Full investigative reports on the scammers behind the headlines.
Operation Sunshine (OSS) is our long-form dossier project: court-convicted fraudsters, publicly-exposed con artists, and anonymous undercover reports backed by photographic evidence. One case, one file, all the receipts.
Court-confirmed first
Convictions, indictments, and SEC actions are cited with case numbers and links to primary sources.
Publicly-exposed scammers
Repeat offenders surfaced by reporters, regulators, or community investigators — with the receipts to back it up.
Anonymous tips
Undercover and victim-submitted reports with photographic evidence, reviewed by our moderators before publication.
Dossiers (4)
Updated continuously. Every file is reviewed against primary sources.
Do Kwon
a.k.a. Kwon Do-hyung
Architect of the $40B Terra/Luna collapse
Co-founder of Terraform Labs whose algorithmic stablecoin UST de-pegged in May 2022, wiping out an estimated $40 billion in 72 hours. Convicted of fraud-related charges in Montenegro; extradited to the United States to face SDNY charges.
- Loss
- ~$40B in market value destroyed
- Victims
- Hundreds of thousands of retail crypto holders worldwide
- Region
- South Korea / Singapore / United States
- Filed
The Tinder Swindler
a.k.a. Shimon Hayut (legally Simon Leviev)
Romance-scam playbook, dating-app distribution
Israeli con artist who posed as the billionaire son of diamond magnate Lev Leviev to defraud women he met on Tinder out of an estimated $10 million. Convicted of fraud in Finland and Israel.
- Loss
- ~$10M across Europe
- Victims
- Dozens publicly identified; unknown total
- Region
- Europe / Israel
- Filed
Hushpuppi
a.k.a. Ramon Olorunwa Abbas
Instagram flexer turned BEC kingpin
Nigerian-born influencer who laundered hundreds of millions through business email compromise (BEC) scams while flexing private jets on Instagram. Sentenced to 11 years in US federal prison in November 2022.
- Loss
- $24M+ proven, ~$300M alleged
- Victims
- Banks, law firms, a US sports team, a Premier League club
- Region
- United Arab Emirates / United States
- Filed
Bernard Madoff
a.k.a. Bernard Lawrence Madoff
The $65 billion Ponzi king
Court-convicted operator of the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Sentenced to 150 years in federal prison after defrauding nearly 37,000 investors across 136 countries.
- Loss
- ~$65 billion (paper losses)
- Victims
- ~37,000 across 136 countries
- Region
- United States
- Filed
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