Fake college students, real tax dollars, and a Kenyan safari company: DOJ busts “ghost student” aid fraud

Picture a guy who went straight from high school to work, never applied to college, and one day finds his name on a student loan from a school hundreds of miles away. That’s the case the Justice Department laid out Thursday in announcing “Operation Ghostbusters”: fraud rings allegedly stole Americans’ identities, enrolled them as “ghost students” at colleges nationwide, and pocketed the leftover federal aid after tuition was paid. Some, officials said, used AI to do the coursework and faked students showing up in online classes so the aid would keep coming semester after semester.

Prosecutors say the money moved through U.S. “money mules” and then overseas, “often” to Kenya — including through a Nairobi safari company. In New Jersey, three people charged as mules allegedly moved most of $1.3 million in aid to two people tied to a Kenyan safari business after taking their cut; in Nebraska, a Kenyan national was indicted. Five defendants have been charged so far, more than $750,000 in crypto has been seized, the FBI has 45 open investigations, and officials say a DOJ team has been sent to Kenya. Investigators flagged more than 830,000 suspicious aid accounts and say losses could reach several hundred million dollars.

“Trump DOJ announces MAJOR FRAUD BUST of ‘ghost students’ associated with KENYAN NATIONALS,” Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) posted Thursday with video from the announcement. The Education Department, which says the Biden administration had turned off “nearly every fraud detection measure,” is part of the crackdown. The video is embedded above.