SEC

A Dallas man accused of fleecing investors in oil-and-gas schemes that gathered $535 million in Texas and Michigan has pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged schemes. “Investment fraud is, at its core, a betrayal of trust by one person to another,” said U.S. Attorney John M. Bales of the Eastern District of Texas.  [...]

UPDATED 7:11 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) When U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sentenced Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook to a quarter of a century in federal prison earlier this week, the judge used some powerful words to describe Cook’s colossal fraud. Rosenbaum described the scheme that bilked investors out of at least $158 million as “wretched, tawdry [...]

BULLETIN: Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his role in an international Forex Ponzi scheme that gathered more than $190 million and fleeced victims out of more than $158 million. In ordering the prison term, U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sided with the prosecution’s recommendation of a [...]

Yet another HYIP scheme pushed on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums has been outlined by federal prosecutors — this time in Florida. The name of the scheme was Alpha Trade Group (ATG), and web records show that the scheme was pitched on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup beginning on Oct. 7, 2009. Court records, meanwhile, show that [...]

A Colombian national implicated in an international conspiracy to launder drug money has been sentenced to 45 months in prison, federal prosecutors announced. Meanwhile, another figure in the alleged scheme — Robert Hodgins, the operator of Dallas-based Virtual Money Inc. (VM) — remains at large, prosecutors said. Hodgins is wanted by Interpol on a warrant [...]

A Texas man paid a Belize company to produce ads that ran on CNBC and Fox Business News for his oil-and-gas venture, but the offer proved to be fraudulent and the SEC has filed an emergency court action to stop the scheme, the agency said. Jon C. Grinder of Houston used “at least” $210,000 of [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Some readers will recall that one of the Secret Service’s allegations in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case is that pitchmen tried to sanitize the scheme by making false claims that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had received an award for business acumen from President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Others will recall [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The SEC complaint against Candice D. Campbell is yet-another case apt to cause unease in the incongruous worlds of online HYIP, autosurf and investment fraudsters. Among the allegations against Campbell, a purported day-trader and “CFO” of an unincorporated, Canton, Mich.-based company known as CJ’s Financial, is that she lied to investors and used [...]

Trevor Cook’s brother was hiding more than $400,000 in cash and valuables from a $190 million Ponzi scheme, according to an extraordinary statement by the court-appointed receiver in the case. The loot was found July 23 — after Trevor Cook, whose plea agreement in the case required him to submit to a lie-detector test if [...]

About 200 investors turned over $11 million to a boiler-room operation selling investments in a purported “green” energy company, the SEC said. The alleged swindle in which Kensington Resources Inc. sold unregistered shares of American Environmental Energy Inc. (AEEI) was pulled off by a convicted felon with the help of a recidivist securities offender, the SEC [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Online HYIP and autosurf purveyors and their fellow “mini-Madoffs” may find the brick-and-mortar case of Gregory Todd Froning at once unsettling and instructive. In yet-another development apt to create unease in the HYIP and autosurf Ponzi worlds, a new court action by the SEC demonstrates that even “small” operators in the universe of [...]

A federal judge has extended the freeze on the assets of a website operator accused by the SEC of shilling for a Ponzi schemer and then trying to extort money from the schemer when the fraud was collapsing. Severe restrictions placed on Mazu.com operator Matt Gagnon by U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh of the [...]

A California man accused of bilking Korean-Americans in an $80 million Forex Ponzi scheme was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in federal prison. Prior to the sentencing of Peter C. Son of Danville, a courtroom spectator yelled in Korean that “You’ve got to kill that bastard!” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In June 2009, [...]

Gina Cook, the wife of acknowledged Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook, received a wire transfer of $103,437 on June 23, 2009, one day after six attorneys and accountants from the SEC began a “surprise” investigation at the scheme’s Minneapolis headquarters and served Trevor Cook with a subpoena, according to the court-appointed receiver in the case. Receiver [...]

BULLETIN: The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged General Electric Co. and two foreign subsidiaries in an alleged kickback scheme with the Iraq government “to win contracts to supply medical equipment and water purification equipment.” Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, did not mince words when announcing the charges and a settlement [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The briefs below summarize recent developments in Ponzi cases or actions in new Ponzi cases. Sentenced: Matthew B. Pizzolato, 26, Tickfaw, La. Ripped off senior citizens in Ponzi scheme. In sentencing Pizzolato to 30 years in federal prison, U. S. District Judge Lance M. Africk said Pizzolato “stole from hard working Americans” and [...]

BULLETIN: Yet-another bizarre paperwork attack on U.S. law enforcement has occurred. A California man has been charged with filing “false liens” in Nevada against federal officials and employees of the SEC, the Secret Service, the IRS, four federal judges and staff members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, federal prosecutors [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog has covered a number of stories in which U.S. residents living overseas were extradited to the United States to face Ponzi charges. The case against Ronald Paul Shade is another one — and it’s one that demonstrates that an extradition can occur even if a defendant is not charged with [...]

A Utah man whose assets — including a taxidermy of a full-body African lion — was put on the action block amid Ponzi allegations earlier this year was selling unregistered securities and running a $145 million offering fraud, the SEC said today. Charged in the case was Travis L. Wright. The SEC said the scheme [...]