The Investigative Journal’s daily review of federal enforcement actions, compiled from Justice Department press releases and court filings. Charges described below are allegations unless otherwise noted, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
An alleged Kremlin-directed murder-for-hire network reaching onto American soil, a $385 million infant-formula settlement, and a $245 million pandemic-fraud enforcement surge headline the Justice Department’s docket this week. The actions announced Monday and Tuesday span national security, program fraud, export controls, immigration enforcement and federal contracting — here are the eight that matter most, and the questions TIJ will keep pursuing.
1. Five charged as alleged Russian intelligence network sought killings inside the U.S.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Tuesday unsealed an indictment charging five men the government says worked for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation to finance terrorism and arrange targeted killings around the world — including inside the United States. The indictment names Yuri Khrameev, 63, described in filings as a former colonel in Russian intelligence; his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, identified as an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB); Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national living in Russia; Yaidel Delgado Suarez, 35, of Cuba; and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, of Venezuela. All five remain at large.
According to the indictment, the network recruited a U.S. resident this summer to conduct surveillance of a prominent Russian dissident believed to be living in the United States, paying for photographs and video of locations tied to the target and ultimately offering $40,000 to “eliminate” him. Court filings also describe a 2025 attempt to hire a U.S. citizen for $25,000 to kill a man in Lithuania who was, in the alleged recruiter’s words, “telling lies about Russia,” as well as coordination of attacks in Prague in June 2024 and in Lithuania in September 2024 — part of what prosecutors characterize as a campaign against countries perceived to be helping Ukraine, including solicitations to firebomb warehouses and electrical substations.
Each defendant is charged with conspiracy to finance terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years; Yuri Khrameev, Suarez and Castro also face a murder-for-hire conspiracy count with a 10-year maximum. Because the defendants are believed to be abroad, near-term arrests appear unlikely — but the indictment stands as one of the most detailed public accounts to date of alleged Russian “transnational repression” operations recruiting inside the United States, and it signals that the FBI’s counterintelligence division penetrated the network’s American recruitment pipeline. An indictment is an allegation only.
2. Abbott to pay $385 million over contaminated infant formula claims
Abbott Laboratories has agreed to pay $384,999,040 to resolve False Claims Act allegations that, from 2018 through 2022, it caused federal and state programs — including WIC and Medicaid — to pay for powder infant formula manufactured at its Sturgis, Michigan, and Casa Grande, Arizona, plants out of compliance with safety requirements. The government’s November 2025 complaint-in-intervention alleged persistent roof leaks diverted with “roof leak umbrellas,” cracked and pitted spray dryers kept in service, lengthened intervals between cleaning cycles, and instances in which the company allegedly avoided bacterial testing or failed to disclose positive contamination results to FDA inspectors in 2019 and 2022.
Under the settlement, $348.7 million goes to the federal government and $36.3 million to state Medicaid and WIC programs. Three former Abbott employees who filed the underlying whistleblower suit — captioned United States ex rel. Millard v. Abbott Laboratories, No. 1:22-cv-994 (W.D. Mich.) — will share $69 million of the federal recovery. The claims resolved are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.
The significance is hard to overstate: more than half of all infant formula purchased in the United States is paid for with USDA funds through WIC, and the Sturgis facility sat at the center of the 2022 recall and shutdown that contributed to a nationwide formula shortage. The resolution is among the largest False Claims Act recoveries announced this year.
3. “Operation No Doze”: $245 million COVID-loan fraud surge
The Justice Department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, the SBA and the SBA’s inspector general announced the results of a summer enforcement surge against COVID-era loan fraud: between June 12 and September 1, prosecutors in 44 U.S. Attorney’s offices obtained felony charges against nearly 80 defendants tied to roughly $100 million in intended losses, took guilty pleas from about 43 more ($44 million), and saw about 40 defendants sentenced (nearly $100 million) — over 160 defendants and approximately $245 million in all. Separately, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency has suspended 870,000 borrowers tied to $39 billion in suspected fraudulent PPP and EIDL activity, with demand letters now going out.
Among the notable cases: a Western District of Missouri indictment charges Jamie Gray with seeking nearly $56 million in PPP and EIDL funds for dozens of businesses that, according to the indictment, did not exist before the pandemic — the one real company he allegedly claimed, a Texas outfit called “Fur Lives Matter,” had no knowledge of him. And in Oregon, former Clackamas County Commissioner Melissa Fireside faces federal wire fraud charges over roughly $1.6 million in allegedly fraudulent applications; prosecutors say she is believed to have fled the country and is subject to an INTERPOL Red Notice.
With Congress having extended the statute of limitations for pandemic-loan fraud to ten years in 2022, filings indicate this docket will keep producing cases well into the 2030s. The department also announced new fraud-enforcement cooperation agreements with the Missouri Secretary of State and the Nebraska and Kansas treasurers. All charges are allegations pending trial.
4. Twelve charged in San Diego “ghost daycare” subsidy scheme
More than 250 federal, state and local officers arrested twelve defendants and executed a dozen search warrants in what prosecutors describe as parallel schemes that drained more than $10 million from taxpayer-funded childcare subsidies for low-income San Diego families. According to the complaints, licensed home-daycare operators billed county-administered, HHS-funded programs for care that was never provided: surveillance of one facility allegedly showed children present on just one of 57 days observed — the day a state inspector arrived unannounced — and border-crossing records indicate several defendants billed for childcare on days they were not in the country.
The complaints describe per-defendant proceeds ranging from roughly $538,000 to $1.2 million, with several defendants allegedly collecting over $1 million each. All twelve — whom the department identified as naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents originally from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq — face wire fraud counts carrying up to 20 years, with some also charged with money laundering. These are the first daycare-fraud charges brought since the National Fraud Enforcement Division was created in April, and complaints are accusations only.
5. Pennsylvania man charged with arming for ISIS-inspired attack
Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania, was charged by federal complaint with receiving a firearm and ammunition with reasonable cause to believe they would be used to commit a federal crime of terrorism, including material support for ISIS. FBI agents interdicted Kramer at a Cranberry Township hotel over the weekend carrying rifle magazines and ammunition; searches of his person, hotel room and residence recovered a semiautomatic rifle, 190 rounds, a scope and bipod, roughly 30 knives, and a handwritten note, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit states Kramer had been known to the FBI since a 2023 state juvenile case involving a mass-casualty plot, and that after his March 2026 release an anonymous tip flagged renewed troubling behavior. Investigators say he operated online as “Hamza Al Rashid,” claimed ISIS affiliation, offered to share explosives manuals, and told contacts he was preparing for a “mission” and lacked only a “weapon.” The government has requested detention pending trial. A complaint is an accusation, and Kramer is presumed innocent.
6. Guilty plea in $2 million aerospace-parts pipeline to Russia
Andrei Samuilovski, 32, a citizen of Estonia, Switzerland and Russia, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act by supplying prohibited Russian end users with U.S.-origin aerospace components without Commerce Department licenses. Court documents state Samuilovski co-founded ITC Middle East FZ-LLC roughly four weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; from 2022 through September 2024, dozens of shipments of export-controlled aerospace goods worth nearly $2 million flowed from U.S. companies to ITC and onward to Russia.
Sentencing is set for January 13, 2027, and Samuilovski faces up to 20 years. The case fits the now-familiar pattern federal export-control prosecutors have documented since 2022: third-country free-zone entities standing up within weeks of sanctions and quietly rerouting American components to Moscow.
7. Five charged with turning the H-2A farm-visa program into a smuggling pipeline
A superseding indictment unsealed in the Southern District of Georgia charges five defendants with exploiting the H-2A agricultural visa program to smuggle workers into the country for profit. According to the indictment, the conspirators lied about where workers would work and live, demanded improper payments before workers could obtain visas, confiscated passports and identification documents, and at times used threats or violence to keep workers from leaving — then, after visas expired, charged additional fees to help workers remain in the U.S. illegally.
Three defendants were arrested this week; one remains at large, and a fifth was already in custody on a firearms charge. The visa-fraud conspiracy count carries up to five years, with substantive visa fraud and inducement counts carrying up to ten. The case was brought under Joint Task Force Alpha, the department’s anti-smuggling initiative, which DOJ says has produced more than 458 arrests and 408 convictions to date. The indictment is an allegation, and all five are presumed innocent.
8. Accenture Federal Services pays $25 million over contract discrimination certifications
Accenture Federal Services and affiliated Accenture entities agreed to pay $25 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that, from 2017 onward, the company certified compliance with federal contracts’ anti-discrimination requirements while allegedly factoring race and sex into hiring and promotion decisions to hit internal demographic goals. The government alleged business units received color-coded monthly dashboards tracking workforce composition against targets, that promotion candidates who advanced demographic goals received separate discussion and highlighted visibility, and that certain training and mentoring programs restricted eligibility by race.
The settlement resolves allegations only, with no determination of liability. The resolution reflects the department’s stated approach of treating race- and sex-conscious employment practices by federal contractors as False Claims Act violations — a legal theory contractors across the industry are now pricing into their compliance reviews.
On TIJ’s radar
Several threads from this week’s docket warrant deeper reporting. First, the San Diego daycare cases raise an uncomfortable oversight question: records suggest ghost facilities billed county-administered subsidy programs for months or years — through unannounced inspections and routine attendance certifications — before surveillance caught up with them. TIJ will be requesting oversight and audit records from the county and the administering organizations. Second, the gap between SBA’s 870,000 suspended borrowers ($39 billion in flagged activity) and the roughly 160 defendants charged or resolved this summer is enormous; how the government triages that docket — collections versus prosecutions — deserves scrutiny. Third, the Russian network indictment leaves open who “Victim-1” is and how many Americans were approached with recruitment offers; the transnational-repression pattern is one TIJ has followed and will continue to track. Finally, the department’s election-integrity docket keeps growing: six people were charged this month in California, Kansas and Louisiana over illegal voting, fraudulent registration and a Skid Row petition-signature scheme, according to DOJ — a line of cases worth watching closely as the midterms approach.
Sourcing note: Every factual claim in this digest is drawn from the linked Justice Department press releases and the court filings they cite. Indictments and complaints are allegations, not findings; civil settlements resolve allegations without determinations of liability. The individuals and companies named had not filed public responses in the court record at publication time and retain the right of reply — TIJ will publish substantive responses from defense counsel or company representatives.
Sources
- DOJ: Members of Russian Intelligence Services Network Charged (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: Abbott Agrees to Pay Over $384M (Sept. 14, 2026) — settlement agreement; complaint-in-intervention
- DOJ: Operation No Doze — $245M in COVID Loan Fraud Enforcement (Sept. 14, 2026)
- DOJ: Twelve Charged in $10M Home Daycare Fraud Schemes (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: Butler County Man Charged (Sept. 15, 2026) — criminal complaint affidavit
- DOJ: Russian National Pleads Guilty to Smuggling U.S. Aerospace Goods (Sept. 14, 2026)
- DOJ: Five Charged with Exploiting H-2A Visa Program (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: Accenture Agrees to Pay $25M (Sept. 14, 2026) — settlement agreement
- DOJ: Six Charged for Illegal Voting and Fraudulent Registration (Sept. 14, 2026)