fraud

Michael Zhang

Former Olympus Executives Plead Guilty to Carrying Out Massive Financial Fraud

It looks like the Olympus financial scandal is finally coming to an end. It has been nearly a year since it came to light that there were massive cases of fraud and coverups going on in the upper echelons of Olympus management. What started as a CEO's firing quickly spiraled into one of the biggest scandals to ever hit corporate Japan -- the country's equivalent of the US' Enron fiasco.

In the end, a number of the company's top executives were arrested after submitting their resignations. The trials for those former bigwigs are only now starting to get underway. Three of them, including former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa (pictured above), pleaded guilty today to charges of falsifying accounts and covering up more than $1 billion in losses. The camera company itself also filed a guilty plea.

Michael Zhang

Olympus Crisis Deepens: Allegations of Fraud and Plummeting Stock

Update: Olympus has released an official response to the allegations.

Since Olympus abruptly fired CEO Michael Woodford (pictured, on left) four days ago, the company's stock price has fallen from roughly ¥2,480 to its current price of ¥1,417, a 43% drop that wiped out nearly $4 billion in value. As we reported yesterday, Woodford is now asking the UK to investigate the company's financial practices, and is claiming that he was booted when on the verge of exposing fraud.

Michael Zhang

US Gov Sues The Art Institutes for $11 Billion Fraud

The Art Institutes, one of the nation's largest for-profit school systems where people can receive an education in photography, has come under fire. Last month, the US Department of Justice filed a massive lawsuit against the company behind the schools, Education Management Corporation, accusing it of fraudulently collecting $11 billion in government aid by recruiting low-income students for the purpose of collecting student aid money. Whistleblowers claim that students graduate loaded with debt and without the means to pay off the loans, which are then paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Michael Zhang

The Cottingley Fairies: A Famous Photo Hoax from 1917

The British Journal of Photography is reporting today that Geoffrey Crawley -- the world-renowned photographer who debunked the Cottingley Fairies hoax in the 1980's -- has died. The hoax began in 1917 when two cousins named Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths (aged 16 and 10, respectively) claimed to have discovered fairies and, after borrowing a camera, produced photos to prove it. The controversial photographs captured the world's attention for decades and even deceived Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before finally being debunked by Crawley in a series of articles published in the early '80s. In 1983 the cousins admitted that the photos were faked using cardboard cutouts.

It's interesting seeing how little it took to fool people with photographs in the early days of photography.

Michael Zhang

The Dark Side of Wildlife Filmmaking

Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by ABC Nightline.

Remember the controversy last year surrounding the use of a captive wolf in an award-winning wildlife photograph? Turns out this kind of deception might be common practice in the world of wildlife filmmaking.

Michael Zhang

Photographer Offers Groupon Deal Using Stolen Photographs, Chaos Ensues

It looked like quite a deal -- a photographer with an impressive portfolio of photographs offering a $500 photo package for $65 on the social buying website Groupon. The offer was so enticing that all 1,175 packages quickly sold out, generating over $76,000 in revenue. That's when people started noticing something fishy about Dana Dawes and her photography.