On April 2, a video depicting President Obama as a fan of the MyAdvertisingPays “program” appeared on YouTube. An “Obama voice” was dubbed into the video, which also shows the Presidential Seal. Text below the video reads, “Mr. President speaks about the new advertising revolution.”
Depicting then-President George W. Bush as a fan of the AdSurfDaily MLM HYIP “program” backfired in spectacular fashion in 2008, drawing the attention of the U.S. Secret Service. Federal agents eventually seized more than $80 million in an asset-forfeiture case. ASD President Andy Bowdoin, accused of operating a cross-border Ponzi scheme, was indicted. He later pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
Bush left the White House in January 2009, after Barack Obama was elected President. By August 2010, according to the FTC, “medical discount” hucksters were trading on Obama’s image.
MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was charged with racketeering. Assets were seized. A conviction followed.
In 2013, with Obama now in his second term, he was depicted in a promo as a pitchman for a scheme known as Ultimate Power Profits. That “program” had promoters in common with Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in 2012 as a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars.
Against this backdrop, a YouTube video that appeared online today positioned Obama as a pitchman for MyAdvertisingPays, a Ponzi-board scheme like ASD, MPB Today, Ultimate Power Profits, Zeek and many others.
News about the 0:33 MAPS’ video titled “My Advertising Pays, Obama” first appeared on the RealScam.com antiscam forum.
2ND UPDATE 3:23 P.M. ET U.S.A. In another swipe at Herbalife and perhaps MLM recruiting schemes in general, activist investor Bill Ackman says he’s out to combat pyramid schemes by creating one himself.
Ackman’s apparent tongue-in-cheek approach adopts a typical “tell five” MLM marketing technique as part of a bid to create Internet virality for a video released last week that is designed to educate the public about pyramid schemes. The video is available in English and Spanish. It was produced by Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP.
“This video will help consumers avoid being defrauded,” Ackman said today in a news release issued through BusinessWire. “I encourage you to send it to five friends and encourage them to send it to five friends who can send it to five friends and so on, and we can fight pyramids with our own pyramid.”
BusinessWire is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the Warren Buffett-led company that also owns Pampered Chef, an MLM company. Pershing Square previously has used BusinessWire to spread Ackman’s long-running contention that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that incentivizes recruits to gather more recruits.
Buffett’s name has been used in any number of promos for commission-based MLM or network-marketing schemes, even when the legendary investor has no ties to the “opportunity” being promoted. The disingenuous message has been that Buffett’s corporate interest in Pampered Chef means that all MLM schemes pass muster.
In 2011, Buffett’s image was hijacked by the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid scheme, a Ponzi-board “program” with possible ties to the “sovereign citizen” movement. Earlier, in 2010, Buffett’s image was appropriated by MPBToday, a “get two” MLM “program.”
As the PP Blog reported last week, Ackman’s video also channels an approach used by promoters of TelexFree, an alleged Ponzi/pyramid scam that may have gathered more than $1.2 billion in about two years of operation. The video also may provide a subtle reminder of Zeek Rewards, an MLM venture and alleged Ponzi/pyramid scheme that traded on images of the American Flag on its way to raising about $897 million in less than two years.
Ackman’s video also shows a representation of the American Flag, suggesting that franchise companies such as Burger King, H&R Block and Midas legitimately are part of the American Dream but that MLM schemes such as Herbalife may not be.
“Some of the start-your-own business offers you’ll see are legitimate opportunities,” according to the narration in the Ackman video. “But some are scams, designed to take advantage of you.”
Herbalife is not mentioned in the video, but one of the animated characters looks suspiciously like Herbalife CEO Michael O. Johnson.
The accompanying news release from Ackman does mention Herbalife, noting that “Funds managed by Pershing Square are short the stock of Herbalife Ltd and own put options on the Company. Pershing Square may increase, decrease, dispose of, or change the form of its investment in Herbalife for any or no reason, at any time.”
In 2013, MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun was sentenced to a term in Florida state prison on a racketeering charge. MPBToday operated a cycler in which it was claimed a $200 purchase could result in free groceries and gasoline for life.
Now, a promoter of “The Achieve Community” cycler has recorded a commercial at an ATM of an FDIC-insured bank in Hawaii. The 0:51 promo is posted on YouTube and is titled, “Proof that my Payoneer debit card from the Achieve Community works!”
Achieve appears to have lost its ability to gather money through Payoneer only days later, although it is unclear whether the ATM video played any role.
Some promoters have positioned Achieve as a retirement plan. Others have claimed payouts are guaranteed and that no one has to sell anything.
In the Achieve YouTube promo with a publication date of Oct. 16, 2014, a man walks up to an American Savings Bank “Money Express” machine apparently in Kauai, displays an ATM card, inserts it in the machine and presses some buttons. The machine then dispenses a $20 bill, which the man shows to the audience.
“It works,” he says smiling, and giving the audience a “thumbs up” sign. “All right. [Aloha.]”
Text below the video reads, “Just wanted to show everyone that ACHIEVE + PAYONEER equals a True Lifetime Income Plan!”
It is very early morning in Hawaii. American Savings Bank, an FDIC member as noted above, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Regulators have issued repeated warnings about Ponzi- and pyramid schemes spreading on social media and also about affinity fraud.
From the 2010 MPBToday MLM scam. Like Zeek Rewards, MPBToday traded in part on Walmart gift cards.
Ah, those serially disingenuous MLM hucksters and commission-based Ponzi pitchmen: They’ll ultimately destroy their own brands while picking millions of pockets. Before doing so, they’ll use your brand as a temporary means of sanitizing themselves, bring PR disasters to your legitimate company and perhaps even find an insidious way to turn the government into their banker.
Longtime PP Blog readers will recall the outrageous scam of MPBToday. MPBToday duped the MLM masses in part by planting the seed that Walmart gift cards or prepaid Visa cards would flow to members in unlimited supply if they sent $200 to the Florida-based “program” for a “one-time” purchase of “groceries” and if the members recruited two others who’d also recruit two others to do the same.
In addition to being a pyramid scheme that sent operator Gary Calhoun to prison in Florida on a racketeering charge, MPB Today could have been a scam that disguised “program” earnings as nontaxable “gifts” to dupe Uncle Sam.
It’s almost axiomatic in MLM Scam Land that an “opportunity” and/or its Stepfordian promoters will imply a tie to a major brick-and-mortar business or even the government, when no such ties exist or the ties are no more official than ties any consumer can enjoy — purchasing a gift card from a major retailer, having a bank account or renting a room at a major hotel chain, for instance. It happened at MPB Today in 2010, and it’s happening now within the Stepfordian wing of TelexFree — a wing in which promoters have suggested that TelexFree has been “authorized” or “approved” by the government.
It also happened both internally and externally at WCM777, now the subject of cross-border investigations in both North America and South America. In an apparent bid to sanitize the WCM777 scheme, alleged operator Ming Xu arranged to have himself photographed with celebrities such as former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Meanwhile, WCM777 promoters rushed to YouTube and other social-media sites to claim that WCM777 had ties to famous businesses such as Siemens and a host of hospitality companies with famous flags.
Such rank MLM disingenuousness also occurred within the $850 million Zeek Rewards scheme. In the PP Blog’s view, Zeek’s maximum expression of such deception occurred when it was auctioning sums of U.S. cash and telling successful bidders they’d get paid through offshore payment processors such as AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. By divining sums up for auction and accepting bids for U.S. currency, Zeek implied it had been approved by the U.S. government, perhaps specifically the Treasury Department.
And by sending the incongruous (and bizarre) message that the Treasury-approved Zeek MLM scheme would pay members via offshore processors linked to the equally outrageous AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by a Task Force consisting of the U.S. Secret Service and the Treasury Department (IRS) in 2008, Zeek served up another colossal mess for MLM.
Zeek, of course, followed the footsteps of MPBToday — whose operator lost his liberty after pushing all those Walmart cards out the door — by leeching off the names of major American retailers. In addition to auctioning cash, Zeek auctioned gift cards.
And this brings us to an interesting footnote in a quarterly report filed Jan. 30 by Kenneth D. Bell, the receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme case. Zeek operated through Rex Venture Group (RVG).
“Unlike other retailers the Receiver Team approached, Wal-Mart and Home Depot readily agreed to refund the full amount of their gift cards held by RVG at the time of shut-down,” Bell advised Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen. “The remaining gift cards were sold at auction, and their value is included in the gross receipts from the personal property portion of the Receivership auction.”
Walmart and Home Depot know a PR disaster when they see one. They ponied up quickly when the receiver asked them, thus making his job of gathering funds for Zeek victims a bit easier. Some other companies that perhaps have less PR savvy did not. The receiver auctioned their gift cards in public.
Bell’s examination of Zeek’s money flow continues, according to the Jan. 30 report. The report reveals that lawsuits against alleged insiders and winners had not been filed as of the 30th, but remain pending.
The receivership is “on the brink of filing,” Bell said.
Some Zeekers who choose to see instead of turning a blind eye perhaps can gain an understanding of just how dangerous the “program” was to the U.S. financial system — and not just the relatively small segment in which retailers that issue gift cards reside. Not only did Zeek create legal and PR dilemmas for itself, it created them for others, including gems of U.S. commerce and banking.
During 2013’s fourth quarter, attorneys for the receiver “sent demand letters to fifty-four (54) financial institutions seeking reimbursement for teller’s checks on which financial institutions were believed to have improperly stopped payment under Section 3-411 of the Uniform Commercial Code and in violation of the Freeze Order,” Bell advised the court.
“As of December 31, 2013, thirty-one (31) financial institutions had not responded to the Receiver’s demand(s) for payment of stopped payment cashier’s checks and bank money orders,” Bell continued. “Additionally, fifteen (15) issuers of teller’s checks had not responded to demand letters.”
Let’s hope these financial institutions develop the PR savvy of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Zeek not only was a train wreck unto itself, it set the stage to involve legitimate enterprises in its own bizarre drama. Company after company that conducted business with Zeek or whose customers did so has had to lawyer up or at least rely on in-house counsel to determine how much exposure the “program” brought to legitimate enterprises.
The Zeek story is far from being over and likely will reverberate for years in the financial community. Bell now says that he’s “discovered additional RVG financial accounts during the fourth quarter.”
Zeek money, according to the report, circulated onshore and offshore.
“All transactional information received from financial institutions through the end of the fourth quarter has been included in the creation of the financial books and records,” Bell advised the court. “However, communications with financial institutions are ongoing, and there are outstanding requests by the Receiver for transactional information.”
When will other shoes drop?
“The Receiver Team continued its investigation into potential claims against RVG insiders and third-party advisers as a part of its ongoing fact investigation, continuing its analysis of documentary evidence that will be used in proving such claims,” Bell advised the court. “The Receiver Team also responded to requests for assistance and information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that aided the government in obtaining plea agreements from both Dawn Wright-Olivares and Daniel Olivares.”
Wright Olivares, Zeek’s former COO, was charged criminally and civilly in December 2012 2013 (Feb. 5, 2014 edit). Olivares, her stepson, also was charged criminally and civilly. They are expected to appear in court this week to enter formal guilty pleas to criminal conduct.
Federal prosecutors say tax fraud occurred at Zeek.
Here, we’ll point you to an unrelated story by Jordan Maglich at PonziTracker.com. The story is about an alleged pitchman for Ponzi schemer Nicholas Cosmo, now serving 25 years in federal prison for his epic Agape World fraud. (Quick side note: Agape World was a purported “bridge lender,” similar in some ways to the outrageous “Profitable Sunrise” MLM fraud scheme broken up by the SEC last year.) The PonziTracker story on Agape World developments is titled, “Ponzi Associate Jailed For ‘Mind-Boggling’ Money Laundering Scheme.”
The story explains why alleged Cosmo pitchman Anthony Ciccone now is in jail. A snippet from the story:
According to prosecutors, Ciccone overpaid approximately $1.7 million in federal and state income taxes beginning in 2008 that was comprised of Ponzi scheme proceeds. Several years later, the funds were returned to Ciccone in the form of tax refunds, and Ciccone subsequently had his wife and mother-in-law launder the refund money through their bank accounts.
We wonder: Could some of the Zeekers effectively have been doing the same thing — deliberately overpaying taxes and using the government as a de facto bank that temporarily would conceal and warehouse Ponzi proceeds for return later in the form of tax refunds?
And for the 2011 tax year, according to the charging documents, “P.B.,” Wright-Olivares and others reported to the IRS that Zeek investors had received more than $108 million from the scheme when Zeek had paid out only about $13 million.
This caused Zeek victims to file “false tax returns with the IRS reporting phantom income that they never actually received,” according to the charging documents.
Zeek used the “false tax notices to perpetuate the Ponzi scheme,” according to the charging document.
UPDATED 9:26 A.M. EDT (SEPT. 10, U.S.A.): How bizarre will MLM get? Well, there may be no ceiling: A 2:47 video animation playing on YouTube depicts U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as a recent enrollee in the CashCropCycler HYIP “program” who confesses to President Obama that he’s “[j]ust out bumbling around and sticking my foot in my mouth.”
The video has a publication date of July 17 and appears to be a bid by an affiliate of the Empower Network MLM “program” to target traffic meant for CashCropCycler and refocus it toward Empower Network. “President Obama” appears to speak with a British accent in the promo, which also features a jab against Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
At approximately the 0:48 mark, after “Biden” informs “Obama” that he’s just joined CashCropCycler, “Obama” seems to say this: “Bernanke started that one, didn’t he?”
Some MLMers appear to believe that raising conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve is helpful to MLM HYIP “programs.”
A URL below the video at the YouTube site goes to a page at JoinVicNow.com that displays a photo of an oversized “Commissions Earned” check from Empower Network for $464,913. The check appears to be dated September 2012. It is made out in the names of “David Wood & David Sharpe” and is presented by an individual wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
Source: Sceen shot at JoinVicNow.com
CashCropCycler, a “program” promoted on the Ponzi boards, appears to have gone missing in recent days. NEOMutual, a purported “crowdfunding” company promoted alongside CashCropCycler on the Ponzi boards, also appears to have gone missing. Both “programs” planted the seed that extraordinary profits would come to enrollees.
The Guy Fawkes mask sometimes is known as the “V for Vendetta” mask, which sometimes is used by members of “Anonymous,” the so-called hacktivist group associated with DDoS attacks on government and commercial sites.
Here, in part, is how WikiPedia describes the mask and Guy Fawkes (italics added):
The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylised depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. The use of a mask on an effigy has long roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.
Why an individual is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask in the photo depicting the Empower Network check is unclear. The company, however, has described itself as “bad ass.” (Also see July 19 report on BehindMLM.com.)
Trading on the name of the President and Vice President of the United States was one of the things that led to the downfall of the AdSurfDaily MLM “program” in 2008. (The President at the time was George W. Bush; Dick Cheney was the Vice President.)
After Obama replaced Bush in the White House, an affiliate of an MLM “program” known as MPB Today depicted Obama in a 2010 promo as a left-handed saluting Nazi subordinate to then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was depicted as a whining drunk who’d knocked out First Lady Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. In 2012, MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun was charged in Florida with racketeering. A federal forfeiture complaint that targeted the headquarters building used by MPB Today specified the crimes of access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.
Calhoun was sentenced to a three-year prison term last month. MPB Today MLM affiliates claimed a one-time purchase of $200 from the firm could result in free groceries and gasoline for life. Claims were made by affiliates that the U.S. government or Walmart or both had backed the MLM “program.”
In January 2013, an online promotion turned Obama into a pitchman for a Ponzi-board “program” known as UltimatePowerProfits.
Some members of the TelexFree “program” now appear to believe there is MLM hay to be made while trading on the name of Democratic politician Anthony Weiner. TelexFree is under investigation in multiple states in Brazil, amid allegations its is conducting a massive pyramid scheme. Even though there have been reports in Brazil about death threats against a judge and a prosecutor, some U.S. affiliates continue to promote the purported “opportunity.”
One promo for TelexFree claims a payment of $15,125 to the MLM firm will produce a profit of more than $42,000 in a year. The “Aunt Ethels” of the world — older people with money — will become keen on TelexFree, according to the promo.
Gary Calhoun’s July 30, 2013, booking photo: Source: Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
UPDATED 5:52 P.M. EDT (JULY 31, U.S.A.) Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM program who was charged in December with racketeering under Florida state law, is listed as a prisoner at the Escambia County Jail.
Today was Calhoun’s sentencing date. The length of his sentence was not immediately clear. [July 31 UPDATE: Court docket updated July 31 to reflect three-year sentence in state prison, followed by 10 years’ probation. This note appears on the docket:
“DURING PROBATION THE DEFT. MUST OBTAIN PRIOR APPROVAL FROM HIS PROBATION OFFICER BEFORE ACCEPTING ANY EMPLOYMENT OR STARTING, PURCHASING OR IN ANY OTHER MANNER ASSOCIATING WITH A BUSINESS. THE PURPOSE OF THIS REQUIREMENT IS TO ENSURE THAT DEFT. DOES NOT IN ANY WAY ASSOCIATE HIMSELF WITH A MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING BUSINESS THAT COULD BE CONVERTED INTO A PYRAMID SCHEME OR OTHER ENTITY USED FOR ILLEGITIMATE PURPOSES.”]
Calhoun is 57.
One year ago tomorrow, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida filed a forfeiture complaint against certain property linked to MPB Today and a companion grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery in Pensacola. The complaint, according to records, was brought to enforce laws against access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.
MPB Today had a presence on the Ponzi boards and was one of the stranger MLMs in recent years, with promoters claiming a one-time purchase of $200 could result in free groceries and gasoline for life. Some promoters claimed the “program” was backed by the U.S. government. Others claimed MPB Today was backed by Walmart. At least one promoter bizarrely tried to sell the “program” by positioning President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former member of Walmart’s board of directors, as Nazis.
Despite claims that MPB Today was partnered with Walmart, another promotion read as such: If you “hate Walmart and have written a 603 page manifesto on how Walmart is trying to take over the world and steal your soul,” you should “stop making that pipe bomb and read how you can avoid Walmart and still make bank” with MPB Today, according to the pitch.
Some MPB Today affiliates licensed themselves to videotape commercials for MPB Today inside Walmart stores.
In April, a Florida judge ordered Calhoun “TO HAVE NO CONTACT OR RECEIVE ANY INCOME FROM ANY MLM,” according to the docket of the case.
In 2006, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Calhoun was associated with an entity known as Trim International (MyTrim.com) and illegally marketing a product known as “TCR Cell Rejuvenator.” The agency said the product was unlawfully positioned as a treatment for “Neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, axonal and other neuropathies, Down’s and other syndromes.”
TCR Cell Rejuvenator also was positioned as a treatment for “recurrent Herpes, common cold and flu,” amid MyTrim claims it could be used “to treat patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and other infectious diseases and neurological disorders,” according to the FDA.
Meta tags on the site also referenced “prostate cancer,” the FDA said.
HourlyRevShare, another in a long list of incongruous HYIP Ponzi-board “programs” pushed by serial huckster “Ken Russo” (also known as “DRdave”), reportedly has collapsed after taking a second bite of the Ponzi apple (purportedly as HRS II) after the original iteration collapsed. Other recent “programs” pushed by “Ken Russo” include Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise, both of which cratered after regulatory actions in the United States.
“Ken Russo” also pushed Felmina Alliance, which became the subject of an Investor Alert in Canada; AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme that put operator Andy Bowdoin in federal prison in Florida; MPB Today, a scheme that led to racketeering charges being filed in Florida against operator Gary Calhoun; Club Asteria, a scheme that falsely planted the seeds it was endorsed by actor Will Smith and the American Red Cross while also trading on the name of slain human-rights champion Mahatma Gandhi; a scheme known as Gold Nugget Invest that cratered in at least two forms; JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a multiple-name scheme purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that promised a return of 730 percent a year and has encountered regulatory actions in Italy and the Philippines; knockoff scams known variously as JSSTripler 2 and Compound 150 purportedly operated by “Dave” between purported bouts with Dengue Fever; and Wealth4AllTeam, a “program” that experienced business halts and relaunches with new names, at one time claiming it was impervious to U.S. regulators at the state and federal level while incongruously claiming disputes would be settled under California law.
Among other things, the lead pitchman for HourlyRevShare on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum claimed that the “program” offered “Daily guaranteed Payouts.” The promoter also claimed (italics added):
“Earn 4.5% to 6.5% daily for 20 days.”
“Earn 135% to 195% on your shares.”
“Earn 0.18 to 0.29 every hour.”
On April 9, 2013, less than a month after the Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme collapsed amid SEC allegations a ghost might have been at the wheel, Ken Russo (as “DRdave”) claimed on TalkGold that he’d just received a payment of $4,850 from HourlyRevShare, which was using a Gmail email address. Critics of HourlyRevShare claim the “program” is linked to individuals known as Analie or Anelie Steinway and Dr. Leiven Van Neste.
Whether these individuals actually exist remains an open question.
“Ken Russo” also has been leading cheers for a “program” known as NEOMutual, yet-another Ponzi-board darling. NEOMutual is being pushed alongside a “program” bizarrely known as “CashCropCycler.”
Felmina Alliance, another in a long line of HYIP “programs” pushed on the Ponzi boards by serial huckster “Ken Russo,” appears to be DOA. “Ken Russo” also is known as “DRdave.” His record in promoting scams, pooh-poohing or ignoring regulatory actions and engaging in willful blindness may be unparalleled.
Regulators in the United States and Canada issued an Investor Alert against Felmina Alliance earlier this year.
The server for Felmina Alliance now has been throwing an error message for days. Other recent “Russo” disasters include NewGNI, an apparent knockoff scam of an earlier scam known simply as GNI (Gold Nugget Invest), Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise. On the TalkGold Ponzi forum as “DRdave,” “Ken Russo” was promoting Zeek and NewGNI simultaneously.
NewGNI appears to have collapsed in February.
Previous “Ken Russo” scams include AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme; Club Asteria, a venture that traded on the name of the World Bank and listed a serial-cash gifter and former ASD Ponzi promoter as one of its managers; and MPB Today, a “program” that claimed a one-time purchase of $200 in groceries could lead to free food and gasoline for life.
MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun is awaiting sentencing in Florida on a racketeering charge. ASD operator Andy Bowdoin is serving a federal prison sentence for wire fraud after being sued for racketeering by some of his own members. Club Asteria, which falsely planted the seeds it was endorsed by actor Will Smith and the American Red Cross, suspended interest payments long ago. Club Asteria also traded on the name of slain human-rights champion Mahatma Gandhi.
Club Asteria misspelled Gandhi’s name in promos.
“Ken Russo” dubbed Zeek an “AMAZING PROGRAM” in May 2012. Three months later the SEC dubbed it a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud. The original GNI collapsed in 2010 into a sea of incongruity, amid reports the operators were seeking a “crystal clear vision of our financial vortex.”
In April 2013, the SEC said ProfitableSunrise was conducting an international fraud scheme and may have gathered tens of millions of dollars through a mail drop and a series of offshore accounts.
Records strongly suggest that Felmina Alliance was using an address of 50 Street, Global Plaza Tower, 19th Floor, Suite H, Panama City, Panama. That address also shows up in court filings by the SEC in the Profitable Sunrise action.
Gary Calhoun, the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program,” has joined AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin as a member of a dubious club: A Florida judge has ordered Calhoun not to get arrested on new charges and to stay away from MLM while he awaits sentencing in a racketeering case brought by Florida authorities last year.
Here is a note on the docket of Circuit Judge Jan Shackelford reflecting the ban: “DEFENDANT TO HAVE NO CONTACT OR RECEIVE ANY INCOME FROM ANY MLM.” Calhoun, according to the docket, will be permitted to pursue any “legal means” to support his family.
Bowdoin was banned from MLM last year while he awaited sentencing in the $119 million ASD Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. Prosecutors said Bowdoin pushed a scam known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) even after the government seized more than $80 million in ASD-related bank accounts. After the collapse of AVG in 2009, Bowdoin, 78, pushed a pyramid scheme known as OneX, according to court filings. He later was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.
Calhoun, 56, will be sentenced July 30, according to the case docket, which notes a plea agreement. He was arrested on the racketeering charge in December 2012 and has been free on bond since then. In July 2012, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Florida filed a forfeiture complaint for MPB Today’s headquarters building in Pensacola. The affidavit in the forfeiture case was filed under seal. But the forfeiture case, according to prosecution filings, was brought to enforce 18 USC § 1028 and 18 USC § 1029, statutes dealing with access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents.
MPB Today operated an MLM married to a grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery. Among the claims was that a one-time purchase of $200 in groceries could lead to free groceries and gasoline for life. Some promoters claimed the U.S. government and Walmart had endorsed MPB Today. Others encouraged prospects to sell $200 worth of Food Stamps to raise the money needed to join the “program.”
Supporters of the “program” defended it on the PP Blog by calling critics “roaches,” “IDIOTS,” “clowns,” “terrible” people, “misleading” people, people who have led a “sheltered life,” people who have been “chained up in a basement,” people who have “chips” on their shoulders, spewers of “hot air,” “naysayers,” “complainers,” “trouble maker[s]” and “crybabies.”
MPB Today later vanished — but not before a promoter described President Obama as a Nazi and and his family as aspiring to eat dog food. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was depicted as a bawling drunk. First Lady Michelle Obama was depicted as having experienced an embarrassing gas attack in the Oval Office after having sampled “beans” at a Sam’s Club Store.
From an ad designed to attract prospects for the MPB Today “program.”
All of it — and more — was designed to attract business to the MLM firm, which apparently has followed ASD into the darkness.
News of Calhoun’s sentencing date was received during a week in which MLM was experiencing one PR disaster after another. WTOL, a TV station in Toledo, Ohio, carried a report on the alleged Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme. The SEC said earlier this month that the purported “opportunity” may have gathered tens of millions of dollars and that promoters may not have known for whom they were working.
Profitable Sunrise was targeted at Christians, according to regulatory actions. Among its absurd offerings was the purported “Long Haul” plan that promised to pay 2.7 percent a day with the payout due April 1 — April Fool’s Day. Promoters called it the “Easter Gift” because Easter occurred on March 31. The payouts, however, never materialized.
The story details spam received by Wonkette, apparently from a promoter of a scheme known as “Rocket Ca$h Cycler.”
The subject line of the pitch, according to Wonkette, was this: “The Wealth Transfer is here!! Florida Pastor & Church break through financially!”
When MPB Today was operational, it ran a matrix cycler. One particularly bizzare pitch for the “program” in 2010 claimed this: If you “hate Walmart and have written a 603 page manifesto on how Walmart is trying to take over the world and steal your soul,” you should “stop making that pipe bomb and read how you can avoid Walmart and still make bank.”
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (UPDATED 1:06 P.M. ET U.S.A.) Gary Calhoun, the operator of the the MPB Today MLM “program” and a companion grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery, has pleaded guilty to a state-level racketeering charge in Florida. He was charged in December.
Calhoun, 56, of Pensacola, was not immediately sentenced. But he is expected to turn in his passport to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement “within 48 hours,” according to the docket of the case in Escambia County. The docket also notes correspondence from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida and references a “voluntary forfeiture agreement.”
In July, federal prosecutors filed a forfeiture complaint for a property at 8812 Grow Drive, also known as Grow Road, in Pensacola. The property is the business address of Southeastern Delivery and also the address of a Calhoun-controlled entity known as WL Property Holdings LLC. The property also is the address of MPB Today.
MPB Today was among a number of “programs” pitched on Ponzi-scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
The Calhoun guilty plea represents the second time in 24 hours that the name of a “program” operator whose “opportunity” was pitched on the Ponzi boards has surfaced in the news, either as a current prison inmate or potential one.
David Merrick, the operator of the Trader’s International Return Network (TIRN) fraud scheme that was promoted from the Ponzi boards in 2008 and 2009, was sentenced in 2012 to 97 months in federal prison and was handed additional civil sanctions and a restitution order yesterday totaling more than $22.8 million.
MPB Today was promoted on the Ponzi boards in 2010.
Some individual MPB Today promotions were bizarre, including one that cast President Obama and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as Nazis. Another MPB Today promoter videotaped himself making a deposit of his MPB Today commissions at an FDIC-insured bank. At least one of MPB Today’s banks was operating under an FDIC consent agreement.
Still other MPB Today affiliates taped commercials for the enterprise inside Walmart stores. Some promoters asserted Walmart was affiliated with MPB Today and approved by the government. One MPB Today affiliate videotaped a UPS driver making a delivery of a television set.
The video’s narrator said the TV has been purchased “kind of, indirectly” with a Walmart gift card from MPB Today. Other MPB Today affiliates claimed a one-time purchase of $200 in groceries from Southeastern Delivery set the stage for MPB Today affiliates to receive free groceries and gasoline for life.
Clinton once sat on Walmart’s board of directors. Why some MPB Today affiliates apparently believed it prudent to attack Democratic politicians in a bid to sign up MPB Today affiliates remains unclear.
Promos for MPB Today were targeted at foreclosure subjects, Food Stamp recipients and the poor — and victims of the Florida-based AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme. In 2010, Walmart declined to comment on MPB Today-related claims.
Some MLM “opportunities” are infamous for implying in promos that they’re endorsed by famous business people or famous companies. MPB Today used images of Donald Trump and Warren Buffett in promos, and affiliates regularly implied that Walmart had endorsed MPB Today.
UPDATE: A hearing for Gary Calhoun set for yesterday in Florida’s Escambia County Circuit Court on a state-level racketeering charge has been rescheduled for Feb. 4, according to the docket of the case.
Calhoun, 56, of Pensacola, was arrested last month on the racketeering charge. He is the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program” and a companion grocery-delivery business known as Southeastern Delivery. MPB Today’s website has been offline for weeks.
In July, federal prosecutors filed a forfeiture complaint for a property at 8812 Grow Drive, also known as Grow Road, in Pensacola. The property is the business address of Southeastern Delivery and also the address of a Calhoun-controlled entity known as WL Property Holdings LLC. The property also is the address of MPB Today.
The affidavit in the federal forfeiture case was filed under seal. But the forfeiture case, according to prosecution filings, was brought to enforce 18 USC § 1028 and 18 USC § 1029, statutes dealing with access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents. The complaint also references the federal wire-fraud and conspiracy statutes.
