Sann Rodrigues Released On ‘Conditions’

Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for TelexFree.

Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for TelexFree.

TelexFree and IFreeX promoter Sann Rodrigues has been released on “conditions,” including “the surrender of his passport and the passports belonging to his family members, a $200,000 secured bond, 24-hour electronic monitoring, and home confinement.”

A U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of New Jersey imposed the conditions on Rodrigues, according to a statement today by the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts. Here’s the headline of the release: “Pyramid Scheme Promoter Arrested on Visa Fraud Charges.”

The release does not mention IFreeX, whose website went offline yesterday and was the subject of a warning by the Massachusetts Securities Division last year. But the release does mention TelexFree, noting that Rodrigues was charged in 2014 by the SEC “for his role in promoting TelexFree, a pyramid scheme that purported to sell a voice over Internet service.”

At the same time, the release noted that Rodrigues had been charged by the SEC in 2006 with “owning and operating Universo Fone Club and defrauding investors of millions of dollars.” The SEC alleged that Universo Fone Club was a pyramid scheme.

Rodrigues, of Davenport, Fla., was arrested earlier this month at Newark International Airport on visa-fraud charges after returning from Israel, prosecutors said.

A citizen of Brazil, according to court filings, Rodrigues presented his U.S. “green card to Customs and Border Protection Officers on May 3, 2015, at Logan Airport [in Boston], knowing that he obtained that document based upon false statements to immigration officials,” prosecutors said.

TelexFree operated from Massachusetts. A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee has said TelexFree gathered on the order of $1.8 billion in about two years.

Read the full statement by prosecutors on the arrest of Rodrigues and his release on conditions.

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