Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,
Over $73 million in federal highway funds are being withheld from New York state after an audit found more than half the state’s commercial drivers licenses (CDL) were issued to foreigners illegally.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced yesterday that the state failed to revoke “illegally issued nondomiciled commercial learner’s permits and commercial driver’s licenses.”
According to a December press release from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) uncovered a shocking 53 percent failure rate in the records sampled, indicating serious problems in New York’s CDL program.
Among the failures documented were New York DMV systems defaulting to issuing eight-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired, and the state issuing commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.
Just the News reports that Derek Barrs, administrator of the motor carrier administration, stated, “FMCSA’s mission is safety. That means ensuring that every commercial driver on the road is properly vetted and qualified. New York’s continued refusal to fix these failures undermines that mission, and we will not allow federal dollars to support a system that falls short of the law.”
Duffy told Fox News that the Dept. of Transportation has documented licenses and permits being issued to commercial truck drivers who are unskilled, putting American families at risk.
In December, Duffy gave the state of New York 30 days to get in compliance, warning state officials that, “When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses.”
Just the News reports that with the forfeiture of nearly $74 million in funding, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration is losing 4 percent of its National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Program Block Grant Funds.
Duffy, in a post on X, posed the question of whether pulling federal funding from non-compliant states worked before responding, “Just ask Gavin Newsom,” referring to how California revoked more than 17,000 licenses issued to undocumented people after the DOT pulled over $160 million in federal funding from the state.
Tyler Durden Sat, 04/18/2026 - 11:40What looked like a booming AI company was, prosecutors say, an audacious house of cards built on deception.
iLearningEngines (former stock symbol AILE) executives allegedly fabricated virtually every pillar of their business—customers, revenues, and contracts—to cash in on the AI hype and dupe both everyday investors and major institutions.
The scheme involved creating entire fake client ecosystems: shell companies with polished websites, insiders or relatives posing as corporate executives, and bogus multimillion-dollar agreements designed to withstand scrutiny, according to a DOJ press release. As U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella put it, the company’s pitch of AI innovation masked something far more fraudulent: “the truly artificial part of the defendants’ story was iLearning’s customers and revenues.”
The scale of the alleged deception was staggering. The company reported soaring growth—claiming revenues that reached hundreds of millions—while prosecutors say those figures were largely invented. According to the indictment, executives inflated results through an “intricate web of sham contracts,” many supposedly worth tens of millions annually, all designed to convince investors the business was thriving.
In reality, the operation functioned less like a tech company and more like a carefully staged illusion meant to unlock funding and drive up valuation.
Behind the scenes, the mechanics of the fraud were brazen. Prosecutors say executives orchestrated “round-trip” transactions exceeding $144 million, secretly funneling investor and lender funds through fake customer accounts and then back into the company to simulate real revenue.
According to the DOJ press release, associates even opened bank accounts in the names of nonexistent clients to keep the money moving and the illusion alive. This circular flow of cash allowed the company to falsely appear profitable while relying entirely on outside funding.
When scrutiny finally intensified, the alleged response was not to come clean—but to double down. Executives allegedly lied repeatedly to auditors, investors, and lenders, and even coached others to back up the false story. “Our Office is committed to protecting investors and holding accountable corporate executives who undermine the integrity of our financial markets for personal gain,” Nocella said.
The scheme ultimately unraveled after a critical report by Hindenburg Research triggered a stock collapse, erasing massive value and pushing the company into bankruptcy—by which point insiders had already walked away with millions, leaving investors with devastating losses.
Back in 2024, Hindenburg Research alleged that the artificial intelligence company had "artificial partners and artificial revenue". The firm headed by Nathan Anderson said that iLearningEngines "was borderline insolvent when it merged with a desperate SPAC sponsor that was quickly running out of time to get a deal done."
The report focuses on an unnamed "Technology Partner" crucial to AILE's business, stating "nearly all of company’s revenue and expenses (~96% of revenue and ~100% of CoGs in 2022) seem to be run through an undisclosed related party, an unnamed 'Technology Partner'."
The company then told the SEC the technology partner was not a related party in a comment letter, Hindenburg says. It alleges that it "unmasked" the partner to be a related party...one which, at one point, shared a listed address with AILE's CEO's home residence.
"We believe the majority of iLearningEngines’ revenue doesn’t exist, and that its relationship with the mystery 'Technology Partner' is merely a conduit for falsifying its financials. We do not expect it will remain a public company for long," the short seller wrote.
Hindenburg published the AILE report the same week it wrote on Super Micro Computer, which saw its co-founder arrested last month. It looks like even though the short seller is now defunct, its work is still having an impact.
Tyler Durden Sat, 04/18/2026 - 11:05