Street Address Of ASD Site That Made Odd Claims Before Vanishing Tied To Major Insurance-Fraud Investigation
The street address listed for the domain ASD2Day.com appears in Florida records as the address of a woman charged with patient brokering and solicitation in a major insurance-fraud sting.
Records show that a woman named Barbara Cruz was charged with four felony counts of insurance fraud in 2000. The name Barbara Cruz was listed as the name of the registered owner of the ASD2Day site, which now is offline.
The Florida Insurance Commission described the case as a complex probe that involved staged automobile accidents, false Personal Injury Protection (PIP) claims against insurance companies and “runners” hired by unscrupulous medical clinics to recruit people involved in accidents — real or staged — into the insurance scam.
Bill Nelson, Florida’s insurance commissioner when the sting was conducted, said the scheme was sucking wealth from Florida’s economy.
“Our investigators estimate that more than half of the auto insurance PIP claims in the Miami area are fraudulent,” Nelson said, in 2000. “So far, we’ve identified at least $10 million that these suspects alone allegedly bilked from insurers at the expense of consumers throughout Florida.”
Nelson, who served as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986, previously was a member of the U.S. House and is now a U.S. Senator.
Barbara Cruz was among a group of 51 people in the Greater Miami area in south Florida to be charged after a year-long investigation by the Insurance Commission. Docket entries show a person by the same name with the same birth date was charged in a case slugged “ANIMAL/FIGHT/OWN/SEL” in 1989.
How the case involving animals was disposed is unclear. A docket entry is marked “NO ACTION” and the file location is marked “DESTROYED.” The insurance charges are marked “NOLLE PROS,” which suggests the case ultimately was dropped.
ASD2Day.com appeared online in August, taking a Pro-AdSurfDaily point of view. ASD was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in a $100 million Ponzi and fraud scheme in August 2008.
Among the claims on the site was a puzzling assertion that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer was on an Aug. 28, 2009 deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.â€
Collyer was on no such deadline.
See earlier story.
Barbara was also involved with this company:
http://www.corporationwiki.com/Florida/Hialeah/cruz-transportation-inc-4048264.aspx
..wonder if this is the same Barbara Cruz http://www.tifytify.com/profile.php?user=barby&v=friends&s=&p=2
Wonder if this is the same Barbara Cruz
http://www.tifytify.com/profile.php?user=barby
Notice the NOT FUNNY cartoon she has posted on the bottom of the page :(
Quick note:
A page at the now-offline ASD2Day.com site hotlinks to the server for TheJoyLuckClub, pulling from the site the photo of Charles A. Murray, Bowdoin’s attorney.
The page was cached by Google on Sept. 26.
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:1QJpUGgLM20J:asd2day.com/updates/+asd2day+learn&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
You’ll be able to see the hotlinking to TheJoyLuckClub site if you view the source code of the page in Google cache.
Patrick
On her website profile she calls herself an attorney……with 4 felony convictions? She is in a very rough part of Miami…..If you ever get a chance to go through it go in the DAYTIME…….do it just for the experience..but bring a gun!
“Bill Cowden has left the Department of Justice for private practice. DOJ related inquiries to the Asset Forfeiture & Money Laundering Section at 202-514-1263. AdSurfDaily inquiries may be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia at 202-514-7700.”
I guess there went all of Bob Guenther’s high level access..
For your Information Barbara Cruz is my mom, we had nothing to do with the ASD shutdown, as a matter of Fact we where one of the biggest leaders earning over $8,000 daily. We promoted ASD Globally along with Francis and Juan the CEO, I suggest you guys stop publishing incorrect information about people in the internet and cause a rant on my mom Barbara Cruz.
—
Efrain Vera
Also, she did not make any implied “Millions” She was working for an insurance company not knowing it was a fraud. Just like us members in ASD, working for it, but not knowing it would ever be shutdown. She was implicated but released clear, she had no fault in any of the charged items.
Hello Efrain,
Your $8,000-a-day claim computes to just shy of $3 million per year. The prosecution says ASD members such as yourself were being paid with money from new members in classic Ponzi fashion.
Andy Bowdoin seems to agree with them, considering he signed a proffer letter in the case and, according to the government, told investigators the material allegations against ASD were “all true.”
“Mr. Bowdoin secured funds from the public by promising to them safe, profitable returns,†prosecutors said. “To keep his fraud scheme afloat, Mr. Bowdoin paid apparent ‘profits’ to early entrants into the scheme, and to friends, family and employees. Mr. Bowdoin confirmed to law enforcement officials that he modeled his enterprise on another’s failed fraud scheme, and he acknowledged that there was almost no revenue independent from what he secured from the ‘members.’”
Bowdoin also admitted he fudged the numbers, prosecutors said:
“Mr. Bowdoin also confirmed that the revenue figures of the enterprise were managed to make it appear to prospective members that the enterprise called Ad Surf Daily was a consistently profitable, and brilliant, passive income opportunity.”
The prosecution made a public filing containing this information in April:
https://patrickpretty.com/2009/04/24/prosecution-bombshell-bowdoin-signed-proffer-letter-prior-to-submitting-to-forfeiture-that-said-governments-material-allegations-were-all-true/
Given these allegations and the fact Bowdoin signed a proffer letter — and has acknowledged in an affidavit that he revealed “significant information against my interest†over his two sets of meetings with prosecutors — it seems strange that ASD has any support whatsover.
Among other things, the ASD2Day website claimed Judge Collyer was on an Aug. 28, 2009 deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.â€
Judge Collyer was under no such deadline. Fact is, Judge Collyer put Andy Bowdoin on a deadline to follow-up on pleadings he had made earlier in the year. The record shows that ASD filed some pleadings in May, didn’t follow up on them — and was ordered by the judge July 24 to do so.
The record further reflects that ASD then asked for a series of extensions, saying it was negotiating with prosecutors. During this time — and even earlier — some ASD uplines put out the word that the prosecution’s case was in jeopardy, which was not the case at all. Some people even claimed that the judge ordered the prosecution to prove by Aug. 28 that ASD was a Ponzi scheme — or else.
That simply never occurred. No such order was issued.
The ASD2Day site featured Pro-ASD content by an unnamed writer and a headline titled “Inside Information.†It described ASD’s “business concept†as a “proven reality†and used meta descriptions such as “Picture of a Flight Simulator Plane, to give an emotional feel.â€
ASD2Day.com claimed, among other things, that ASD could not be a Ponzi scheme because the script employed by the autosurfing firm could not be programmed to permit a Ponzi scheme to occur.
The site claimed:
“As we all know, ASD has been ruled for an irrelevant acquisition of `PONZI SCHEME OR PYRAMID` ruling. ASD Utilized a well known Traffic Exchange Script in the Online Marketing industry. The Script was named Pats Pro. I myself am a Programmer as well. I have worked with this script before to develop websites and add-ons. By the pure mechanics or functions in the Pats Pro system, there is no function of, that such can be ruled ponzi or pyramid. The PATS PRO system does not work as Ponzi, the written code in the software has no leads to such acquisition either.â€
Although the language appeared to be an attempt to suggest that Bowdoin could not be guilty of operating a Ponzi because the script did not support a Ponzi model, federal prosecutors always have argued that the internal actions of ASD and Bowdoin — not the actions of a script — resulted in criminal instances of wire fraud and money-laundering.
Besides, Bowdoin himself said the government allegations were true and even swore he had made statements to that effect.
So, respectfully, Efrain, I’m wondering if perhaps someone gave you and your Mom incorrect information.
Patrick
…..well Efrain, even if you were given false information concerning the operations of ASD, the hard facts of the matter are that your behavior is:
1) Actively promoting an alleged criminal enterprise, and
2) Profiting substantially from that alleged criminal enterprise.
Frankly, it really does not matter what your intent was, nor that of your mother’s, if what you say is true. What matters from a criminal liability perspective is your actions. You can take it to the bank that there will be criminal charges in the ASD case (Bowdoin says so as well), and I’d highly recommend that you and your mother get a good criminal lawyer. If in fact you and mom were deceived by Bowdoin and Fernandez, perhaps you two can escape criminal procesuction yourselves by cutting a deal with the DOJ. btw, you will not be allowed to keep that $8000 per day you and your mother received. Not sure it was such a good idea to confess to that on a public forum, but don’t worry, the DOJ already knew that…..
Entertained,
Perhaps Efrain is on Fava’s list or the list of Sara Mattoon and received the instructions on how to behave if contacted by prosecutors.
Or perhaps Efrain or others read forum discussions about the Fava/Mattoon emails, and knew what was happening without being on their lists.
Fava and Matton both purportedly recommended that ASD victims not even fill out the form. And they both suggested ASD victims should clam up if contacted by the Secret Service.
Here’s hoping neither Efrain nor his Mom do what Fava and Mattoon suggest they should do, which easily can be viewed as a conspiracy to obstruct justice and perhaps even racketeering.
Looks to me like a bid to keep the victims’ numbers down to achieve a result — in a few ways, really:
1.) An active bid to prevent people from registering as victims or cooperating with the government by trying to scare ASD members.
2.) A passive bid through disinformation/misinformation to accomplish the same goal as No. 1.
3.) A bid to create plausible deniability and give credence to the vacuous claim that “there were no victims before Aug. 1, 2008.” (The “no victims” claim went on to become a featured point of the pro se filers — except they stressed “VICTIMS” in uppercase, disingenuously claiming the prosecutors had produced none.)
4.) A bid to limit the number of victim-impact statements under some magical theory that Bowdoin’s criminal behavior is the government’s fault
Trouble is, the “no victims” talking point, however persuasive sounding to ASD members looking to have their corrupt theories reinforced, is still vacuous and does not change the facts.
You punctured the “no victims before Aug. 1, 2008” balloon here on July 24, when you memorably said:
“EVERY Ponzi scheme continues to pay out until it collapses, and then it pays nothing. Doesn’t matter if it is ASD, AVG, BAS, 12DP, CEP, Noobing, Madoff, Petters — they ALL pay until they collapse or are shut down by the authorities. It is not a sign of health that ASD was paying when it shut down, it was only an indication that more suckers were being brought in with new money. It would have inevitably collapsed.”
I should have complimented you on your writing on that one. My regrets for not doing so.
With respect to active or passive bids to thwart the investigation by influencing members not to complain, well, such an approach would be consistent with a racketeering enterprise.
Funny how victims in different cases behave in different ways. In the Richard Piccoli case in Buffalo, for example, Piccoli, 83, was roundly jeered by victims, including the elderly people who showed up for his sentencing.
The entire universe of victims in that case was 500 or so — way below the potential thousands of victims in the ASD case.
And yet with a victims’ pool of only 500 in the Piccoli case, prosecutors were able to show that at least 100 people were brought to financial ruin.
“The sentencing court had received victim impact statements from most of the victims, and heard three victims speak in court as to the financial impact the fraud had on their lives,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
In the early days of the ASD case, Bowdoin and some members blamed the government for bringing people to financial ruin. It was a constant theme.
So, in other words, Bowdoin AND some ASD members already have acknowledged people were brought to ruin — except they want to blame it on the government.
It’s easy to see why some folks inside ASD want to minimize complaints.
Patrick
Quick note:
Just wanted to add that about two dozen victims showed up at Piccoli’s sentencing. Three victims spoke. Many, many more filed victim-impact statements, which the judge considered before sentencing.
Victims included:
* A 64-year-old man with diabetes and a heart condition who lost $58,000 to Piccoli. The man saw Piccoli’s ad in the church bulletin and now is living on Social Security.
* A 79-year-old man who had a heart attack after he realized his nestegg was gone upon Piccoli’s arrest.
* A 69-year-old woman who said Piccoli tried to play the age card at sentencing, even though he was still actively pursuing “new” money when he was 82. Between the ages of 80 and 82, Piccoli gathered $16 million, including $500,000 in November 2008 alone.
He owed about 500 people an estimated total of $25 million. The Feds have recovered about $6 million.
So, if one looks at it this way — $25 million owed, $6 million recovered, reducing the loss to $19 million and placing the recovered $6 million in a restitution pool to be shared among 500 victims — the “average” loss is about $38,000 per person.
The average loss could be higher — perhaps $50,000 per person, because of estimates that Piccoli had owed or collected as much as $31 million. The number of people who made money in Piccoli’s 30-year Ponzi and affinity-fraud scheme and the amount of their gains are not clear. Final numbers aren’t in and perhaps won’t be until next summer.
Some people lost more, and some lost less, of course. Regardless, the common thread was that the victims were people of faith with a high concentration of senior citizens, because that’s who Picolli targeted. Lots of seniors lost their life savings — and even an “average” loss of $38,000 among each member of the entire victim’s pool was nothing short of devastating for people of average means.
The “average” recovery for victims could be about $1,200 from the restitution pool.
Patrick
I thank you guys for Understanding. We are aware of everything that has been and IS going on with and within ASD. Sometimes people do not want to believe the truth. It is because of that fact I deny to contribute any further information, as it would be a waste of time. I greatly appreciate your modest behavior.
[…] ASD2Day.com claimed, among other things, that ASD could not be a Ponzi scheme because the script employed by the autosurfing firm could not be programmed to permit a Ponzi scheme to occur. It also made a puzzling claim that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer was on an Aug. 28, 2009, deadline “to determine if the US Attorney General’s case against ASD should move forward.” (Also see this story and comments thread.) […]
Oh wow. I should have done my research before deciding to invest in Efrain’s recent start-up company. He basically lied to us saying that the company would be launching on a certain day, then when the day came nothing happened. This happened three times over. Among the “membership packages” for his company was a founding membership. $1000 for exclusive benefits. 40 of us invested back in August-September 2014 and he decided not to launch the company and to keep everyones’ money. To my knowledge, the people in my business team who invested never got their money back and neither did I.
Can you please provide the name of that company and more details ?
Synergy Card Network LLC. What I posted is pretty much the gist of what happened.
I’ve recently met with Efrain. Things went well, he has fixed whatever problem I had.