In Response To Search Warrant In TelexFree Case, YouTube Delivers 45GB Of Data

2ND UPDATE 9:18 A.M. ET FEB. 13 U.S.A. On Oct. 16, 2014, Google was served a search warrant in the TelexFree criminal case against accused operators James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, according to joint court filings by federal prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts and Robert M. Goldstein, a defense attorney for Merrill.

Merrill and Wanzeler are charged with wire fraud and wire-fraud conspiracy. U.S. prosecutors have called Wanzeler a fugitive now likely living in Brazil. With discovery involving incredible amounts of data and an avalanche of documents under way that both sides must sift though, no trial date has been set.

The search warrant sought “a substantial amount of video content held by [Google’s] subsidiary, YouTube,” according to the joint interim status report by prosecutors and Goldstein docketed on Dec. 17. The lawyers noted that “Google reports that compliance will take several more weeks.”

Precisely why the government sought the material is unclear, but promoters of MLM or network-marketing HYIP schemes frequently pitch their offerings on YouTube. Filings last week by Stephen B. Darr, the court-appointed trustee in the TelexFree bankruptcy case, assert that TelexFree had gathered as much as $1.8 billion in about two years and that the cross-border “program” may have involved 1 million or more people.

Darr flat out called TelexFree a pyramid scheme.

In another joint interim report docketed Monday, prosecutors said they recently received 45GB of material from Google under the search warrant. The corresponding number of hours of video contained within the production wasn’t specified.

Prosecutors also said in the report that they’d received an unspecified amount of data from Hotmail and Apple that had been sought in a search warrant.

This data involved email accounts, prosecutors said in the interim report. The names of the account-holders and the content of the emails were not revealed in the report.

HYIP schemes often get pitched in emails from promoters. The government did not say why it had sought the material.

Prosecutors did note that “[p]roduction of this material has been delayed by errors in the data as produced by the email providers.”

Darr, the trustee, has turned over 75GB of data, according to the Feb. 9 report.

Getting to the heart of an HYIP scheme that operated over the Internet is an exceptionally time-consuming task. Delays are almost inevitable and even can be caused by external events that affect resources. In the Feb. 9 filing, prosecutors noted that “paralegals and litigation technical support staff” in Ortiz’s office also are participating in the prosecution of the Boston Marathon bombing case, a mammoth undertaking.

Absences or delays, however, are not unique to the prosecution side of the argument. A TelexFree defense attorney who has to sift through discovery material is involved in a trial in another state and could not attend a status conference that had been scheduled for today, according to the joint interim report.

U.S. Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy canceled today’s conference, setting April 13 as the next date the parties would meet. In his own report, Hennessy noted that discovery was proceeding in the case despite the enormous volume of material.

And that volume only will grow, he wrote, pointing to a TelexFree criminal investigation in Brazil and assertions by U.S. prosecutors that they expect to receive “a large amount of material, both hardcopy and electronic, from the Brazilian government” in March.

News of the conference delay was received on the same day publications in Brazil reported that an accounting firm (Ernst & Young) in that country had reported to the judiciary in Acre state that TelexFree (as Ympactus) had the characteristic of a pyramid scheme.

TelexFree is the subject of both state and federal probes in Brazil.

The Feb. 9 joint interim report in the United States notes that “the government anticipates receiving [data] in response to a search warrant submitted to the Court this week.”

What was targeted in that search warrant was not revealed. Nor was the identity of the person or entity served with the warrant.

The interim report also notes that the U.S. government is in possession of “[v]arious recordings made by undercover [Homeland Security Investigations] agents at TelexFree conference and in conversations with a TelexFree promoter.”

Brazil-based TelexFree figure Carlos Costa appears to be the subject of a veiled reference in the Feb. 9 report, which describes an unnamed person in Brazil as “the third owner of TelexFree.”

Authorities in Brazil have served “about nine” TelexFree-related search warrants in that country and have seized on the order of $450 million, according to the Feb. 9 report.

NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.