DOJ Watch is The Investigative Journal’s daily briefing on federal enforcement — the indictments, settlements, guilty pleas, and sentencings that define how the Justice Department is using its authority. Every item below is drawn directly from Department of Justice press releases and court records. Charges are allegations; defendants who have not pleaded or been convicted are presumed innocent.
The Justice Department closed the week of June 22 with one of the largest coordinated fraud enforcement operations in its history alongside a landmark environmental settlement, a cluster of securities-fraud resolutions, and a high-profile national security plea expected in a Maryland courtroom on Friday. Records released by the Department’s Office of Public Affairs and multiple U.S. Attorney’s Offices show enforcement activity weighted heavily toward health care fraud, financial-market manipulation, and transnational organized crime.
1. Record $6.5 billion health care fraud takedown charges 455 defendants
The Department announced its 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown on June 23, charging 455 defendants — including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals — in connection with more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims. According to the Department, the operation spanned 56 federal districts and 45 states and territories, with 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units participating, which the Department describes as the most in its history. Authorities reported seizing more than $182 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry, and other assets, while the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services moved to suspend 1,079 providers and revoke billing privileges for 1,403 others.
Filings indicate that fraudulent wound-care schemes featured prominently. In the Southern District of Texas, a nurse practitioner was charged in a $906 million scheme in which she allegedly applied medically unnecessary amniotic wound allografts and billed Medicare more than $1 million per patient on average; the government reported seizing more than $30 million from bank accounts, a $594,000 Ferrari, and an $865,000 Bulgari necklace. Separately, the Department said its Health Care Fraud Unit data team flagged a billing spike in allografts that led to charges against 11 defendants across six districts. The Department also reported that Medicaid fraud charges reached a record level — 295 defendants and more than $518 million in alleged false claims.
The Department framed the operation as a whole-of-government effort tied to the National Fraud Enforcement Division it created in April 2026. “We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using health care as a front to steal from the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the new division. Records also describe alleged patient harm: in the Southern District of Florida, the medical director of a cardiovascular-testing practice was charged in an $89 million scheme in which, prosecutors allege, a student athlete with an undisclosed enlarged heart died during a basketball practice after his abnormal test results were rubber-stamped as normal. The Department emphasized that an indictment is merely an allegation and that all defendants are presumed innocent.
2. Chemours agrees to $450 million PFAS settlement
On June 24, the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection announced a multi-state settlement with The Chemours Company resolving alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and West Virginia’s Water Pollution Control Act. The Department called it the first comprehensive federal settlement to resolve enforcement claims against a manufacturer of PFAS — the synthetic “forever chemicals” used to make products resistant to water, grease, and stains.
Under the agreement, Chemours will pay a $22.5 million civil penalty and undertake a multi-year, $90 million program to mitigate PFAS discharges, with total penalty and injunctive-relief costs estimated to exceed $450 million. The complaint alleges that facilities in West Virginia, North Carolina, and New Jersey discharged PFAS into the Ohio, Cape Fear, and Delaware Rivers in violation of permit requirements, with alleged violations continuing for more than a decade. The consent decree, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, requires Chemours to supply clean drinking water to surrounding communities at an estimated cost of $280 million and to control releases of the compound GenX at an efficiency of at least 99 percent.
The settlement is subject to a public comment period before court approval. Notably, the Department stated that the agreement does not resolve the liability of DuPont, which previously owned the facilities for decades — an open thread that could shape future litigation over forever-chemical contamination.
3. Bolton plea expected in classified-information case
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, 76, of Bethesda, Maryland, was indicted in October 2025 on eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information. The indictment alleged that Bolton used personal email and messaging accounts to transmit documents classified as high as Top Secret and retained national-defense information at his home. As with any indictment, the charges are allegations, and Bolton has maintained the presumption of innocence.
According to reporting by CNN, NPR, and CBS News, Bolton reached a plea agreement under which he would plead guilty to a single felony count of illegal retention of national-defense information and pay a fine of more than $2 million. The docket describes a “re-arraignment” proceeding scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Maryland — the kind of hearing that typically signals a plea. Reporting indicates the single count carries a sentencing range of zero to 60 months. As of publication, TIJ had not independently confirmed that the plea had been entered, and readers should treat the outcome as pending until the court record reflects it.
4. Four sentenced in insider-trading scheme tied to $3.2 billion merger
The Criminal Division announced on June 24 that four individuals were sentenced for trading on material nonpublic information about the $3.2 billion merger of two companies, generating more than $600,000 in illicit profits. Rouzbeh Ross Haghighat, 62, of Massachusetts, received 40 months in prison; Seyedfarbod “Fabio” Sabzevari, 31, of California, received 14 months; Kirstyn Pearl, 36, of Puerto Rico, received six months; and James Roberge, 71, of Massachusetts, received two months.
According to court documents, Haghighat sat on the board of a Seattle biopharmaceutical company and, in May 2023, learned confidential terms of another company’s proposed acquisition before tipping family and associates who bought shares ahead of the public announcement. Haghighat was convicted in December 2025 of securities fraud, 16 counts of insider trading, and two conspiracy counts. The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and prosecuted by the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section — a reminder that traditional securities-enforcement partnerships remain active alongside the Department’s newer fraud apparatus.
5. California man pleads guilty to years-long securities spoofing
On June 25, the Department announced that Mingran Wang, 52, of Fremont, California, pleaded guilty to engaging in more than 3,000 instances of manipulative trading and spoofing between 2021 and 2024. Spoofing involves placing orders a trader intends to cancel before execution, creating a false impression of supply or demand to move prices. Court documents say Wang marketed himself as the founder of Greenroots Capital Management and coordinated trades across multiple brokerage accounts to move prices in thinly traded securities in his favor.
Wang pleaded guilty to one count of using interstate commerce for securities fraud and agreed to forfeit more than $1.3 million in proceeds. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 30 in the Northern District of California and faces a maximum of five years. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated, with assistance from FINRA’s Market Abuse Unit — underscoring the continued role of self-regulatory market surveillance in feeding criminal referrals.
6. Sixth guilty plea in $30 million drug-money laundering conspiracy
The Department reported on June 24 that a sixth defendant, Ygor Fokin Saviolli, 35, a Brazilian national, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder drug-trafficking proceeds in the Southern District of Florida. Five co-defendants pleaded guilty earlier in June. According to court documents, the organization arranged for bulk cash from drug sales to be collected by U.S.-based couriers and deposited at banks nationwide, coordinating dozens of pickups through WhatsApp message chains across cities including Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Rochester, and Tampa.
The Department stated the conspiracy concealed more than $30 million in cash and that five of the six defendants were in the country illegally. Each defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and faces a maximum of 20 years. The FBI’s Miami Field Office investigated with the DEA and Homeland Security Investigations, and the matter is being handled by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section — a unit whose stated mission is to “take the profit out of crime.”
7. Eight North Carolina tax preparers admit $25 million pandemic-relief fraud
On June 24, the Department announced that Nejlai Mitchell, owner of a tax-preparation business in Lumberton and Hope Mills, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to conspiring to file false returns claiming fraudulent refunds based on COVID-19 paid sick and family leave credits. Seven of Mitchell’s employees had already pleaded guilty for their roles in the same scheme. According to court documents, from approximately April 2022 through May 2023 the group filed false returns that caused the IRS to pay out roughly $13.9 million.
Mitchell and co-defendant Whitnee Leach, who pleaded guilty in May 2026, face a maximum of five years for conspiracy and three years for preparing false returns; the remaining defendants face up to three years each, with sentencings scheduled across July and September. The case, investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation, reflects the Department’s continued pursuit of pandemic-relief fraud years after the programs expired — a vein of enforcement that records suggest is far from exhausted.
8. Cartel-linked smuggling siblings sentenced to life and 33 years
A Homeland Security Task Force investigation produced two significant sentences this week, the Department announced on June 24. Edgar Daniel Guzman, 32, of Albertville, Alabama, was sentenced to life in prison on June 22, and his sister, Jesika Guzman-Garcia, 35, was sentenced to 405 months (about 33 years) on June 23, for their roles in a large-scale alien-smuggling organization the Department says was directly linked to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.
According to court documents, the organization operated across Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas since at least 2021 and was tied to acts of violence including murder, attempted murder, home invasion, and armed kidnapping. Guzman pleaded guilty in July 2025 to conspiracy to commit hostage taking; Guzman-Garcia pleaded guilty in August 2025 to conspiracy to transport illegal aliens resulting in death, tied to a smuggling event that killed a load driver and two migrants. The prosecution, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, is part of the task-force initiative established by Executive Order 14159, with additional sentencings expected in the coming months.
Cases that warrant deeper TIJ investigation
Three threads from this week’s docket merit follow-up reporting. First, the wound-care allograft fraud network at the center of the health care takedown — involving billions in alleged Medicare billings, 2,000 percent markups, and links to schemes prosecuted in prior years — raises questions about how relabeled tissue products reached hospice and other vulnerable patients at scale, and which tissue banks and marketing intermediaries enabled it. Second, the Department’s expanded “Most Wanted Fraudsters” list now includes defendants who allegedly fled the country after release on bond, including one believed to be in the United Arab Emirates and another reported to have fled to Vietnam; their cases test the limits of international extradition cooperation. Third, the Bolton matter — a national security prosecution resolving by plea rather than trial — leaves unresolved questions about the scope of the classified material involved and the precedent a negotiated disposition sets for future mishandling cases.
TIJ will continue tracking these cases as court records develop. Tips and document leads may be directed to our newsroom.
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs press releases (Nos. 26-683, 26-688, 26-687, 26-697, 26-693, 26-690, 26-694, and 25-1033) and U.S. Attorney’s Office announcements, all linked above; reporting from CNN, NPR, and CBS News on the Bolton plea agreement.