstruction.