PatrickPretty.com

Day: May 9, 2012

  • AdSurfDaily Figure Christian Oesch Named Defendant In Lawsuit Filed By Fannie Mae; Utah Man Calls Himself ‘Fiction & Transmitting Utility’ In Response To Complaint

    From pleadings by Christian Oesch in a lawsuit filed against him in Utah by Fannie Mae. (Redaction/emphasis by PP Blog.)

    EDITOR’S NOTE: In July 2010, Christian Oesch of Utah, and Kenneth Wayne Leaming of Spanaway, Wash., sought to sue the United States — apparently for the staggering sum of more than $29 trillion — for its actions in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi forfeiture case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. The Secret Service described ASD as a “criminal enterprise” operated by Andy Bowdoin, a 77-year-old recidivist con man.

    ASD had gathered at least $110 million from tiny Quincy, Fla., by offering outsize investment returns of 1 percent a day, the Secret Service alleged. It has been known since the earliest months of the ASD case that the business had ties to so-called “sovereign citizens.”

    One of the calling cards of the “sovereign citizen movement” is what has been described as “paper terrorism”: an effort to clog the courts with baseless or vexatious litigation and legal pleadings designed to tie the hands of public servants and/or courtroom opponents

    Leaming, a 56-year-old purported “sovereign citizen,” was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force in November 2011 on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case. A superseding indictment was returned against Leaming earlier this year. He remains jailed at a federal detention facility near Seattle. A September trial date for Leaming has been set in federal court in Washington state, the venue from which he allegedly filed the false liens and committed other crimes such as harboring fugitives and possessing firearms as a convicted felon.

    Judge Christine Odell Cook Miller of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ultimately dismissed the lawsuit brought by Oesch and Leaming, saying in December 2010 that the “complaint deteriorates into rambling.” Earlier — in July 2009 — Oesch had sought to intervene in the ASD case and set aside the forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of Andy Bowdoin. Like Leaming, Bowdoin is scheduled to go on trial in September. Bowdoin’s trial will be conducted in the District of Columbia.

    Oesch, known to have business ties to Leaming, has not been accused of wrongdoing in the ASD case.

    U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia — later allegedly targeted by Leaming with false liens — denied standing to Oesch and numerous other pro se litigants in the ASD case.

    The ASD case has been marked by strangeness, including pro se court filings that accused Collyer of treason and operating a “Kangaroo Court.” Oesch accused Collyer of interfering with commerce, arguing that the judge and federal prosecutors also were guilty of “Anti-Trust Violations” and “Criminal RICO” violations.

    That same type of language now is being used by Oesch in his responses to a January 2012 lawsuit in Utah in which he was named a defendant by mortgage giant Fannie Mae . . .

    Using the same street address in Midvale, Utah, that appears in court filings in the civil-forfeiture portion of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, ASD figure Christian Oesch curiously declared himself a “Fiction & Transmitting Utility” in his response to a lawsuit in which he was named a defendant by the Federal National Mortgage Association, the PP Blog has learned.

    The U.S. mortgage giant commonly known as Fannie Mae initially sued Oesch, Becky Oesch, Michael A. King and two alleged “Doe” occupants of a home on South Wayside Drive in Sandy, Utah, in January 2012. The complaint was removed to federal court in Salt Lake City in February, but now has been kicked back to Utah state court, according to court dockets.

    Oesch, who once claimed that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer and other public officials involved in the ASD case were guilty of racketeering and antitrust violations, now has essentially accused Fannie Mae of the same thing.

    “Securitization is illegal under US legislation — primarily because it is fraudulent and causes specific violations of R.I.C.O., usury, Antitrust and bankruptcy laws,” Oesch argued.

    At issue in the case is a dispute over the ownership of the Sandy home. King was listed as the owner of the home in a September 2011 notice of trustee’s sale for the property. Fannie Mae said in court filings that it purchased the home at the September trustee’s sale and that “Defendants have failed to vacate and yield possession of the Subject Property” and hold it in “unlawful detainer.”

    Oesch went on to argue that “US authorities from the highest level downwards, financial institutions, intermediaries, Intelligence Power operatives and others are gearing up for what they doubtless hope will be intensified racketeering and trading activity with (corrupt) foreign counterparties.

    “This behavior is being fine-tuned ‘as we speak’ . . .” Oesch ventured.

    He went on to advance a conspiracy theory that involved the “US Treasury, the White House, the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency and its subsidiaries such as the lethal Office of Naval Intelligence . . .”

    ASD is not referenced in the Utah complaint against Oesch and the others. Filings suggest, however, that Oesch lived at one time in the Sandy house that is the center of the case. Fannie Mae is seeking treble damages for an alleged failure of the defendants to vacate the property when requested.

     

  • INTERPOL PRESIDENT: Transnational Criminals Working For ‘Common . . . Boss’ In Asia Gathered Billions; Suspects Caught At Airport In ‘Nick Of Time’; Cybercrime Costs In Europe Now Approaching $1 TRILLION A Year; U.S. Banks Lost $12 Billion To Cyber Criminals In 2011

    “[Eighty] per cent of crime committed online is now connected to organized gangs operating across borders. Criminal gangs now find that transnational and cybercrime are far more rewarding and profitable than other riskier forms of making money.” — INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui at 41st European Regional Conference held in Tel Aviv, citing study from London Metropolitan University, May 8, 2012

    INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui at the 41st European Regional Conference in Tel Aviv. Source: INTERPOL.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIPs, autosurfs, money-cyclers, and other “programs” are part of the cyber menace, which increasingly is being advanced by criminal gang members who reach across national borders and line their pockets with money stolen from their targets.

    In June 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described the amount of money being stolen online as “staggering.”

    The thefts, Holder said, have “the potential to threaten not only the security of our nation — but the integrity of our government, the stability of our economy, and the safety of our people.”

    In Tel Aviv yesterday, INTERPOL cited some truly alarming numbers . . .

    How big is the criminal menace becoming in the age of cross-border fraud on the Internet?

    In jaw-dropping remarks yesterday in Israel, INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui said Malaysian police last month arrested 137 “gang members” from China and Taiwan who were running an online gambling scam that had gathered the staggering sum of $1.3 billion in “profits.” (NOTE: This sum is quoted in U.S. dollars.)

    The scammers, Hui said, were part of a cross-border criminal syndicate that was operating from “six luxury homes equipped with call centres, computers and even training rooms in a gated community which was also home to a former prime minister.”

    If that weren’t enough, Malaysian police — just two days after taking down that scam — encountered another one that had resulted in criminal profits in the billions. The second scam again involved gang members from China and Taiwan. It resulted in 83 arrests, Hui said.

    “They cheated victims in China and Taiwan through online scams involving a range of modus operandi from impersonating the authorities to phoney credit card and bank charges,” Hui said. “They were on the verge of fleeing the country, having closed down their operational base and some had even made it to the airport where they were detained in the nick of time. They had been in Malaysia for just eight months when they were arrested.”

    Early information suggests that the fraud “originated from Macau and had operated from other countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand,” Hui said.

    The story of the arrests, however, appears to have an ending that could be described as unfinished. Indeed, Hui said he grew “perturbed” when he found out that the subjects of the arrests were deported because “thousands of victims were out of Malaysian Police jurisdiction.”

    “I was perturbed by this course of action and asked the Malaysian Police Chief for more details when I met him last Friday,” Hui said. “It turned out that though the two syndicates were unknown to each other, they were controlled by a common Taiwanese boss. This was why the second syndicate had been alerted to pack up. Fortunately, the Taiwanese Police, which as we all know is not an INTERPOL member, was able to fully cooperate with its Chinese and Malaysian counterparts and had alerted them of what was happening from its own close monitoring. The Malaysian Police chief was confident that the gang members would get their just dues back in their homeland.”

    In relating the story of scammers who allegedly stole billions of dollars while operating inside the borders of another nation, Hui said the incident highlights some of the problems law enforcement encounters in the age of the Internet.

    “This case illustrates how organized crime is now able to recruit members from countries without diplomatic ties to commit crimes overseas operating from temporary safe bases in third countries equipped with the latest technology,” Hui said. “It also shows that there are links between syndicates that operate scams and those which promote illegal betting and presumably match fixing using sophisticated MOs. In this case, exceptional international police cooperation within the region thwarted them.”

    And cybercrime hardly is limited to Asia, Hui said, noting that the menace and its economic costs come in more than one form.

    “Here in Israel alone, a reported number of over 1,000 cyber?attacks take place every minute,” Hui said. “Experts have estimated that the cost of cybercrime is larger than the combined costs of cocaine, marijuana and heroin trafficking. In Europe, the cost of cybercrime has apparently reached 750 billion Euros [US$971 billion] a year. Likewise, we have seen global financial institutions suffer from major cyber?attacks on their networks and servers with US banks purportedly losing $900 million to bank robbers but $12 billion to cyber criminals last year.”