EDITORIAL: Bogdan Fiedur Of AdLandPro’s Deplorable Bid To Chill RealScam.com In The Age Of International Mass-Marketing Fraud
A few weeks prior to the Aug. 1, 2008, seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, Bowdoin apparently believed it prudent to plant the seed that the ASD autosurf had amassed a giant pot of cash and would use it to “hammer” critics. His willfully blind followers helped spread the word on forums that ASD detractors soon would feel the sting of being sued back to the Stone Age.
Here, according to federal court filings, is what Bowdoin told ASD members at a company rally in Miami on July 12, 2008:
“These people that are making these slanderous remarks, they are going to continue these slanderous remarks in a court of law defending about a 30 to 40 million dollar slander lawsuit. Now, we’re ready to do battle with anybody. We have a legal fund set up. Right now we have about $750,000 in that legal fund. So we’re ready to get everything started and get the ball rolling.” (Emphasis added.)
Bowdoin thuggishly suggested that ASD had hired a law firm and that the firm was experienced at “bringing the hammer down on people that need it.” It is worth noting that federal prosecutors included the remarks attributed to Bowdoin in a document labeled “Government Exhibit 5.”
Meanwhile, it’s also worth noting that “Government Exhibit 1” consisted of the 2006 SEC complaint against 12DailyPro that accused the firm of operating an autosurf Ponzi scheme. It was the government’s way of showing that autosurfs such as ASD rely on willfully blind promoters to proliferate. “Government Exhibit 2,” meanwhile, was the SEC’s 2007 complaint against the PhoenixSurf autosurf. The inclusion of this exhibit was another way to show willful blindness.
One of the interesting things about the PhoenixSurf complaint was that it referenced Virtual Money Inc., which federal prosecutors in Connecticut later linked to alleged money-laundering by a narcotics cartel in Medellin, Colombia.
Robert Hodgins, the operator of Virtual Money, is an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. ASD also used Virtual Money, according to promos for the firm. In December 2010, federal prosecutors said ASD also had a tie to E-Bullion, a shuttered California payment processor whose operator was accused (and convicted) of arranging the brutal slashing murder of his wife in a Greater Los Angeles parking garage. ASD also had a link to E-Gold, a processor convicted in a money-laundering conspiracy case. So did PhoenixSurf.
“Government Exhibit 4” in the August 2008 ASD Ponzi case consists of surveillance photos taken in ASD’s hometown of Quincy, Fla. The date upon which the photos were taken is unclear, but it is known that the U.S. Secret Service began to investigate ASD on July 3, 2008, a little more than a week before the Miami rally.
The entry of the Secret Service in the ASD case fundamentally sent two signals: The U.S. government believed its financial infrastructure might be under attack by an organization — ASD — that was trading on the name of the President of the United States. The SEC has said nothing about the ASD case — at least not in public. Bowdoin was indicted on criminal charges in December 2010. If he is convicted on all counts, the man who once claimed to have a giant pot from which he could draw to “hammer” critics could face up to 125 years in federal prison, fines in the millions of dollars and forfeiture orders totaling at last $110 million.
In the earliest days of the ASD probe, at least three media outlets — including a local newspaper, a Blog and a regional publication — were threatened with lawsuits. Bowdoin ended up suing no one. In fact, within months he was consumed by litigation directed at him from virtually all fronts. Multiple civil-forfeiture complaints were filed, as was a racketeering lawsuit. These things occurred as a criminal investigation was unfolding slowly.
For all these reasons and more, Bogdan Fiedur — and members of the AdLandPro online “community” — should perform a sober assessment of Fiedur’s recent threat to sue RealScam.com, an antifraud forum.
Threats to sue journalists, media outlets, forums, Blogs and other websites that publish information about online schemes are bids to chill speech. These bids are occurring as an epidemic of white-collar crime and securities fraud is sweeping the globe during a period in which government budgets are strained and literally thousands of fraud investigations are under way that reach into all corners of the world.
It is clear that online fraud is responsible for billions of dollars in global losses. These worlds are exceptionally murky. No one knows for certain where the money goes when fraud schemes disappear — as they so often do. It is equally clear that criminal puppeteers behind the schemes are taunting investigative agencies. From the standpoint of the U.S. government, the government and financial institutions are facing attacks of thousands of tiny cuts.
Lanny Breuer, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, testified on Capitol Hill yesterday that the “convergence of threats” posed by transnational organized crime is “significant and growing. ”
“Transnational organized crime is increasing its subversion of legitimate financial and commercial markets, threatening U.S. economic interests and raising the risk of significant damage to the world financial system,” Breuer told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.
Despite worldwide headlines of one massive fraud scheme after another — and despite the fact that the financial lives of real human beings in all corners of the world are being reduced to rubble by serial Ponzi schemers and scammers — Bogdan Fiedur is threatening to sue RealScam.com.
At a minimum, it is a PR blunder of the highest magnitude. Bowdoin made the same mistake. So did Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a purported business “opportunity” associated with serial huckster Phil Piccolo, who once planted the seed that, if lawsuits didn’t work, he knew the type of people willing to break legs to silence critics. One apologist for Piccolo and DNA planted the seed that a former federal prosecutor, federal judge and director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was a suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It doesn’t get much more bizarre than that — unless one is willing to consider that Bowdoin now is trying to raise funds for his criminal defense on Facebook and claiming that God established a program known as OneX to help him do just that.
OneX is among the “programs” promoted by members of the AdLandPro “community” — as were ASD and Finanzas Forex (and many others) before it.
And yet Fiedur apparently believes he can chill RealScam.com into stop doing what it does by registering a domain titled “RealScamClassActionSuit.com.”
Inverting reality, the purported class-action site ventures that “RealScam encourages cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking by allowing the creation of anonymous accounts and by allowing the users to present of (sic) unproven accusations towards individuals of their targeted organization. The RealScam.com turns out to be just a harassment and bashing site with no verification of facts and indiscriminate attacks at anyone who looks like an easy target.”
It’s easy to imagine Andy Bowdoin or Phil Piccolo saying the same thing — while doling out accolades to the AdLandPro “community” for its excellent judgment about the types of “programs” the world’s masses should be joining.
“The wealth generated by today’s drug cartels and other international criminal networks enables some of the worst criminal elements to operate with impunity while wreaking havoc on individuals and institutions around the world,” Breuer of the Justice Department observed yesterday. “Generating proceeds often is only the first step — criminals then launder their proceeds, often using our financial system to move or hide their assets and often with the help of third parties located in the United States. Indeed, international criminal organizations increasingly rely on these third parties and on the use of domestic shell corporations to mask crimes and launder proceeds under the guise of a seemingly legitimate corporate structure.”
And then Breuer asked the Senate panel to enact legislation that would strengthen money-laundering and asset-forfeiture laws and broaden the federal RICO statute.
Whether the Senate — and the Congress as a whole — will listen is unclear. What is clear is that, at least in the context of online fraud schemes, victims are piling up in numbers that America’s largest sports stadiums cannot accommodate. Losses are in the billions. Vast sums of wealth have been taken from rightful owners and placed in the hands of criminals.
It is simply beyond the pale that Fiedur asserts that RealScam.com is a menace, when it is one of the few sites in the world that tasks itself with exposing the menace of international mass-marketing fraud that occurs over the Internet.
One final thing worth mentioning: A few weeks before Breuer ventured to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate panel, he carried out another important public duty.
On Sept. 26, Lanny Breuer joined U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in announcing that ASD victims who filed successful remissions claims in the civil Ponzi case were getting $55 million back.
“We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to bring justice to the citizens defrauded by these insidious schemes,” Breuer said.
Get a clue, Mr. Fiedur.
Visit RealScam.com.
Hi Patrick,
Dubli associates attempted the same thing:
http://thespinfactor.com/thetruth/2008/09/25/dubli-another-complex-scam/
as one can see, they also failed.
Too bad that Andy doesn’t still have that $750,000 legal fund available; he could sure use it!!!!!
Adlandpro, that rings a bell.
http://www.adlandpro.com/archives/288.htm
Funny you should mention the infamous Dubli MLM, Whip. It was, of course, enthusiastically promoted on Adland as well. lol
In spite of the fact that he is having a fit of the wobblies over Real Scam, Bogdan Fiedur of AdlandPro has always relied heavily on the fact that, as owner, he cannot be sued for the content of his forum (or so he believes)
Despite the difficulties in funding their efforts, law enforcement is certainly waking up to the realities of online scams / frauds. The treatment of the enablers is beginning to change and the owners of such cesspools as MMG, TG, AdlandPro et al may well find themselves more vulnerable in the future if they are knowingly (or should know) permitted illegal schemes on their boards.
Wanna bet that the $750K that Andy had in his legal fund that he claimed was to sue those who were slandering ASD was used to pay for the attorney’s in his civil case? Then knowing Andy, this may have been all hype. That’s the problem with Andy, you can’t believe a word he says.
Have you seen Bogdan’s other sites?
http://www.newageu.com makes me suspect that he’s drinking the Kool-Aid personally.
Dunno if he drinks it personally or not, but he certainly knows how to follow the money trail. His philosophies seem to be flexible, depending on his current membership.
His community has deteriorated over the years so that the bulk that is not inhabited by scammers’ promotions is taken up with new age conspiracy theorists, complete with little green men and religious and extremist political nuts. Who knows, maybe he has finally found his niche. In any event I am sure the judge in any defamation action against Real Scam or others will be suitably impressed by the caliber of the prosecution, especially when he postulates important questions of the day on his personal website such as
“Was Napoleon Alien-Controlled?” and “NASA Whistleblower: Alien Moon Cities Exist”
That new-age site reminded me of some of the things postulated by ASD’s “Master Le” and Sara Mattoon.
Patrick
I’m still waiting on someone to sue me, and after I offered to pay his legal fees I though Jake Amadee was going to, but he turned out, like all the others, to be bluffing.
But can’t you just imagine how much fun it would be to depose one of these idiots?
AdlandPro is a joke now. What was a thriving social community is now a dung heap. Scammers and Spammers are in the majority. Haters of America, especially the US President are taking over. Mr. Bogdan does nothing when these nasty people spend the majority of their time harrassing the Adlamd members.
Adland should just give up the ghost. Only schemers spend time there now. Too bad, it was once a great networking site.
Hopefully you are not holding your breath on that! They would probably want to perform do-it-yourself brain surgery than get caught in court.
I’d love to see one of these creeps actually sue. I’d volunteer the free legal help. The first thing to be done is demand a deposition (a statement under oath.)How many times do you think you would hear “Fifth Amendment” in the first five minutes. (No constitutional privilege against incriminating one’s self if you file the suit.)
I actually think it would be fun to put your friend “Andy” under oath.
No I’m not “Keny.” I actually have a real license (in two states.) And I’m serious about the free legal help.
Believe me, DL, you’re not alone in wanting to see one of the blowhards actually follow through with their bullying threats.
The whole experience would give a whole new meaning to the term “tragicomedy”
Looks as if Bodgan Fiedur has just has his first brujsh with real life. His position as owner of AdlandPro has given him the ability (frequently used) to delete anything or anyone he doesn’t want on his board. With that, and a conceit brought on by years of cheers from his syncophantic membership, he must have been shocked to find out that Real Scam did not immediately lay down and die when he threatened them.
As someone who owns a once popular and profitable networking site, he should know better than think that veiled threats and ad hominem attacks are going to deter a group of professionals who intensely dislike frauds and scams and those that perpetrate or enable them.
His plaintive cry that “I as owner of this site have no ability to determine if product or program is legitimate” (sic) is very much at odds with the maxim that “ignorance of the law is no defense” and his own claims to being an astute businessman. It is also very very funny.
Looks like, this time, Mr. AdlandPro has signed his own death certificate.
Judging by the success of this blog, it is clear that the fraud enablers like AdlandPro do not understand that ponzi promotions are not the only things that can go viral. lol
[…] […]
[…] November 2011, RealScam was subjected to a bid to chill from Bogdan Fiedur, the operator of AdLandPro, a website whose members routinely promote HYIP […]
[…] In November 2011, the Blog wrote about such a bid. […]
Bogdan Fiedur or Bottom Feeder as we call him has put up that ridiculous lie-filled attack site again. I thought we had straightened that buffoon out already. What a putz! His brilliant British counsel has dropped him and he has turned armchair lawyer again! This will get hilarious and chase away more of his scamvertisers no doubt.
http://realscamclassactionsuit.com/
[…] November 2011, the PP Blog reported that Bogdan Fiedur of AdLandPro had threatened antiscam site RealScam.com […]