PONZITRACKER.COM: New Ponzi Scheme Uncovered Every 118 Hours; Alleged TelexFree Fraud Heads 2014 List

If you’re a student or educator or employee or boss with a traditional M-F schedule, chances are you’ll be hearing about a new Ponzi scheme before the final bell rings or the final whistle blows on Friday.

During the first six months of 2014, a Ponzi scheme was discovered every 4.9 days (or every 118 hours), according to an eye-popping report today by Jordan Maglich at PonziTracker.com.

From PonziTracker (italics added):

. . . Ponzi schemes remain rampant in the United States and worldwide despite mounting government and regulatory efforts. Indeed, the 37 schemes discovered during the first half of 2014 suggest that at least 74 schemes will be discovered in 2014 — approximately 10% more than the 67 schemes unearthed in 2013.

The largest alleged scheme discovered in 2014 so far is TelexFree, PonziTracker reports.

Read the report on PonziTracker, which also notes Ponzi prison sentences handed down this year are on pace to top last year’s cumulative sentencing total.

The PP Blog’s research shows that MLM HYIP Ponzi schemes that spread through commission-based salespeople are the most insidious because they create victims in numbers America’s largest sports stadiums cannot accommodate.

Both Zeek Rewards (2012) and TelexFree (2014) may have created hundreds of thousands of victims each. The combined schemes could fill the Rose Bowl to capacity with victims 15+ times over and have led to requests by prosecutors or receivers to ask courts to approve special victim-notification procedures because of the overwhelming numbers.

Zeek receiver and special master Kenneth D. Bell has compared Zeek to Enron and the Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford Ponzi schemes.

Just this week, prosecutors in the TelexFree case have asked for special victim-notification procedures — while contending that travel to Brazil and potentially other countries might be required.

WickedLocalHudson, which publishes news from the Hudson Sun and Metrowest Daily News, reported today that the Massachusetts Securities Division had received (to date) 8,847 complaint forms about TelexFree.

MSD posted the complaint form in late April.

The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, also are soliciting information from potential TelexFree victims.