The US Justice Department announced the first indictments and arrests from "Operation Ghostbusters," a multistate investigation into federal student-aid fraud, charging several people and seizing more than US$750,000 in cryptocurrency from a Kenyan account linked to the scheme. Scammers file Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) applications using stolen identities — "ghost students" — to obtain federal funding; one complaint filed 20 October in the District of New Jersey describes how the group operates. Investigators said the scale could exceed US$200 million, with roughly 50 referrals already sent to 26 FBI field offices and more than 830,000 potentially fraudulent ID numbers identified, connected to US$130 million in aid. The Education Department has added fraud-detection tools to FAFSA that it says have prevented more than US$2 billion in attempted fraud, and Congress is weighing legislation to codify the changes. The DOJ called this round of indictments "just the start."

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