DOJ Announces Charges in International Student Aid Fraud Investigation

The Justice Department announced charges against five defendants in a nationwide investigation into alleged student aid fraud involving stolen U.S. identities and fake college enrollments. Called Operation Ghostbusters, the probe spans multiple states and includes alleged links to accomplices in Kenya. The department says investigators have identified hundreds of participants and estimate the scheme’s total scale at well over $200 million. The FBI has identified more than $32 million in losses in similar “ghost student” schemes, with millions more suspected. Those figures describe different measures and should not be treated as a single confirmed loss total.