Archive for April 2016

CKB168 CASE: 2 Promoters Plead Guilty To Criminal Counts; 3 Others Face Trial

CKB168 CASE: 2 Promoters Plead Guilty To Criminal Counts; 3 Others Face Trial

Two U.S.-based promoters of the noxious CKB168 cross-border pyramid scheme aimed at Chinese-Americans have pleaded guilty to wire-fraud, the office of U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker of the Central District of California said. The SEC sued Cheong Wha “Heywood” Chang, 48, and his wife, Toni Chen, 47, in 2013. Federal prosecutors later charged them criminally, […]

Payza Reports Web Outage

Payza Reports Web Outage

Payza, an HYIP-friendly payment processor currently under fire from the receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case, is reporting on Twitter that it is experiencing a web outage. At the time of this PP Blog post, the outage appears to be more than four hours old. A post with no timestamp at the Payza […]

SEC, Trustee, Defense Attorneys Mum On Possible Deeper Ties Between TelexFree And DFRF Schemes

SEC, Trustee, Defense Attorneys Mum On Possible Deeper Ties Between TelexFree And DFRF Schemes

The SEC declined Friday to say whether two individuals named prospective defendants in a massive class-action lawsuit brought by the Trustee in the 2014 TelexFree bankruptcy case were the same two persons charged with securities fraud last year by the agency in the DFRF Enterprises/Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case. On June 30, 2015, […]

Faith Sloan’s Alleged TelexFree Haul: $710,319

Faith Sloan's Alleged TelexFree Haul: $710,319

UPDATED 3:32 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Faith Sloan received $710,319 from the TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid scheme, according to filings by TelexFree bankruptcy Trustee Stephen B. Darr. Sloan, whose address was listed as Virginia Beach, Va., is a longtime Illinois HYIP huckster on Ponzi boards and social media. She and three other TelexFree promoters were charged in […]

Banners Broker Figure May Be Using ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Tactics On Canadian Court Officials

Banners Broker Figure May Be Using 'Sovereign Citizen' Tactics On Canadian Court Officials

Remember when Simon Stepsys — now with the cross-border MyAdvertisingPays scheme — was pushing the uber-bizarre Banners Broker cross-border scheme? New court filings in Canada by the receiver and liquidators in the Banners Broker case now estimate the total haul of the alleged double-your-money pyramid scam at more than $156 million. That’s up from an […]

MyAdvertisingPays Incorporated In Jurisdiction Mentioned Prominently In ‘Panama Papers’; Its Payment Vendor Lists Individuals Referenced In At Least 2 Spectacular Fraud Schemes

MyAdvertisingPays Incorporated In Jurisdiction Mentioned Prominently In 'Panama Papers'; Its Payment Vendor Lists Individuals Referenced In At Least 2 Spectacular Fraud Schemes

8TH UPDATE 11:53 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Before we get to the news that a federal judge took only a day to dismiss an April 6 libel lawsuit filed by the MyAdvertisingPays (MAPS) scheme and operator Michael E. Deese against the TaraTalks Blog, we’ll note that the 16-page complaint confirms that MAPS is incorporated in Anguilla. Anguilla is […]

‘Pay It Forward’ Gifting Scheme Leads To Felony Racketeering Charge, Sparks Child-Porn Probe In Michigan

'Pay It Forward' Gifting Scheme Leads To Felony Racketeering Charge, Sparks Child-Porn Probe In Michigan

As the PP Blog reported more than six years ago, Pay It Forward (PIF) “programs” have a noxious history in HYIP and cash-gifting Scamland. A new case in Michigan, however, may be off-the-charts in terms of noxiousness. That’s because investigators looking into a PIF scheme there found child pornography on the alleged PIF operator’s computer, […]

BRIEF: Get Prepared To File TelexFree Claims

Good news for potentially hundreds of thousands of people with TelexFree claims. TelexFree bankruptcy Trustee Stephen B. Darr informed Chief Judge Melvin S. Hoffman yesterday that testing could begin this month on the electronic proof of claim form (ePOC) and the online claims portal administered by BMC Group Inc. If all goes well, the “ePOC […]

Tax Problems Mount For TelexFree In Brazil, As Criminal Investigations Continue

Tax Problems Mount For TelexFree In Brazil, As Criminal Investigations Continue

It’s easy enough to forget that TelexFree and its principals have epic legal problems outside the United States, where the company has been found a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme and alleged operators James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler are under criminal indictment. History shows, however, that the problems began in the Brazilian state of Acre in […]

Second Guilty Plea From Purported JAG Lawyer Linked To SVM Global Initiative

Second Guilty Plea From Purported JAG Lawyer Linked To SVM Global Initiative

The docket of of New York’s Kings Supreme Court (Brooklyn) shows that Kenneth Goldstein has pleaded guilty to a charge of unlicensed practice of law and a charge of offering a false instrument for filing. Goldstein, a purported JAG lawyer and figure in the SVM Global Initiative story, earlier pleaded guilty to the same charges […]