SEC

An individual or group of individuals believed to be operating internationally created a website that mimicked the website of the U.S. Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC) “in an apparent attempt to target [Bernard] Madoff victims” in a fraud scheme, SIPC said.
SIPC and the SEC issued warnings immediately, as did the court-appointed receiver in the alleged [...]

UPDATED 2:25 P.M. ET (March 2, U.S.A.) The vice president and director of public relations for V-Newswire — a company in Steve Renner’s INetGlobal family — authored an opinion piece lambasting a Minnesota newspaper’s coverage of a Secret Service raid at INetGlobal’s Minneapolis offices last week on his personal Blog, but did not disclose his [...]

A Florida man implicated in a pump-and-dump scheme tied to a Ponzi- and affinity-fraud scheme has been convicted and faces decades in federal prison.
Michael J. Muzio, 46, of Tampa, was convicted on six counts of securities fraud, two counts of substantive wire fraud, two counts of lying to the SEC and the FBI and [...]

A Texas jury has thrown the book at Edward S. Digges Jr., sentencing the Collin County man to 99 years in prison for fleecing 130 investors in a securities-fraud and Ponzi scheme.
Digges, 63, formerly was an attorney in Annapolis, Md. He was disbarred in an overbilling scheme, convicted of mail fraud in 1990 and spent [...]

UPDATED 5:25 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) KINGZ Capital Management Corp. (KCM) might have been used or contemplated for use as a tool in two far-reaching, incredibly elaborate Ponzi schemes, according to an analysis of public records and other information.
One of the schemes ultimately appears to have consumed tens of millions of dollars in a squalid venture [...]

UPDATED 7:55 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A federal judge has ordered Trevor Cook jailed for not turning over assets in a Minnesota Ponzi scheme case brought by the SEC.
Chief U.S. District Judge Michael J. Davis found Cook in civil contempt of court. U.S. Marshals “escorted Cook from the courtroom to jail,” the SEC said.
“Mr. Cook has [...]

Critics of Gold Nugget Invest (GNI), the collapsed Internet HYIP, do not understand that the program that advertised a return of 7.5 percent a week was “real,” according to a member writing on an online Ponzi board.
Bickering about GNI only will lead to additional problems for the company, which is faithfully trying to reorganize, and [...]

Alleged Minnesota Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook may be hiding “millions” of Iraqi Dinars once stored on the third floor of the Van Dusen mansion in Minneapolis, according to the court-appointed receiver in the case against Cook and former Christian radio host Pat Kiley.
Cook also had a “vast” collection of expensive watches and “numerous” jeweled Faberge [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIP or autosurf promoter? Can’t say no to the commissions from recruiting people into scheme after scheme? Position yourself as an “expert” on Internet forums — even though you don’t have a clue about the motivations of the program owners and may not even know their names? Find yourself promoting programs that reference [...]

Player in a Ponzi scheme? If alleged Minnesota schemer Trevor Cook’s experience is any indication, you should expect to be placed under a microscope by local merchants and police if you’re named in a complaint by regulators.
Cub Foods, a Minnesota-based grocery chain, placed Cook under video surveillance when he entered a local store. A loss-prevention [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This list summarizes several programs pushed by members of AdSurfDaily, a Florida company implicated in an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme. In some cases, the programs were pushed prior to the seizure by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008 of 15 bank accounts linked to ASD or Golden Panda Ad Builder, one [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Conspiracy theories quickly became part of the AdSurfDaily story after federal agents seized tens of millions of dollars from the company in August 2008 amid Ponzi scheme allegations.
Yesterday reports surfaced that Gold Nugget Invest (GNI), a High Yield Income Program (HYIP) positioned as a betting arbitrage, had collapsed. GNI reportedly announced that it [...]

UPDATED 4:06 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A federal judge in the SEC and CFTC Ponzi scheme cases against Trevor Cook and Pat Kiley has paved the way for the receiver to begin selling property linked to the alleged $190 million scheme.
Among the first items up for bid will be 12 large-screen televisions, two slot machines and [...]

His case signaled that things were desperately out of control in the U.S. mortgage industry, and Wayne Puff was sentenced yesterday to 18 years in federal prison for swindling investors and banks in a massive mortgage and Ponzi scheme that operated between 1998 and 2005.
Although Puff had been disciplined by regulators in New Jersey (2002) [...]

After Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was exposed in December 2008, Beverly Hills hedge-fund manager Bradley L. Ruderman wrote a letter to clients assuring them them their money was safe and deploring Madoff’s “chicanery,” federal prosecutors in the Central District of California said.
“[S]uch disgraceful practices will never happen under my watch,” Ruderman declared in the letter.
Less [...]

A New Jersey woman who told members of the Unification Church that they could turn $3,000 into $6,000 in a year by investing in her real-estate business has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.
Marcia Sladich, 51, of Clifton, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in July, admitting to U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden [...]

UPDATED 5:12 P.M. ET (U.S.A. JAN. 12) So, you want to mislead your clients about your role in your business, rely on the assertions of your business colleague and not perform thorough due diligence and double-check his claims that your investors are making enormous profits? Want to say later — after a Ponzi scheme collapses — [...]

UPDATED 7:03 P.M. ET (U.S.A. JAN. 12) A Beverly Hills radio host pitched his fraud scheme in Persian and targeted Iranian-Americans in Greater Los Angeles, the SEC said today.
Client funds were used to build a mansion for John Farahi, 52, and and his wife, Gissou Rastegar Farahi, 50, the agency said. Client funds also were [...]

A federal judge has frozen the assets of Illinois investment adviser Steve Salutric in a Ponzi scheme case in which the allegations are shocking.
Salutric, 51, a church treasurer who took a stab at the fim business and co-produced the 2005 movie “Madison” starring Jim Caviezel and Bruce Dern, raided the account of a 96-year-old woman [...]