DELAWARE: Woman Bilked In Investment Scam Later Bilked In ‘Investment Recovery Scam,’ AG Biden Says; Patrick A. Wiley Indicted On Racketeering, Securities-Fraud Charges

EDITOR’S NOTE: The indictment in Delaware against Patrick A. Wiley of Detroit illustrates the dangers of entrusting money to a person who claims he can help you recover money lost in a securities swindle. It also illustrates that a person who claims he can help you recover money lost to a securities swindle — and then strings you along — can be charged with serious crimes.

A Detroit man has been indicted for racketeering in Delaware amid allegations he swindled at least $276,000 from a woman in an “investment recovery scam,” prosecutors said.

Patrick A. Wiley, 42, also was charged with securities fraud, selling unregistered securities and theft, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said. The prosecution was brought by Biden’s Securities Unit.

All in all, the victim in the case lost more than $300,000, including $45,000 in the original swindle.

Wiley’s investment-recovery scam grew out of an earlier fraud scheme in which the victim was persuaded by another man to invest in a “joint trading venture” that purportedly involved “several wealthy persons in London, England” and would fetch a return of $10 million on an outlay of $50,000 in only months, Biden’s office said.

“With deep sympathies for her loss, we remind all Delawareans that any deal that sounds too good to be true, probably is,” Biden said.

The victim was recruited into the investment scheme in early 2005 by Darren Dobson, 45, of Charlotte, N.C., Biden’s office said. After a state probe, Dobson was indicted in Delaware earlier this year on charges of securities fraud, selling unregistered securities and transacting business as an unregistered agent.

Investigators said the victim sent $45,000 to a Tampa company known as VFG Management
LLC based on Dobson’s claim “that a $50,000 investment would yield a return of $10 million by June 2005.”

VFG Management was “the entity through which the London partners were supposedly operating the joint trading venture,” Biden’s office said.

When no returns materialized, the victim contacted Wiley based on her belief he had been an investor in the same scam, authorities said.

“Wiley claimed he had information regarding the principals involved and that he would pursue them to obtain the victim’s promised investment return,” Biden’s office said. “On numerous occasions between October 2005 and November 2007, Wiley solicited funds from the victim to defray the cost of his efforts, including trips that he was supposedly taking abroad for meetings with the London trading partners and their attorney. During that time period, the victim wired more than $276,000 to Wiley on sixty-one separate occasions. The victim never received the promised investment return or the investment principal.”

Biden described the alleged scam as a “con game.”

“We are particularly disturbed by crimes that use trust and confidence as a means to an
illegitimate end,” Biden said. “The victim in this case has lost over $300,000 in a con game.”

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7 Responses to “DELAWARE: Woman Bilked In Investment Scam Later Bilked In ‘Investment Recovery Scam,’ AG Biden Says; Patrick A. Wiley Indicted On Racketeering, Securities-Fraud Charges”

  1. Sounds just like another scam called the ASD Business Members Trust.

  2. Convicted Felon Bob Guenther? A cheap crook promising to help “victims” get their “investment” in a scam back?

    Hmmm, rings a bell….

  3. You both took the words out of my mouth. lol Just reading the title, I thought “Now why does that sound familiar?”

    Thanks to a bunch of people who were reeling after the raid on ASD, Bob Guenther raised enough money to cover the ASD losses of his own chums and, as we have never seen a detailed audited accounting, we have to use our imaginations as to what he actually did with their money.

    It is sad and sick that after nearly every con or scam, there is someone else waiting in the wings who tries to capitalize on the losses and suffering of the original victims

  4. It is sad and sick that after nearly every con or scam, there is someone else waiting in the wings who tries to capitalize on the losses and suffering of the original victims

    Hi alasycia,

    Sometimes the people waiting in the wings threaten reporters — and even prosecutors.

    Threats may be part of a scheme from beginning to end.

    In the ASD case, for example, Andy Bowdoin allegedly was going to take his legal war chest and sue reporters back to the Stone Age. Some ASD/Golden Panda members were going to sue a newspaper in Georgia for having the temerity actually to editorialize on the dangers of pyramid schemes.

    At least one ASD member — using the chant from the TV program “COPS” — suggested that ASD members who dared challenge Bowdoin would be made mincemeat by Bowdoin’s attorneys.

    This was after the seizure — but before the “COPS” guy started to pitch MegaLido, calling it a “fool proof” autosurf and declaring it a winner because it was “OFFSHORE!!!”

    http://patrickpretty.com/2009/09/19/cops-threats-laundry-baskets-militia-30-million-120-million-supreme-court-mysteries-claims-offshore-conversion-rates-and-exclamation-points/

    Now-convicted racketeer Scott Rothstein turned his ire on the Sun Sentinel, which was getting too close to the truth before the scheme was exposed:

    http://patrickpretty.com/2009/12/02/the-ponzi-chill-in-weeks-prior-to-exposure-of-1-2-billion-scheme-scott-rothstein-threatened-journalist-with-lawsuit-newspaper-says/

    Last year, AdViewGlobal threatened reporters before its collapse and AFTER Bowdoin was sued for racketeering:

    http://patrickpretty.com/2009/06/25/adviewglobal-surf-firm-suspends-member-cash-outs-threatens-media-with-copyright-infringement-lawsuits/

    The scammers also frequently threaten investors in a bid to chill them from filing complaints with authorities. Sometimes they try to draft them into agreeing to a loyalty oath. Shills race to the forums to make the preposterous argument that “members” have the duty not to contact law enforcement and not to file complaints with payment processors.

    Here’s the message, walking it back: Your duty is to the schemer and your commitment to let him rip you off.

    I’ve seen the bizarre argument made that it’s a member’s Christian duty not to report a scammer — not even when millions of dollars go missing.

    The arguments fall along the lines of, “You’ll ruin it for everybody” — which, of course, is a confession that shows consciousness of guilt.

    Although these schemes are destructive almost beyond comparison, they do provide a good laugh from time to time. Any Ponzi forum that has a “Scam” or “Possible Scam” section is laugh-out-loud funny because they’re all scams.

    A “test spend” is laugh-out-loud funny because it, too, shows consciousness of guilt. Many, many “players” know they’re feeding a Ponzi — and they want to get in and get out with their share of theft proceeds before the scheme collapses or gets taken down by law enforcement.

    One of the HYIP schemes favored by some ASD members — CashTanker — used a depiction of Jesus in its sales pitch.

    That one I find particularly worrisome. At one level, some people of the Christian faith did not seem to recognize or even to mind that a Holy figure had been reduced to the role of a hamburger salesman.

    At a more troubling level, though, CashTanker could have been a taunt designed to prove that Americans will fall for anything designed to trade on faith or, at a minimum, a test to probe the levels of gullibility.

    I can’t help but feel that CashTanker provided “intelligence” to a network whose only aim was to do harm to as many people as possible. Whether financial harm was the only intent is left to the imagination, which points out the universal and inescapable danger of the HYIP/autosurf “industry.”

    Patrick

  5. What is going on with a website called asdrecovery.com Is this a legitimate deal to recover some of my ASD inestment. Thanks

  6. […] 2010, the state of Delaware charged a Detroit man with racketeering for his alleged role in swindling a woman who’d earlier been ripped off in a securities […]