Archive for February 2009

UPDATE  9:16 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) The indictment against Karl Dahlstrom is available in PDF format at the bottom of this post. Here, below, our earlier post . . . In a desperate bid to hide itself underground after its management structure was exposed, the controversial autosurf AdViewGlobal has formed a private association and is taking [...]

Earlier this week we reported on the failure of Premium Ads Club (PAC). Now a surf with close ties to PAC is in its death spiral. Aggero Investment says tomorrow will be its last day, absent a miracle that will prevent a run on the bank as investors race to collect returns advertised at 60 [...]

UPDATED 12:56 A.M. EST (Feb. 28, U.S.A.) Documents filed by federal prosecutors in the AdSurfDaily case pointedly refer to Andy Bowdoin’s wife as “Edna Faye Bowdoin.” But other documents on file with the Florida Department of State refer to her as “Faye S. Bowdoin.” Other documents in the Florida Department of State and elsewhere in [...]

Using the Curtis Richmond litigation blueprint, two new motions to intervene have been filed in the AdSurfDaily forfeiture case. The motions were filed by Ronald Breckenfelder of Littleton, Colo., and John R. Moore of Ames, Iowa. The motions accuse U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A Taylor, and Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden [...]

Today mostly was a day for thinking, not writing. Maddy the Wonder Puppy accompanied me this morning on a drive to my sister’s house. Maddy, at 11 months, hasn’t gotten any better in automobiles. She started whining the moment I backed out of the garage. Not even her favorite blankets — a blue one and [...]

We feel for the residents of North Salem, N.Y., and the residents of Quincy, Fla. Fate has put them in the media glare. Talk at Westchester County lunch counters is not about how the Mets or Yankees or Red Sox will do this year. It’s about how Paul Greenwood, the town supervisor of North Salem, [...]

On the Surf’s Up forum, the Mods are saying there are no ties between AdSurfDaily and AdView Global. But information on AVG’s website tells a different story. George F. Harris is named a trustee of a new group that’s calling itself “AV Global Association.” Harris is the son of Edna Faye Bowdoin, wife of ASD [...]

UPDATED 7:18 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) The FBI has made arrests in the Westridge Capital Management case. Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, principals in WCM and an arm known as WG Trading of Greenwich, Conn., both were arrested. WCM is headquartered in Santa Barbara, Calif. Greenwood and Walsh were arraigned this afternoon in New York. Bail [...]

UPDATE: 4:59 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) The Surf’s Up Forum now says the government has seized or frozen two bank accounts of ASD members. It did not provide the source, and it encouraged members not to identify the owners of the accounts. Here, below, our earlier post . . . EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s getting harder and [...]

UPDATE 5:23 P.M. EST (Feb. 25, U.S.A.) The story below is from Feb. 24, the day before Greenwood and Walsh were arrested. See our Feb. 25 story to read about the arrests. Two principals of Westridge Capital Management (WCM) are mum about the controversy swirling around the firm and affiliated companies. Neither Paul Greenwood nor [...]

An autosurf known as “Premium Ads Club” has tanked. A poster at the ASA Monitor forum said he invested money for his child’s chemotherapy treatment in it. Premium Ads Club advertised a payout of 135 percent over 15 days. Members said the surf was collecting money as late as this weekend and had just come [...]

UPDATE 5:41 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) The Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) has terminated its investment-management contract with Westridge Capital Management (WCM) of Santa Barbara, Calif. IPERS’ move comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed Friday by two Pennsylvania universities that sued WCM amid concerns that they potentially had lost $114 million in an [...]

We’ve previously pointed out that, in recent times, some of the actions filed against financiers and fund managers — and the findings of investigators — have read like works of fiction. On Friday, for example, Irving Picard, the trustee in the Bernard Madoff case, asserted that Madoff appears not to have purchased securities for customers [...]

Hats off to Houston Chronicle writer Loren Steffy, who explained economically why cons work. A con, Steffy explained, works because the con weaves “a tapestry of believable lies.” It’s a pointed, short, highly memorable line that deserves special mention because it puts readers “right there.” Steffy detailed some of disgraced financier Allen Stanford’s lies in [...]

UPDATE 10:55 P.M. EST (Feb. 22, U.S.A.) We’ve added to the bottom of this post some information about Westridge Capital’s website, which appears to consist of a single page and is amateur by any modern standard. We’ve also associated a second domain to the company.  It, too, appears to consist of a single page — [...]

By coincidence the words appear in the 13th paragraph of a Chicago Tribune story invoking investors’ sustained lack of luck and reporting on a new series of Ponzi schemes the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating. The words were spoken by Gregory Mocek, former CFTC enforcement director, and are the most important words spoken [...]

UPDATE 2:49 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) At a gathering of creditors today, Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, said he could find no evidence that Madoff even purchased securities for customers in the past 13 years. Cash came in — and immediately went out — to sustain the Ponzi, [...]

FBI agents today located financier R. Allen Stanford in Virginia and served papers on him at the behest of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Stanford was not taken into custody. The SEC issued a statement: “At the request of the SEC, Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Richmond Division today located and identified [...]

UPDATED 1:22 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) Earlier this month a photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps holding a bong sparked a firestorm, which ultimately led to a public apology from the celebrated gold medalist. Phelps subsequently was fired by Kellogg Co. because it cherished its brand and didn’t want the cereal- and snack-eating children of America [...]