MARLBOROUGH — The Better Business Bureau issued an urgent SCAM alert cautioning businesses and consumers about an email that looks like it is from BBB, with the subject line “Complaint from your customers.”

This e-mail is fraudulent. BBB warns you to ignore its contents and delete it immediately. If you have already clicked on a link in the e-mail, run a full virus scan of your computer.

The e-mails have return addresses that BBB does not use (one example is riskmanager@bbb.org) and it is signed with the address of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the national office of the BBB system. The e-mail contains a link to a non-BBB web site. Do NOT click on the link.

BBB is working with law enforcement to determine its source and stop the fraudulent campaign.  http://www.bbb.org/us/article/ALERT-Malicious-Complaint-Email-Claiming-Its-From-BBB-30916

A former Boston Police Officer was sentenced to fifteen months in prison today for a fraud scheme involving work-related disability claim.

Eliezer Gonzalez, 50, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns after pleading guilty to 34 counts of mail fraud in February.

Gonzalez will serve fifteen months in prison followed by two years of supervised released, and will pay $167,393 in restitution and forfeiture to the City of Boston and Colonial Life Insurance, as well as a mandatory special assessment of $3,400.

The former Officer went out on injured leave after allegedly incurring on-the-job injuries in 2007. Gonzalez then began receiving tax-free injured pay and filed for accidental disability retirement.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Gonzalez greatly exaggerated and lied about his injuries, from which he collected $173,000 in injured leave pay from the City of Boston and $3,600 in supplemental insurance benefits.

Gonzalez was found out after he was surveilled and videotaped feigning injuries “on or near the same days” that he was seen walking without troubles and appearing injury-free, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Throughout the time that Gonzalez collected disability pay, he was seen at the L Street Bath House, Salsa Dancing and traveling abroad without difficulty.

SAN DIEGO — The El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County, Calif., has agreed to pay the US government $2.2 million, plus interest, to settle allegations it defrauded Medicare, the Justice Department announced today.

The case was brought by a whistleblower, protected under federal law.

The government alleged that the 165-bed acute care hospital fraudulently inflated its charges to Medicare patients to obtain larger reimbursements from the federal health care program. The settlement covers claims submitted by the hospital for short inpatient admissions, usually of one day or less, when the services should have been billed on an outpatient "observation" basis or as emergency room visits.

"Hospitals that participate in the Medicare program must bill for their services accurately and honestly," said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. "We will take action to ensure that taxpayers do not pay the costs of health care providers’ fraudulent practices."

The lawsuit was brought under the qui tam — whistleblower — provisions of the False Claims Act, which allow private citizens to bring an action on behalf of the federal government and share in any recovery.

The whistleblower in this case, Pietro Ingrande, a former employee of El Centro Regional Medical Center, will receive $375,000 as his share of the recovery.

"Whistleblowers are critical to ensuring that Medicare dollars are not siphoned off, but find their way to those who most need them," said Glenn R. Ferry, Special Agent in Charge for the Los Angeles Region of the OIG-HHS. "Office of Inspector General special agents and our law enforcement partners have forged a powerful team that will work with private citizens who come forward to protect the Medicare Trust Fund and defend it from fraud and abuse."

The investigation was conducted by the Justice Department, US Attorney, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, and the FBI.

El Centro is a city in the Colorado Desert, an extension of the Sonoran Desert. It is about 100 miles east of San Diego.

"The Medicare system attempts to deliver much needed medical services to many Americans," said San Diego FBI Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter. "Anyone who purposely defrauds the system, therefore, misappropriating its funds, and takes away resources from those who need Medicare’s services will be investigated by the FBI. We are committed to helping preserve the system’s integrity by vigorously pursuing those who attempt to steal the funds that help keep our fellow Americans in good health."

The case was part of a government initiative that has netted more than $4.4 billion recovered by allegedly Medicare and Medicaid defrauders.

Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan will go ahead tomorrow, marred by allegations of fraud and tampering against election candidates, and, most recently, by the kidnapping of a candidate and 18 election workers by Taliban members.

Earlier this week printers in Peshawar claimed they were told by Afghan election candidates to produce and laminate fake voter cards for the election. The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission expressed concern and said the issue should be dealt with, but has yet to take any action.

Former presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah told reporters at a press conference that the appropriate measures to combat fraud are not being taken.

Meanwhile, workers were frantically transporting materials around the country earlier today in an effort to prepare for the election tomorrow. Fear in the streets is not as widespread as it was during the 2009 presidential election, though the Taliban has again threatened to attack.

The group has already been blamed for the kidnapping of 19 people, including one election candidate.

About 450,000 policemen and soldiers will guard polling stations, armed, in an effort to dissuade Taliban members from attacking.

Despite allegations of fraud and kidnappings by the Taliban, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the country has the “structure” for a “successful election”, according to Agence-France Presse.

The bad guys are going virtual more and more, and American businesses and government networks are getting victimized at a record pace, according to an FBI report.

“The increasing number of such crimes not only impacts the economy but threatens national security,” the FBI said Friday.

The man at the head of the opposition is the FBI’s Shawn Henry, recently appointed head of their Cyber Division. He told reporters Wednesday that the FBI has literally thousands of open cyber crime cases.

“One case in point: We joined our international partners yesterday in announcing a major takedown of a transnational criminal network that was buying and selling stolen financial information through an online forum known as ‘Dark Market‘,” the FBI said Friday.

“The business of the United States is done on the Internet,” said Henry, “And the information that flows electronically 24/7 is increasingly the target of not only identity thieves and scammers, but organized crime groups, terrorists, and overseas governments.”

Yes, even other countries are trying to virtually penetrate the U.S. Henry says about 24 different governments have an “aggressive interest” in obtaining information from or making attacks against American cyber infrastructure.

Henry says that individual hackers and crackers have grouped up into “virtual gangs.”

“In years gone by, if a gang wanted to rob a bank, it needed crooks with various skills — safe cracker, get-away driver, look-out, etc. That’s essentially what we’re seeing in the cyber world today, only these virtual gang members have never met in the physical world,” Henry said.

“There are organized groups that are very successful.”

A Georgia man was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court for using a website to fraudulently get people to invest in so-called “certificates”, promising a guaranteed rate of return after nine months. Of course, he just pocketed the money, authorities say.

Michael Patrick Luckett, 37, of Gainesville, Ga. got three years in jail followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay almost $100,000 in restitution to his victims. The Securities and Exchange Commission previously froze $220,900 in Luckett’s accounts, and they will start to distribute that to victims as well.

Luckett pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud July 14.

In his scheme, Luckett worked from his Boston apartment and duped about 15 people all around the country to send him more than $450,000 for investment in the fake “Transnational Fund”.

To try and hide his tracks, Luckett filtered the checks through an address in Hartford, which forwarded to Boston. It did not work.

The FBI says Luckett used nearly $100,000 of the funds received for expenses such as his personal rent and meals, making cash withdrawals and promoting the Transnational Fund website to try and get more money.