EDITORIAL: Gold Nugget Invest ‘Players’ Create Smokescreen For Failed HYIP; Defend Company On Ponzi Boards, Claiming United States Has No Jurisdiction

EDITOR’S NOTE: Claims often are made that it’s “safe” for U.S. residents to invest in “offshore” opportunities and that offshore enterprises are outside the reach of U.S. regulators and law-enforcement agencies. This column refutes those assertions — and also includes information on Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as “Michael Mixon.” Alishtari operated an investment scheme known as FEDI and was convicted in September of stealing millions of dollars from participants and of financing terrorism.

UPDATED 3:58 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Lots of people say that HYIPs are harmless. They continue to promote the programs even though they’d never encourage their children to hop into a car driven by a  stranger or tell their parents or friends it was OK to hire a roofing contractor who was not registered at City Hall.

Why purported operators of online High Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs) get a pass when strangers driving cars and fly-by-night home-improvement contractors do not is a matter for great introspection. It’s a pretty safe bet, though, that it comes down to reckless — and even criminal — greed.

The Gold Nugget Invest (GNI) HYIP tanked Friday, after collecting untold sums. GNI’s website disappeared for a while after an announcement by the company that it was embarking on a “Re-organization.” The site now is back online. The “Re-organization” appears to be just another way to collect money by changing the distribution scheme.

“Earn up to . . . 20% monthly,” the site says. “No Risk Wager.” There is no corresponding announcement on the site’s landing page that it changed the rules, withheld payouts to members under a previous scheme and, apparently, lost access to a hefty sum of its cash when assets linked to Yesilada Bank through a purported “Correspondent Bank” purportedly were frozen by “German Authorities” on an unspecified date.

GNI’s announcement about the purported actions by “German Authorities” was vague and ambiguous.

“This particular frozen account contains all of Yesilada’s client’s foreign exchange funds,” GNI said Friday. “There are dozens of legitimate clients, along with GNI, whose lives have been put on hold pending the resolution of an investigation which has NOTHING to do with GNI. It’s a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong [] time.”

GNI’s claims could not be independently verified. The company does not publish financial information that could help investors make an informed decision. Its announcement was so overwrought with florid language that members still don’t know what it means.

Even if the claims are true, however, the only thing they demonstrate is that the company is responding to a purported crisis caused by unspecified third parties by advertising a “No Risk Wager” that implies a payout of 20 percent a week.

Good grief. (Look in the Comments section below for GNI’s entire announcement about its problem and its “Re-organization” plan. It is one for the ages.)

As we reported yesterday, the conspiracy theorists already have surfaced in an apparent bid to help GNI deflect attention from the fact it collected money under one set of rules, changed the rules — and now intends to continue to collect money (while holding onto earlier money it collected), thus further distancing its original investors from their money and not informing new investors in plain sight about the previous problems.

Incredibly, some existing members of GNI are applauding GNI’s actions, saying they are consistent with a company that is “honest.” Some of the same cheerleaders are saying the United States does not have jurisdiction in matters pertaining to GNI or its purveyors. Why the apologists would tout the company’s “honesty” while also saying the SEC can’t touch it is just another one of the many incongruities of the HYIP world.

If you are on the fence about GNI — if you find yourself desperately wanting to believe the cheerleaders and apologists — perhaps you’ll find this story at Canada.com informative. It’s a brief on Brian David Anderson, a Canadian citizen who was just sentenced to federal prison in the United States for targeting U.S. citizens in a financial-fraud scheme.

Anderson, by the way, originally was arrested by Spanish authorities in Madrid. He was jailed in the United States and pleaded guilty in August 2008 . It is not even remotely unusual for governments to cooperate when investigating fraud and Ponzi schemes. The British Columbia Securities Commission noted Anderson was in a U.S. jail when it issued this news release on his penalty for targeting Canadians in a securities scheme.

“Anderson told the panel in a letter that he was ‘unable to appear in response’ to the findings because he is incarcerated in a New York prison,” BCSC said. “He also said he is not in a position to pay the [$250,000] fine.”

He was not in position to pay the restitution, either. Many HYIP promoters know that, if the operator goes to jail, no one gets paid.  Investors are told not to raise a ruckus, the suggestion being that raising a ruckus might capture the attention of authorities — and if the authorities swoop in, well, game over.

Under this reasoning, it is best to stay quiet, even if it means a schemer has to steal from others to make payments to his or her original investors. Many of the promoters suspect a theft has occurred. They ignore it or talk around it because no gun was used. They’d call the police if a roofing contractor ever scammed their widowed mother. They’d join a posse if — heaven forbid — their missing child last was seen getting into the car of a stranger. The HYIP schemer get a pass because personal investment cash or commission cash is on the line.

Know Who Your HYIP Neighbors Are?

Anderson helped pitch a scheme known as Flat Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI). The FBI identitied Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari as the operator of FEDI. Alishtari pleaded guilty in September 2009 to fleecing investors in the scheme — and also to charges of financing terrorism and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Alishtari, who used the name “Michael Mixon,”  facilitated the “transfer of $152,000, with the understanding that the money would be used to fund training for terrorists,” the FBI said. “In the latter half of 2006, Alishtari agreed to discreetly transfer these funds for an undercover officer, believing that the money was going to be used to purchase night vision goggles and other equipment for a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. During his guilty plea, Alishtari admitted that he sent the money from the United States knowing that the funds were to be used to help finance alleged terrorist activity in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Anderson was not linked to terrorism, but his ties to FEDI are documented in one filing after another in Canada. Here is a mention of FEDI from the Alberta Securities Commission.

International law enforcement regularly shares information and works cooperatively. Here are some more examples:

Colombia recently handed over to the United States Colombian citizen David Murcia, whose pyramid scheme caused rioting in South America and later was linked to international narcotics trafficking. Authorities in Panama recently arrested U.S. citizen Jeffrey Lane Mowen, who is now in a U.S. jail awaiting trial on Ponzi charges and charges he plotted to have four witnesses against him murdered.

John and Marian Morgan  were arrested in Sri Lanka and brought to the United States. Their alleged financial scheme purportedly operated out of Europe, although the Morgans are U.S. citizens who allegedly targeted U.S. customers.

Web records suggest that GNI’s servers are in the United Kingdom and that almost 57 percent of GNI’s website traffic originates in the United States. Other countries driving measurable traffic are Canada, Australia, the U.K., Italy and Japan. The records, however, strongly suggest that traffic from the United States dwarfs traffic from other countries.

This almost certainly means that GNI was reliant on U.S. dollars to sustain itself. Much of the cheerleading for the company appears to come from U.S.-based investors. The most probable reason for their continued support of the company is the fear that they’ll lose their current stakes and perhaps even get sued by people they enrolled in the program if they don’t spin the recent GNI events as a positive.

The Gag Reflex

The behavior of cheerleaders in murky HYIP circles is enough to make a person want to hurl. The most offensive cheerleaders are the ones who position themselves as “experts.” They are experts only in the same sense that Charles Ponzi and Bernard Madoff were experts. They are people who prey on ignorance to line their pockets with commissions. The arguments are an embarrassment to any person with a functioning brain, so utterly pretentious — and often so utterly passive-aggressive — that they trigger the gag reflex.

A common tactic is to position people concerned about their funds as troublemakers or whiners. The worried parties are told that they are immature, that responsible adults don’t whine — and that responsible adults never put in more money than they can afford to lose. Such insults, which often are encased in smiles and expressed with great confidence, often include the claim that the SEC has no jurisdiction or that the “opportunity” is a “game” and therefore cannot be regulated by government.

Professional HYIP pushers are at risk of being charged under U.S. law with selling unregistered securities as investment contracts — at a minimum. The Ponzi board “experts” argue that no contract exists and that it therefore follows that no charges can be brought. The argument does not pass the giggle test. Among the reasons it’s made is because the purveyors don’t want investors to call the SEC — or the FBI or state attorneys general or state securities regulators or provincial securities regulators or international law-enforcement agencies.

The purveyors also are at risk of being criminally charged under U.S. law with wire fraud. GNI operated over the Internet — just like AdSurfDaily, an alleged autosurf Ponzi scheme based in Florida. It is known that some ASD members also promoted GNI. They announced their participation even after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from ASD in August 2008 amid allegations of selling unregistered securities and operating a wire-fraud and money-laundering scheme.

A racketeering statute also is cited in two forfeiture complaints against ASD-connected assets. When the Secret Service filed the ASD allegations, federal prosecutors included copies of successful complaints filed against 12DailyPro and PhoenixSurf, two autosurf firms prosecuted under securities statutes.

GNI’s apologists would rather you not know about these things.

Bottom line: The cheerleaders don’t want to give up their commissions or profits. At the same time, they don’t want to be sued or named a defendant in a civil-enforcement action or a criminal complaint. They know the programs are illegal and that they have vast exposure, so they make excuses for the company and just plain lie — or pass along deceptions such as the SEC has no jurisdiction over the enterprises.

Let us say it plainly: You do not have an idea of who your HYIP neighbors are. You do not have a clue about what happens to the money after it leaves your bank account or your payment processor. If you claim otherwise, you are deluding yourself. If you race to announce to forums to exclaim you “got paid,” you are setting the stage for others to get fleeced.

This applies to virtually all the online HYIPs.

If you are a U.S.-based GNI investor, you likely bought an unregistered security from a person who was not licensed to sell securities or are the victim of some sort of commodities or forex fraud. As noted above, web records suggest that nearly 57 percent of GNI’s traffic originated in the United States. It is likely that more than 57 percent of GNI’s money pool was comprised of U.S. dollars because of the ready supply of U.S.-based promoters, sometimes called referral “whores.”

It’s an offensive description, to be sure. The “industry” itself is offensive. It leads to one ugly result after another. Eventually it’s going to lead to a result that is so unquestionably ugly that it cannot be pooh-poohed or explained away by greedsters and scammers posing as “experts” on Internet forums.

Did we mention that Brian David Anderson, who pushed FEDI and whose name now is linked with the name of a man convicted of financing terrorism, was a Christian minister — and that he is in his 60s, and that he pitched FEDI in a hotel room and that he claimed repeatedly that it was “backed by gold?”

Make sure you get a copy of our PDF compilation of President Obama’s Executive Order establishing the Interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and remarks on the Task Force by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Read this story, and get the PDF near the bottom.

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5 Responses to “EDITORIAL: Gold Nugget Invest ‘Players’ Create Smokescreen For Failed HYIP; Defend Company On Ponzi Boards, Claiming United States Has No Jurisdiction”

  1. GNI’s announcement Friday:

    Dear Friends & Associates of GNI

    As we welcomed Year 2010, we (Principals, Staff and Associates) felt the need to reflect on the challenges GNI faced and were able to overcome; and what if anything, we could learn from having faced these challenges.

    These challenges were broad in scope – which included catastrophic script failure(s) to potentially catastrophic hackers; from being flush with cash when we shouldn’t have been and devoid of funds when we should have (had ample amounts). Despite these hardships, and in contravention to those who wish nothing but our demise, never did we consider abandoning our friends and associates without whom we never would have experienced, learned and grew with the project uniquely known as GNI.

    The last quarter of 2009, however, placed significant obstacles in our pursuit of success, each having the capability of wiping out any well-managed program, anywhere!

    During the Christmas / New Year Holiday, needing a crystal clear vision of our financial vortex, I met with Jurgen and others to obtain their trading reports and declare our Profit / Loss position to the Principals of GNI. With Arthur leading the way, we were able to evaluate with no uncertainty, our financial, technical and situational oversight in preparation for year 2010.

    Specifically, we looked at:

    1. Yesilada Bank. That entity having the most significant impact is / was the freezing of assets by the German Authorities, of Yesilada’s Correspondent Bank. This particular frozen account contains all of Yesilada’s client’s foreign exchange funds. There are dozens of legitimate clients, along with GNI, whose lives have been put on hold pending the resolution of an investigation which has NOTHING to do with GNI. It’s a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong. time.

    Twenty-three weeks without the availability of OUR (and some of our best clients) funds, while continuing to honor our obligation of paying interest on those funds becomes a loss ranging from 10% – 12.5% a week. We arrive at those numbers simply by adding the percentage we could have received (which fluctuates based on the traders success) had they not been frozen, with that percentage we would have otherwise not had to pay out; over a twenty-three (23) week period. If we released the actual dollar amount that is involved, the numbers become staggering if not overwhelming.

    As significant as this amount became, it was a manageable scenario using reserves and our favorable Forex positions. In defiance of all economic logic, the dollar began and continues to this day to gather strength against the Euro; weakening our positions considerably.

    2. New Competition. About the same time (late September, early October) several well-managed, aggressive and unique Sports Arbitrage programs came on-line decreasing our market share, not in terms of investment dollars, more so for viable arbs.

    Arbs which were earning consistent 4% – 8% returns during 2008 – 2009, our traders were now earning between 1.75% – 5.50%.

    Our competition has taken advantage of technology and formed marketing partnerships which allow for clients to engage in arbitration activities without having to obtain accounts and relationships with bookies that has taken us years to develop. We were caught unprepared, but weren’t discouraged.

    What this meant:

    For GNI to earn returns at the level of last year, demanded twice the amount (proportionate) of capital funds. Whether this is a one-time phenomenon or a new state of affairs in the world of Sports Arbitrage, we cannot say. We hope its the former!!!

    2(a) Untimely Customer Requests for Payout of Principal. This, the first full year availing GNI to the world at-large, the percentage of client- requests for principals quadrupled (in proportional comparison to our last 3 years. I have my suspicions why, but cannot back this with any empirical data. It hurt us by forcing us out of arbs (becomes a complete loss on both ends) and missed many good ones during Christmas and the New Year celebration, largely in the US.

    3. Fraud / Hacking Activities. Further compounding matters are the uninvited guests who pleasure themselves by hacking into client computers, then invade the GNI script. They have had some limited success redirecting Liberty Reserve deposits and to a much lesser extent, Strict Pay deposits causing untold amounts of additional work and further depletion of assets. Has this intruder caused us harm? Yes. Have we eliminated the threat? We hope so, but we’re not entirely sure. What we do know, our customers are NOT taking the requisite steps to keep their computers free from hackers. How many of you use a US Social Security number for your password; or some other parenthetically easy conflagration any experienced hacker can guess. All told, this has cost us, in real dollars, well into the six figures and has contributed SIGNIFICANTLY towards our “situation.”

    4. Referral Program Abuse. When developing the business model to run and grow this project, included was a percentage to reward those who introduced GNI to prospective members (The Referral Plan). The abuse and fraud perpetrated by members who have become wealthy resulting from their participation in this program, at the expense of non-abusing members, the Principals and staff. who played by the rules, is disturbing!! The outlay of funds for payment of ill-gotten commissions is sufficient to end any well-meaning program!!

    A very typical scenario relates to some customers we have who reside in the Eastern part of Europe. These clients held deposits of $100,000 (there were three participants). They staggered their deposits in a way that was clandestine avoiding detection by us. Every 7-10 days an amount between 21k and 35k was being deposited by one of the participants while a similar amount was being withdrawn. After absorbing fees and paying the undeserved commission, this amounted to well over $5000 per month.

    Todd has gone through many GNI accounts. He estimates that somewhere between 45% and 60% of all active GNI accounts have received unearned commission (money that should not have been paid). There is no possible way to reverse these at this point. Unfortunately, the entire GNI membership will have to pay this in the form of a restructured program.

    There is no justifiable excuse we can make other than we failed to implement adequate oversight.
    ————————————————————————————————————————————

    We have determined we have but two options: Restructure the organization or liquidate and close up shop!

    Option I – Restructuring of the project (GNI) – The following depicts the highlite’s of the “New GNI” as we currently envision. The changes are drastic, but still provide for customer’s to make profits that dwarf any conventional investment program. Further, it is subject to change as new facts, information and level of capital is made available. It’s nothing that any of us take pleasure in implementing, but it is what is necessary to regain our viability and operational capacity in the next decade. With that being said, I give to you the “New GNI” program.

    Highlights of the “New GNI” Payment Plans

    Much thought was put into the type of plan(s) we could offer. If our membership subscribes to the notion this new “monthly” plan was created having both the customer as well as the program in mind, remaining as revenue neutral as possible while recognizing the returns fall well short of what were able to offer previously. Nevertheless – we want to first introduce the new and now replaced Weekly Fixed Plan with the GNI Monthly plan as follows:

    1 (A) The GNI Monthly Plan, has a target subscriber base of those wishing to invest $50 – $20,000. The rate of return will be 16% per month for 14 months. Those of you GNI clients who were in the Weekly Plan will have been rolled over into the Monthly plan.

    1(B) The new rate of return will be 20% per month for the Premium Plan which will become effective immediately and will be paid at the above specified rate for 14 months. There will no longer be a cap on level of deposits unless specifically mentioned to you by Todd or myself.

    2. Each deposit with have a life-span of 14 months. THE MONTHLY INTEREST PAYMENT INCLUDES THE RETURN OF YOUR PRINCIPAL.

    Comment: A common question that has arisen – If the funds are in trade and earning GNI reasonable returns why would GNI need to keep the Investment Principal? The answer to this question is a complex one. Having an established end to the life-cycle of the the investment term, we will have established strong, internal management controls over the flow of currency, something we do NOT have at this point.

    (Please Keep in mind, this is a “RECOVERY PLAN,” not an operational plan. It can be modified one way or another to ensure the health and longevity of the plan as a whole. Despite the drastic steps we are taking, we are still paying interest at the 150% level (interest). We cannot find any mainstream investment paying anywhere close to this.

    3. Consistent with the above, there is no longer a “lock-in” period as all investment cycles are 14 months. No early withdrawals (of principal) are permitted, no exceptions.

    4. Outstanding withdrawal requests:

    Currently, there is a large number of outstanding withdrawal requests that have not been processed. We know all of you, despite our incessant admonitions that GNI was to be a SECOND INCOME, NEVER wanting or asking to be anyone’s primary source of income and encouraging EVERYONE to withdrawal from their accounts on a regular basis, have dire needs for those funds NOW.

    There are / were two viable options and two only. The first option (A) is / was as follows:

    (A) Those members having outstanding withdrawals may elect to keep them outstanding; and will be the first to receive interest payments when they resume in March. There will not be earnings or interest paid on those pending withdrawals;

    On the other hand, those of you who elect to re-deposit those currently pending withdrawal requests,will earn interest starting at the time of re-deposit.

    The second option allows for the least disruption and reduced impact on the customer base.

    (B) Specifically, it permits the redressing of the withdrawal function starting on Feb. 01, instead of the inflated down time which would not have seen the first withdrawal until the following month, March 01, 2010.
    * All pending withdrawals will be cancelled effective January 15th; reverted back to Customer’s wallet then deposited (automatically) into either the Monthly or the Premium plan.

    * No amount of funds exceeding $49.99 in any one currency will be permitted to remain in either client’s wallet or cash balance up to and until this first “cycle” of payments has been completed.

    * All requests for withdrawals must be made between the 1st and 7th of each month.

    * GNI will fund customer’s PP acc’t with the agreed to amount between the 8th and 28th of that same month.

    Note:

    We have been able to change (escalate) the unlocking of the withdrawal feature a full thirty days earlier than originally scheduled . This resulted as a consequence of those members who, either voluntarily or out of necessity, had their withdrawals delayed allowing us to place those funds into trade and essentially reducing the withdrawal “time-out” by a full month. I only wish all of you can appreciate those who were not able to withdrawal during the holidays and the tremendous step forward this enabled our recovery to make.

    6(a). New withdrawal requests will be received between the first (1st) and the seventh (7th) of each successive month beginning Feb. 01, 2010. The withdrawal requests received AFTER 11:59pm (server time) on the seventh of each will not be received and payment will not be made for that month.

    If the seventh of the month falls on a Saturday or Sunday and your request was timely, it will be honored.

    6. Payments will be made between the eighth (8th) and last business day of each month.

    7. One withdrawal request per Payment Processor (PP), per month. Minimum withdrawal amount for any one processor = $10.00. If you have deposits in four different processors, you would be entitled to request one withdrawal for each PP accordingly.

    8. Fees charged by the PP to transfer funds to GNI can no longer be absorbed by GNI. As an example: Customer sends 100.00 via Strictpay to GNI; GNI receives 98.00 (100.00 less 2.00 charged by SP for transfer, client will be credited 98.00)

    9. Referral Program. The referral program and the abuse thereof, will stop. Conversely, we cannot abandon our marketing partners nor those who legitimately introduced the program to OUTSIDERS. Those of you who referred to yourself or to those who already were familiar with the program, along with those of you who withdrew your funds only to re-deposit immediately after you received your payout, you may take credit for contributing to the need for us to restructure. There are times when we needed for our customers to act in a way that showed gratitude, not greed!

    Regretfully, the populace being what it is, couldn’t resist giving themselves an extra bonus. They did so at the expense of our most honest customers and to those, on behalf of the ones who engaged in Referral Program abuse, we sincerely apologize.

    That being said, the “New Referral Program” will work as follows:

    Up-lines will, in lieu of the five (5) % punch at the onset of an invested deposit, receive 5% of their downline’s interest payment for the life of the investment.

    For example. Customer makes a $1000.00 purchase into the Monthly plan. Referrer would NOT receive 50.00 as they otherwise would (at the onset). What they would receive is $8 per month for 14 months or 112.00. This is calculated as follows: ($1000 = customers invested principal)($160 = the monthly interest received by customer for one month)(.05 or 5% = the declared rate of return for referral commission)=8(14 = the number of months invested) // $112.00.

    The rate of commission would be slightly higher if your downline invests in the Premium Plan.

    Option II – Liquidation of the GNI Project.

    It is a fact, nobody wants to modify their program if it has shown the potential for success. Likewise, until a program is up and functional, there is no way to anticipate ALL of the needs, ALL of the problems or the true level of success or failure the program may potentially yield until you take that plunge or go forward. GNI was no exception. Never did we anticipate, nor could we have, the actions taken by the German Banking Administration to freeze Yesilada Bank’s assets and those of our best clients, all merely caught up in unrelated investigation of some fraudster on a different continent. Unfortunately life, being what it is, has twists and turns – some of which you can plan, others you cannot.

    For us to deny responsibility, as many, many others would, proclaiming “it’s not our fault” is failing to accept the responsibility for that which is yours.

    We chose Yesilada Bank to be our partners as they offered favorable rates, convenience, accessibility, wire transfer capabilities and other features we felt were important to the successful operations of GNI as well as to those customers who were compelled to utilize their services. We had secured personal assurances for the appropriate managers and service level administrators; with the end result being nothing more than what we are forced to face head-on.

    There is never a convenient time to implement the kind and scope of changes we are insisting you, our customers, we the administrators and certainly our employees, to have to take. (Employees of GNI will be taking a 25% REDUCTION in payments and salaries as their contribution towards the successful recovery of the program).

    Before going over the less attractive Option, please keep in mind the Terms of Service all of you who are participating in GNI, agreed to accept.

    Terms of Agreement

    Below are the terms of agreement and use for this site:

    …We reserve the right to change the commissions and rates of the program at any time and at our sole discretion without notice, especially in order to respect the integrity and security of our members’ interests. You agree that it is your sole responsibility to review the current terms…

    There’s a couple ways of liquidating GNI. If it goes through governmental regulators, the assets would be placed in receivership. A Court of Competent Jurisdiction would assign a Trustee, who would hire a team of lawyers, paralegals, accountants and bookkeepers, making anywhere between 100.00 – 700.00 per hour, all of which would come out of…..your (GNI Customer’s) funds. It would take between 2-5 years to complete and assuming you have not recv’d ANY funds in the form of a payment; could get between 5 & 10 cents for every dollar invested.

    The second option is to have Counsel retained by GNI to take the remaining assets and divide it amongst those of you who HAVE NOT received 100% of your invested dollars. It would be paid out on a pro-rata basis.

    Conclusion:

    While these are some trying times for everyone, we have devised and orchestrated a comprehensive plan we feel is workable. If circumstances change, we will modify the program accordingly.

    How many of our loyal customers will we lose to attrition? We shouldn’t loose any, but we will. We’ll also loose some “fear weather friends.”

    Because we don’t have a Crystal Ball, we can’t predict the future. What we do know is we’re honest, our team is honest and we want to succeed where others haven’t. With that, along with mentioning we are lifting all caps on investments. We have, per deposit, a total 14 month commitment with each of you (Hopefully much, much longer). We not only have the additional capacity, we need to rebuild our position as the leader in Global Sports Arbitrage World.

    We wish at this time to thank you for your support. We are confident this will be nothing more than a hiccup in the life of our program..

    Thank you,

    Robert, Jurgen and Team

  2. What’s really funny, is that the only people concerned about the demise of Golden Nugget Investments are relative “newbies” to the scene.

    Both the “playas” and “players” have long since moved on with nary a backward glance.

    To them, GNI is just “another” in a long line of HYIP ponzi “games” which have run their course.

    For them, “round one” of the GNI game has finished and anyone who intends sticking around for “round two” will get what they deserve, i.e. lose what remaining money they have.

    G.N.I. has been in the “closed programs and scam warnings” section/s of the HYIP ponzi forums for weeks, and this weekends’ events come as no surprise to those “in the know” who have been long gone (with their money) from this “game” for probably months.

  3. What can be done to prevent these scams from flourishing? I told people back in August of last year that GNI was a Ponzi. They argued the old “it’s paying, it must be legit” line. I also told them that the players like Ken Russo were long gone, and any money put in would be lost.

    All I heard was the chirp of crickets.

  4. I invested $10,000 with GNI and only made back $6,000. My parents on the other hand invested $50,000 and did not make a dime with GNI so in a since they were ripped off of all the money they invested. GNI smells like a Ponzi scam to me.

  5. Myself and several family members invested over 32,000 dollars in December 2009. We never got a dime back! The site is now gone. The site had been up and paying for 3 years. Problems started right at the momento we did our investment. A man by the name of Robert Spearman used to sign the NewsLetters. Does this man exist? Do you know how we can do anything concerning this problem?