DOJ Watch is The Investigative Journal’s daily digest of federal enforcement actions, compiled from Justice Department press releases, court filings, and other public records. Charges described below are allegations unless a plea, verdict, or settlement is noted; all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department closed out the final week of July with a run of enforcement actions that touched nearly every corner of its docket: a guilty plea from the brother of a deceased cartel co-founder, terrorism-financing charges against the director of a purported global charity, the first-ever filing in a special terrorist removal court created three decades ago, and a seven-state fraud sweep that prosecutors say encompasses more than $350 million in intended losses. Here is what filings and department records show, with links to the underlying announcements.
Top case: Brother of CJNG founder “El Mencho” pleads guilty to trafficking and firearm counts
Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, 67, of Michoacán, Mexico, pleaded guilty on July 31 to conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine destined for the United States and to a related firearm offense, according to the Justice Department. Court documents describe him as the brother of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes — “El Mencho,” the co-founder and leader of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), whom the department now describes as deceased.
Filings indicate the defendant spent more than two decades in the trade: first as a member of the Milenio Cartel overseeing methamphetamine laboratories and precursor-chemical procurement, then, from roughly 2010, working directly for his brother’s organization — supplying precursor chemicals, distributing cocaine and methamphetamine, collecting drug proceeds, and managing money-laundering flows from the United States to Mexico through currency exchange houses. He was transferred from Mexico to U.S. custody in February 2025 as part of a group of 29 defendants surrendered under Mexico’s national security law.
Sentencing is set for Nov. 13. He faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a statutory maximum of two consecutive life terms. The significance is hard to overstate: prosecutions of CJNG’s top command structure — handled by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section — are the department’s principal lever against a cartel it calls one of Mexico’s most prolific traffickers, and the plea locks in cooperation-era facts about the organization’s finance arm.
Terrorism financing: charity director accused of funneling aid to Hamas leadership
A three-count complaint unsealed July 31 in the Southern District of New York charges Mohammad Yousef Hasna, 45, of Istanbul, with conspiring to provide material support to Hamas and with terrorism-financing offenses, the department announced. Hasna, arrested in the United Kingdom, is alleged to have used his role as global director of a UK-registered charity to coordinate deliveries of cash, food, and supplies directly with Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s Politburo.
The complaint alleges the coordination ran since at least 2023 and included concealment measures — misrepresenting delivery destinations and photographing supplies in ways that omitted warehouse signage. Notably, the charity’s own UK disclosures cited in the complaint show gross income nearly doubling after October 7, 2023, from roughly $41.8 million to $81.56 million the following fiscal year. Each count carries a maximum of 20 years. The charges are allegations, and Hasna is presumed innocent pending extradition and trial.
First-ever case in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court
The department has filed the first case in the history of the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC), a specialized Article III court Congress created in 1996 that had never been used — until now. The July 30 announcement says the government is seeking to remove Nazira Haji Zada, 47, of Fort Worth, Texas, whose son and son-in-law were previously convicted in an ISIS-inspired plot to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day 2024.
According to the filings, the family sold property — including its house, vehicles, and furniture — to raise funds ahead of the planned attack, and purchased one-way airfare for Zada to take the younger children to Kabul before Election Day. Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to terrorism offenses and awaits sentencing; her son Abdullah Haji Zada was sentenced to 15 years and stipulated to removal.
The procedural significance warrants attention: the ATRC permits the government to rely on classified evidence in removal proceedings under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, with appointed counsel and appeal rights to the D.C. Circuit. How the court handles classified submissions in this first test will set the template for future filings.
Seven-state fraud sweep: 17 cases, $350 million in intended losses
The National Fraud Enforcement Division on July 30 announced a coordinated set of 17 fraud cases across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, alongside new federal-state task forces in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida and data-sharing agreements with six secretaries of state and three state treasurers.
The individual cases span the fraud spectrum. In the Northern District of Alabama, a Birmingham-area tax preparer is charged by complaint with filing thousands of returns claiming baseless energy tax credits, an alleged loss of almost $70 million. In the Southern District of Florida, four defendants are accused of running nearly $20 million in fraudulent SNAP transactions through a single Miami convenience store. A Middle District of Florida defendant pleaded guilty to filing a false return and agreed to nearly $35 million in restitution plus forfeiture of Miami Beach and U.S. Virgin Islands properties and two Ferraris. In the Western District of Louisiana, filings describe former law-enforcement officials manufacturing false crime reports for a decade to support U-visa applications at $5,000 per purported victim.
The structural story is the data: the division says state corporate-registration and benefits-payment data will feed federal pattern analysis to cut through shell companies. That is a meaningful expansion of federal fraud-detection reach, and its scope and safeguards deserve continued scrutiny.
Genetic-testing kickbacks: $36.4 million False Claims Act resolution
Houston-based Access DX Laboratory, its former CEO Michael Stewart, and Florida businessman Harold Shatz will pay a combined $36.4 million to resolve allegations they paid kickbacks for genetic-testing referrals, paid telemedicine providers for false doctors’ orders, and billed Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary tests between January 2018 and January 2020, the department said July 30.
Both individuals have separately agreed to plead guilty to kickback-conspiracy charges in the Southern District of Texas, and Access DX entered a five-year corporate integrity agreement with HHS-OIG. The whistleblower who initiated the qui tam case — the president of a marketing firm hired to sell the testing — will receive $7.2 million. Except as admitted in the pleas, the settled claims remain allegations with no determination of liability.
Eye-care billing: two more New York practices settle cranial-ultrasound claims
Fromer Eye Centers (with the estate of its late owner) and Floral Park Ophthalmology agreed July 31 to pay a combined $2.3 million over allegations they billed Medicare and Medicaid for trans-cranial doppler ultrasounds premised on diagnoses most patients never had, through an arrangement with a third-party testing company, per the settlement announcement. Both practices agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigations of other participants — a signal that the department is working up the chain toward the testing company itself. At least seven other practices have settled similar allegations. The claims are allegations only.
VA kickbacks: CEO and VA scheduler plead guilty in $14 million referral scheme
Two Orlando men pleaded guilty last week in a scheme that records suggest converted a Veterans Affairs scheduling desk into a referral pipeline. Heriberto Rivera, CEO of Family Integrative Medicine of Orlando, admitted paying kickbacks to Laurent Cassagnol, a VA Community Care Program support assistant, who steered veterans to the clinic, according to the department. The VA was billed more than $14 million in kickback-procured claims and paid over $11 million. The case began with a tip to the VA-OIG hotline; sentencing is Nov. 5, with each defendant facing up to five years.
Unapproved injectables: skincare CEO pleads guilty after removal from Colombia
Bryce Cleveland, 42, CEO of Arizona-based Scalpa Inc., pleaded guilty July 31 to mail fraud and Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act charges for marketing unapproved injectable devices and an unapproved botulinum-toxin product called “Scalpatox,” the department announced. Cleveland was located in Colombia and returned to the United States by the U.S. Marshals Service. He agreed to a sentence of four to eight years, restitution, and an $800,000 forfeiture. The FDA has separately warned that unapproved botulinum-toxin products have been associated with botulism symptoms — a reminder that this category of fraud carries direct public-health stakes.
On TIJ’s radar
Three threads from this digest warrant deeper investigation. First, the Hasna complaint identifies the charity only as a UK-registered organization whose income nearly doubled after October 7; UK Charity Commission filings should make the entity identifiable, and its US-facing donor network — if any — is an open question TIJ will pursue. Second, the ATRC filing revives a dormant statutory mechanism; the court’s handling of classified evidence and the D.C. Circuit’s eventual review will shape whether more filings follow. Third, the fraud division’s new state data-sharing agreements — corporate registries plus benefits-payment data — represent a quiet but significant build-out of federal analytic capacity, and the terms of those agreements are worth obtaining.
Right of reply: this digest is compiled from public records; The Investigative Journal has not yet solicited comment from counsel in the pending matters described above and will note public defense responses in future coverage. Indictments and complaints are allegations only.
Sources
- DOJ: Brother of Notorious Mexican Cartel Leader Pleads Guilty (July 31, 2026)
- DOJ: Turkey-Based Global Director of Sham Charity Arrested (July 31, 2026)
- DOJ: First Case Filed in U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court (July 30, 2026)
- U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court — court documents
- DOJ: Fraud Division Announces Southeast Enforcement Actions (July 30, 2026)
- DOJ: $36.4M Genetic Testing Settlement (July 30, 2026)
- DOJ: Ophthalmology Practices Pay $2.3M (July 31, 2026)
- DOJ: CEO and VA Employee Plead Guilty to Kickbacks (July 30, 2026)
- DOJ: Skincare CEO Pleads Guilty to FDCA Charges (July 31, 2026)