The Associated Press is reporting that Zeek Rewards operator Paul R. Burks claims that he is not at fault and that Zeek participants are to blame if they lost money.
From the AP (via Yahoo News/italics added):
“I never told anyone to invest more money than they could afford,” Burks snapped. “I didn’t tell them to do that. Never.”
He said if they lost money, “it’s their fault. Not mine. Don’t blame me.”
Zeek rose in part through promotions on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. In August, the SEC alleged that Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from Lexington, N.C. Court records suggest the SEC’s Zeek probe began at least in April 2012.
Serial hucksters on the Ponzi boards often rationalize Ponzi train wrecks by claiming that no one advised participants to spend more than they could afford to lose.
Convicted Ponzi schemer Dennis Bolze — one of the original so-called “mini-Madoffs” — tried a version of the “don’t invest more than you can afford to lose” rationalization in an unsuccessful bid to reduce his 27-year prison sentence for his brick-and-mortar scheme. A judge applied a sentencing enhancement in the Bolze case because senior citizens were among the victims.
Bolze used a similar argument for a sentencing reduction, asserting that his victims invested only “discretionary money.”
He further argued that age alone was not sufficient to justify the enhancement “and that the present poor financial condition of his victims is not relevant to whether they were unusually vulnerable at the time they invested their money with him,” according to the 6th Circuit.
Meanwhile, Bolze “denied that he forced anyone to invest” and claimed “that he did not know” certain investors “because his associate dealt with them.”
The panel rejected each of those arguments.
Burks, 66, has not been charged criminally. The SEC sued Burks and Zeek parent Rex Venture Group LLC last year.
Ponzi-board hucksters have promoted numerous Internet-aided scams. AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme opearting from Florida, had a presence on the boards. So did Legisi, a $72 million Ponzi scheme operating from Michigan. So did Pathway to Prosperity, a $70 million scam alleged to have penetrated 120 countries. So did Imperia Invest IBC, a shadowy entity that stole millions of dollars by targeting people with hearing impairments.
The most recent Ponzi-board scam to make major news is Profitable Sunrise, another shadowy entity purportedly operated by “Roman Novak.” Profitable Sunrise purported to pay interest of 2.7 percent a day through its bizarrely named “Long Haul” plan targeted at Christians. Members were due a purported “Easter gift” on Monday, April Fool’s Day.
The Profitable Sunrise website has been missing for more than two weeks. At least 34 U.S. states or provinces in Canada have issued Investor Alerts or cease-and-desist orders against Profitable Sunrise. The United Kingdom and New Zealand also have issued warnings.
Research shows that Profitable Sunrise had members in common with ASD and Zeek.
BULLETIN: (UPDATED 4:58 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The state of Utah has proposed that Rayda Roundy of Hurricane be fined $81,250 and ordered to cease and desist from selling securities unlawfully in the state for her alleged role in hawking Safevest LLC.
Roundy later became a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme story. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service described ASD as a massive Ponzi scheme operating online. By April 2012, Roundy was tied in court filings in the ASD case to the mysterious “OneX” scheme, which federal prosecutors described as a financial pyramid that was recycling money in ASD-like fashion.
ASD’s Andy Bowdoin started pitching OneX while he was awaiting trial on Ponzi-related charges flowing from the ASD case. Federal prosecutors said ASD had gathered at least $119 million in its scam. Bowdoin was sentenced in August 2012 to 78 months in federal prison.
In September 2008 — just a month after the Secret Service had seized more than $80 million in the ASD Ponzi case — the Utah Division of Securities accused Roundy in a civil filing of hawking Safevest unlawfully. Roundy denied the assertions.
The case dragged on from 2008 into 2013. Roundy missed a hearing scheduled for March 6 after being warned the presiding officer would hold her in default if she did not attend, the state said.
Utah proposed that the fine could be used to provide restitution. Roundy’s alleged Safevest target was described only as “ME.”
In August 2011, the court-appointed receiver in the Safevest case announced that he “does not anticipate any distributions to the investor/victims as no significant funds have been recovered or are anticipated.”
News about the proposed sanctions against Roundy occur against the backdrop of Investor Alerts or cease-and-desist orders being issued in at least 33 states and provinces in the United States and Canada against the Profitable Sunrise “program.”
Profitable Sunrise allegedly was targeted at Christians. Its website has been offline for two weeks.
UPDATED 11:33 A.M. EDT (APRIL 1, U.S.A.) On April 1, the PP Blog published a story that informs Profitable Sunrise participants on how to contact state and provincial securities regulators in the United States and Canada.
April 1 was the date the Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan was supposed to pay out. That didn’t happen.
Here, below, our March 25 post . . .
Now the subject of Investor Alerts or cease-and-desist orders in at least 30 states and provinces in the United States and Canada, the Profitable Sunrise HYIP has passed a milestone of sorts: Its website has been offline for 10+ days.
Despite the extended outage, wild, unverified reports have surfaced on Facebook and the Ponzi boards that Profitable Sunrise will resurface in Hong Kong, restarting with a 4-percent-a-day scheme.
Even if Profitable Sunrise still has control over servers — and even if it relaunches with a 4-percent-a-day scheme — history cannot be taken off the table. Part of HYIP history includes the renaming and relaunching of schemes designed to give scammers access to new cash to sustain the Ponzi deception. The “trick” has been used so many times in HYIP Ponzi Land that it has become a virtual cliché.
The AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme appears to have operated under at least three different names, all the while positioning itself as a “Christian” enterprise. An HYIP scheme bizarrely known as Cash Tanker once was promoted on the pro-ASD “Surf’s Up” forum. Cash Tanker, which promised a Profitable Sunrise-like 2 percent a day and used an image of Jesus Christ in promos, later collapsed.
On March 6, the PP Blog observed information in a nonEnglish, international forum that strongly suggested an ASD promoter had become a key pitchman for Profitable Sunrise. The information suggested that the ASD promoter had assembled a “group” that carried a purported balance of more than $18.8 million in Profitable Sunrise.
ASD collapsed in 2008.
Because Profitable Sunrise traded on Bible verse and images of Jesus Christ and was promoted by self-identified Christians, the scheme now has caused divisiveness in the Christian community. Among the key unanswered questions: Who would benefit from such divisiveness and was Profitable Sunrise deliberately structured to turn Believers against each other?
Cheerleading for the “program” continues. On a conference call last week, a Profitable Sunrise pitchman assured listeners that “all is good” with the enterprise. The claim appears to have been based on second- and third-hand reports that morphed into a purported “consensus” among leaders/members given to confirming their own biases.
“Everyone agrees that the Easter gift from the [Profitable Sunrise] Long Haul [plan] is on,” the pitchman said. “It’ll be given on schedule.”
One speaker on the same call claimed “[w]e can do what we want,” despite government warnings and even legal proceedings to the contrary.
“[W]e’re not selling any securities and we’re free citizens,” the speaker intoned.
Separately, a claim was made on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum that the Howey Test from a famous Supreme Court case in 1946 does not apply to Profitable Sunrise because the “Howey Test is for Private Real Estate Loans.”
Like many things surrounding Profitable Sunrise, the claim about the purported inapplicability of the Howey Test is absurd. The Howey Test is a key test of what constitutes an investment contract. Profitable Sunrise itself positioned the “program” as an investment opportunity. Meanwhile, various members of the “program” — including ones who continue to support it — have written or spoken publicly about their “contracts” that purport to pay up to 2.7 percent interest a day through a plan bizarrely known as the “Long Haul.”
After he was charged criminally in 2010 for his role in the ASD Ponzi scheme, ASD President Andy Bowdoin argued that the Howey Test did not apply to ASD, a purported “advertising” company that purported to pay 1 percent a day.
Despite Bowdoin’s Howey argument, a federal judge ruled that “these alleged facts smack of an investment.”
And, the judge ruled, “Based on the allegations set forth in the Indictment, the evidence already before the Court, and the government’s proffers of expected trial evidence, the Court finds that the allegations, if proven, would be sufficient to permit a jury to find that ASD members were investing.”
Bowdoin later pleaded guilty to wire fraud. He was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to PP Blog reader “Tony” for pointing us to the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) warning against the Lucra Fund and Goldenarium HYIP schemes. Earlier this month, BCSC issued a warning on the Profitable Sunrise scheme.
The British Columbia Securities Commission has issued warnings on HYIP “programs” known as Lucra Fund and Goldenarium. BCSC’s move follows on the heels of its move earlier this month to issue a warning against Profitable Sunrise.
All three “programs” had a presence on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. The Zeek Rewards “program,” which the SEC in August 2012 described as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme, also had a presence on the forums. So did many other collapsed schemes, including the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, the $72 million Legisi Ponzi scheme and the alleged $70 million Pathway to Prosperity Ponzi scheme. P2P spead Ponzi misery to at least 120 countries, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
BCSC said it became aware of Lucra Fund on March 11 “after a BCSC staff member received a promotional e-mail.
“The sender of the e-mail wrote that Lucra Fund offered 5.5% daily returns, and promised a referral commission,” the agency said.
And, it noted, “[t]he Lucra Fund website stopped working soon afterwards.”
Among the talking points of Lucra Fund was that it employed “DDoS Protection By BlockDos,” according to a pitchman’s post at MoneyMakerGroup.
That appears to be the same firm that provided protection for Profitable Sunrise. The Profitable Sunrise website also has gone missing. (At the time of this post, the Profitable Sunrise website has been inaccessible for nine days.)
On March 19, BCSC said, the agency “became aware of what appears to be a BC-connected promotion of Goldenarium through Twitter. Similar to Profitable Sunrise, this high-yield investment promotion offered a minimum investment of $10 and high daily returns. It also offered a referral fee.
“The Goldenarium website no longer works, and people on numerous Facebook pages connected to the scheme are questioning whether the entity will reactivate its website,” BCSC said.
In August 2012, a pitchman on the DreamTeamMoney Ponzi forum described Goldenarium as “a company registered in England and Wales (United Kingdom) that “fulfills all the necessary requirements to provide a serious and highly reliable service to all our customers.
In order to accomplish that we not only strictly comply with both United Kingdom’s Law and International Law.”
Before its 2011 collapse, “Insectrio” used the logos of DreamTeamMoney, TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup in sales pitches.
In August 2011, the PP Blog wrote about the collapse of a bizarre “program” known as Insectrio that advertised an “Egg” plan purported to pay 103 percent after one day, a “Larva” plan purported to pay 120 percent after five days and other plans advertised to pay even more. It was enabled by the offshore processors LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney, two of the processors used by Profitable Sunrise.
LibertyReserve and Perfect Money also are referenced in the SEC’s October 2010 fraud complaint against Imperia Invest IBC, a scheme that targeted deaf investors. Imperia also had a presence on the Ponzi boards.
Insectrio used the logos of DreamTeamMoney, TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup in promos.
In July 2010, after the collapse of the P2P and Genius Funds HYIP schemes, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued a warning about HYIP schemes, pointing out that they trade through social media.
FINRA specifically warned about websites that “Rank the latest programs and provide details of ‘payout options.’” At the same time, it warned about sites that “Allow web designers to buy ready-made HYIP templates and set up an ‘instant’ HYIP.” Meanwhile, it warned about sites that “Blog, chat and ‘teach’ about HYIPs.”
“Some HYIP ‘investors’ proffer strategies for maximizing profits and avoiding losses — everything from videos showing how to ‘make massive profits’ in HYIPs and ‘build a winning HYIP portfolio’ to an eBook on how to ‘ride the Ponzi’ and get in and out before a scheme collapses,” FINRA said.
“Other HYIP forums discuss how to enter ‘test spends,’ how to identify new HYIPs to maximize one’s chances of being an early stage payee and even how to check when a HYIP’s domain name expires so you can guess how long it might pay returns before shutting down,” FINRA noted.
Read BCSC’s March 22 Investor Alert against Lucra Fund and Goldenarium. (The document references the earlier warning against Profitable Sunrise.)
UPDATED 12:46 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The evidence against AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was “overwhelming” and led to the purported “sovereign citizen’s” conviction on three counts of retaliating against a federal official by filing false claims, one count of concealing a person from arrest and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, a federal judge wrote in court filings.
While making a veiled reference to the ASD Ponzi case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008 in the District of Columbia, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the Western District of Washington wrote in an order dated March 14 that evidence showed Leaming “admitted to filing liens against a group of federal officials for absurd sums, $225 billion in one case.”
“The only link any of these officials had to each other was their participation in the prosecution of a Ponzi scheme on the east coast,” Leighton wrote. “The evidence demonstrated that Defendant was ‘helping,’ as he put it, certain individuals who were aggrieved by the prosecution of the Ponzi scheme.”
Leighton’s order did not identify the individuals Leaming was said to he helping. The order was issued in response to a bid by Leaming, 57, to be acquitted post-verdict amid assertions the evidence against him was insufficient to sustain the convictions.
But Leaming, according to the order, “admitted on the stand that he knowingly possessed the firearms in question because he wanted to challenge the law at the Supreme Court.”
And, Leighton wrote, the evidence “overwhelmingly supported Defendant’s conviction of concealing a person from arrest. The Government established that Defendant knew certain individuals were sought in relation to a postal-scam, that Defendant allowed them to stay in his home, helped them trade cars, and otherwise supported them.”
Those individuals have been identified in court filings as onetime fugitives Timothy Shawn Donavan and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen of Arkansas. They were found with Leaming in Washington state in November 2011. Donavan and Henningsen later were convicted of mail fraud in a home-business caper that gathered more than $2 million, prosecutors said.
ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme opearting from Florida over the Internet. ASD’s business model was similar to the model of the Zeek Rewards “program,” which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from North Carolina.
ASD and Zeek are known to have had members in common. Some ASD members said that Leaming was providing them counsel, despite the fact he is not an attorney.
The PP Blog reported in November 2010 that Cornell University Law School, Justia.com and Oyez.org removed online profiles of Leaming. The sites previously had listed Leaming as an attorney who practiced law and advertised a fee structure of up to $250 an hour from Spanaway, Wash.
Leaming was arrested by an FBI terrorism task force a year later in Spanaway.
Also see Nov. 13, 2010, PP Blog report on a disturbing email some ASD members received that asserted they could be sued for filing a remissions claim in the ASD Ponzi case.
In October 2011, the PP Blog reported than some ASD members had received an email that encouraged them to file documents at the “county” level and “name” federal officials as “thieves.”
Court filings suggest that Leaming already was under investigation by the FBI when some ASD members were trumpeting him as the answer to their problems.
UPDATED AT 10:40 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) A member of the “Banners Broker” program tells The Bristol Post that he used a prepaid Banners Broker MasterCard at a NatWest ATM to withdraw £600 and that a counterfeit £20 note was in the stack of cash dispensed by the machine.
The plan, Paul Scoplin reportedly told the paper, was to withdraw the cash at NatWest and then to deposit it into an HSBC account — but the plan didn’t go swimmingly.
“I took the cash over to HSBC straight away and they flagged up one of the notes,” he reportedly told the paper.
NatWest is investigating the note, according to The Post.
Banners Broker is a “program” that gained a head of steam in part from ceaseless promotions on Ponzi-scheme boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Members are complaining about not getting paid and suggesting that Banners Broker is making selective payouts to sustain a fraud scheme.
Whether Scoplin’s reported claim that counterfeit currency somehow made its way into a NatWest machine would result in additional scrutiny of the Banners Broker “program” was not immediately clear.
In June 2012, the PP Blog reported that a site purportedly selling “customers” to members of the Zeek Rewards “program” also was pushing traffic to Banners Broker and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, the bizarre, 730-percent-a-year “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann.
JSS/JBP may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
In August 2012, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating online. JSS/JBP then morphed into a “program” known as “ProfitClicking,” amid reports of the sudden retirement of Mann. But now Mann, a former pitchman for the AdSurfDaily online Ponzi scheme, is back — this time as a pitchman for a “program” known as “ClickPaid.”
When Mann spoke during a recent ClickPaid conference call, the VOX identifier displayed the name “J. J. Ulrich” when Mann was speaking. Ulrich was associated with ProfitClicking, which has led to questions about whether Mann and Ulrich simply were extending an online fraud that started with JSS/JBP.
The presence of the various “programs” on forums linked to Ponzi schemes has led to questions about whether banks and payment processors are coming into possession of funds tainted by fraud. The “programs” are known to have promoters in common.
The website of “NewGNI” has not resolved to a server for days. The “program” is believed to have been a knockoff of a predecessor scam known as “GNI” or GoldNuggetInvest, which collapsed in early 2010 after being promoted by members of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of the original GNI was about as bizarre as they come in HYIP land. Critics were told to concentrate on earthquake relief in Haiti, rather than questioning the HYIP scheme. GNI’s collapse purportedly occurred after its operators sought “a crystal clear vision of our financial vortex.“
Among the pitchmen for both GNI and NewGNI was Ponzi-board legend “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.” Earlier, “Ken Russo” had promoted the $119 million ASD scheme. He later turned to ClubAsteria, which was trading on the name of the World Bank to reel in suckers. ClubAsteria promos came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. “Ken Russo” also emerged as a pitchman for Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from North Carolina.
Among “Ken Russo’s” latest ventures is “Profitable Sunrise,” now the subject of a cease-and-desist order from North Carolina regulators.
Profitable Sunrise purportedly is operated by Roman Novak. The “program” is being targeted at people of faith, some of whom appear to be defending it by weaving impossible tales. Any number of Ponzi-board taunts have been aimed at the Securities Division of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, even as ProfitableSunrise advertises a risk-free, preposterous return of 2.7 percent a day in its bizarrely named “Long Haul” program with a purported Easter holiday payoff.
“lol @ NC officials,” says one post at MoneyMakerGroup. Another compares Marshall’s office to “Deputy Barney Fife,” an iconic TV character played by Don Knotts in the Andy Griffith Show.
Even after the government of Belize issued a warning against GNI in 2009, scammers continued to promote it — virtually to the very day it collapsed and took an unspecified sum with it. The collapse triggered a bizarre series of conspiracy theories.
GNI was operating concurrently with a now-collapsed scam bizarrely known as “Cash Tanker,” an “opportunity” aimed at Christians. Cash Tanker used an image of Jesus Christ in its promos and purported to pay 2 percent a day.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming has been found guilty in the Western District of Washington of filing false liens against public officials, harboring fugitives and being a felon in possession of firearms, federal prosecutors said tonight.
Leaming associate David Carroll Stephenson also was found guilty of filing false liens.
The PP Blog will have a full report when more information becomes available. The case was prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld the rulings of a federal judge and rejected an appeal by AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer. The ASD duo had contended the seizure of records from ASD’s database in a Ponzi scheme case brought in 2008 by the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors violated their right to privacy and that Judge Rosemary Collyer was biased.
A three-judge panel rejected both contentions.
“Appellants’ purported evidence of bias amounts to nothing more than their disagreement with the judge’s actions in presiding over a related matter, and ‘judicial rulings . . . virtually never provide a basis for recusal,’” the panel ruled
Moreover, the panel ruled, “The dismissal of appellants’ Fourth Amendment claim is affirmed on the ground that appellants lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the records allegedly seized.”
ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme operating from Quincy, Fla. Disner and Schweitzer later became pitchmen for Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud operating from Lexington, N.C.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, aka “Kenneth Wayne,” aka “Keny,” now is calling himself a “live abortion” — apparently in “defense” of home-based businesses.
UPDATED 12:28 P.M. (FEB. 27, U.S.A.) Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story and a purported “sovereign citizen,” is scheduled to go on trial today in federal court the Western District of Washington with co-defendant David Carroll Stephenson. Leaming is charged with filing false liens against public officials involved in the ASD prosecution. Among his alleged targets were a federal judge, at least two federal prosecutors — and the U.S. Secret Service agent who cracked the ASD Ponzi case in 2008.
Leaming, 57, also is charged with assisting Stephenson in the filing of false liens against two federal-prison officials. Stephenson was in federal prison for a tax scheme at the time the liens allegedly were filed. Records strongly suggest that Stephenson, also 57, would be a free man today were it not for his association with Leaming, given that Stephenson’s prison term in the tax case had been scheduled to end early this year. Instead, he’s facing new charges and potentially more jail time.
But the false-liens charges are just the beginning for Leaming. He also is charged with harboring two federal fugitives wanted in a multimillion-dollar home-business fraud in Arkansas, being a felon in possession of firearms and passing a bogus “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million.
If you’re new to the PP Blog and new to the ASD case, a brief review is in order: The Secret Service raided ASD in August 2008, alleging the Florida-based firm operated by Andy Bowdoin was a massive Ponzi scheme operating over the Internet. Bowdoin reacted to the raid and the seizure of tens of millions of dollars by comparing the U.S. government to “Satan” and the Secret Service to the 9/11 terrorists. Now 78 and in federal prison, Bowdoin came out of the gate after the seizure by assuring ASD investors that “God” was on the company’s side.
Some MLMers were quick to accuse the government of targeting a fine Christian man who was helping the United States create jobs with a “program” that purported to pay participants back 100 percent of their investment and a profit of 25 percent in only months. (Ten-thousand dollars in ASD purportedly fetched $12,500 within 90 to 125 days, purportedly more if members “compounded” their “earnings,” kept 80 percent of their money in a continuous state of “roll over” and never fully cashed out.)
Essentially there was only one chance that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme during its approximately 18-month run — and that single chance required nearly a complete suspension of logic to destroy the government’s Ponzi case and get ASD off the hook: Had a crazy billionaire or exceptionally well-heeled financier (who also was crazy) given convicted-felon Bowdoin more money than ASD’s rapidly accruing liabilities — basically an enormous line of credit that didn’t have to be paid back and could be tapped on demand for ASD to pay out $1.25 for every dollar it took in until the line was exhausted — ASD would not have been a Ponzi scheme. Absent a benevolent madman-billionaire and the kind of capital it would take to build a nuclear-power plant and operate it indefinitely with zero concern for profit, however, ASD could be one thing and one thing only: a Ponzi scheme using money from “new” members to fund the redemption requests of “old” members or a Ponzi scheme that sustained itself by simply recycling money among members of a closed group.
No madmen-billionaires sufficiently liquid to bankrupt themselves by funding Bowdoin’s stated plan of creating 100,000 ASD millionaires in three years while at once financing the “profits” of tens of thousands of average people seeking to expand the ranks of ASD millionaires well beyond 100,000 appeared to testify on ASD’s behalf at an evidentiary hearing it requested in the fall of 2008.
Here is just one of the reasons MLM has a miserable reputation: Notwithstanding the fact that Bowdoin already was a convicted felon for an Alabama securities swindle in the 1990s and that one of his business partners was a man implicated by the SEC in the 1990s in three prime-bank swindles, some MLMers decided to improve the already bizarre narrative that the government was picking on a grandfatherly Christian.
Petitions were started to paint prosecutors as the bogeymen. (The shorthand for this in MLM’s HYIP Ponzi land is “evilGUBment.”) ASD critics were derided as “maggots.” A “prayer” went out calling for prosecutors to be struck dead from the heavens. A theory was advanced that a Florida TV station should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices for carrying news unflattering to ASD. A companion theory held that the Attorney General of Florida should be charged with the same offense and that AARP, which lobbies for senior citizens, should lobby for ASD. Meanwhile, some MLMers tried to enlist the U.S. Senate to turn the focus of the investigation away from ASD and Bowdoin and put it on the prosecutors who brought the Ponzi case. One MLMer called for the government’s lead prosecutor to be placed in a medieval torture rack, with ASD members at large drawing straws to determine who got the honor of making the prosecutor’s time in the rack as painful as possible.
Very few people in MLM had anything to say about the circus surrounding ASD. The few who did — perhaps most notably Rod Cook of MLM Watchdog — were excoriated for dismissing the narrative advanced by Bowdoin and other MLMers. All of this was occurring while ASD was provably insolvent. When Bowdoin failed to take the witness stand at the evidentiary hearing he requested, it was explained that he was “too honest” to testify. Both before and after the hearing, some of his most notable Stepfordian apologists advanced a theory that the government secretly had admitted ASD was not a Ponzi scheme and was clinging to the case in a bid to save face.
One ASD member advanced a narrative that the government had taken about $80 million in seized proceeds and invested it in a secret fund to pay for black-ops. It was from this caldron of conspiracy theories and fantastic idiocy that Kenneth Wayne Leaming emerged.
Like other “sovereigns,” Leaming to date hasn’t focused much of his attention on the actual charges against him, even though his conviction could result in considerable jail time. Rather, Leaming mostly has focused on creating a blitz of paperwork on the apparent theory his best “defense” is to keep the Feds and even local officials scurrying to guard all flanks. Since his November 2011 arrest by an FBI Terrorism Task Force, Leaming has sued the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, various officials (including purported “Does”) and a county sheriff in Arkansas.
Members of Zeek Rewards and other MLM schemes should pay attention to the Leaming trial. There can be no doubt that Leaming-like figures existed within the Zeek enterprise. Like ASD before it, Zeek was a magnet to willfully blind MLM hucksters and actual criminals. Both “businesses” best are viewed as racketeering enterprises that posed an untenable risk to the United States and the rest of the world.
For the remainder of this column, the PP Blog will focus on just one crime alleged against Leaming: the filing of a false lien against the U.S. Secret Service agent — not that the other alleged bogus liens are any more palatable or acceptable. The word “disgraceful” hardly covers Leaming’s alleged actions, and yet some MLMers saw Leaming not only as an inspirational figure, but as the wisest man of all.
The Secret Service guards the lives of the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States and their families. It also guards the lives of former Presidents and international dignitaries and political figures visiting the United States. As the agency is doing this, it also protects the U.S. financial system.
It is unthinkable — so far beyond the pale that it almost defies description — that Leaming, let alone any other American, ever would target a Secret Service agent in a harassment campaign. The Secret Service is a smallish agency by federal standards, yet it is arguably the most important: Markets become unglued when world figures are assassinated or targeted in assassination attempts. Beyond that, history now has shown that an event such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks actually can close markets and restrict freedom, the very things Leaming purports to be upholding.
People of good will are appalled that Leaming apparently thought it somehow his duty to Democracy and Constitutional government to harass a Secret Service agent. Given the critical duties of the Secret Service and its role in both national security and economic security, no American of good will wants to see an agent’s attention divided by the Kenneth Wayne Leamings of the nation and world.
If Leaming is convicted, he should be sentenced to the longest jail term permissible under the law. Never again should MLM or any MLMer stay silent when an obvious fraud scheme surfaces and is “defended” at the exclusion of all logic.
In both form and substance, Zeek was virtually identical to ASD — and yet ASD members and other MLMers joined Zeek. That’s a problem for MLM. whether it admits it or not.
Those ASD members who joined Zeek? They did so even as Kenneth Wayne Leaming allegedly was targeting public officials, including a U.S. Secret Service agent, in campaigns designed to destroy the thin blue line that protects citizens from anarchy. The most dangerous Zeek members are the ones who hoped he’d succeed.
UPDATED 8:51 A.M. ET (FEB. 20, U.S.A.) Frederick Mann, a former pitchman for the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and the operator of the bizarre JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid “program” that advertised a return of 2 percent a day and morphed into a “program” known as “ProfitClicking” in the days after the SEC called rival HYIP Zeek Rewards a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme in August 2012, is back, according to promos for a new “opportunity” known as “ClickPaid.”
The news comes as ProfitClicking appears to be in a state of collapse. Like ASD, Zeek, JSS/JBP and ProfitClicking before it, ClickPaid has a presence on the MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold Ponzi forums. Mann purportedly “retired” from JSS/JBP last year, but not before claiming that government workers were part of “a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”
Frederick Mann
He also speculated that the U.S. government could target JSS/JBP’s servers in a “cruise missile” attack.
Mann is believed to be in his eighties and, at a minimum, to be sympathetic to the “sovereign citizens” movement. At the time of this post, ClickPaid is showcasing a ProfitClicking-like launch-countdown timer on its website. Visitors are invited to listen to a “World Wide Pre Launch Live Broadcast Call with Frederick Mann” tomorrow. A tab/subtab on the website styled “MEDIA/Upcoming Events” claims Mann will “personally” introduce “Click Paidto [sic] the world” tomorrow and will be featured on “the live launch call” Feb. 27.
The ClickPaid Terms — like the Terms of JSS/JBP and ProfitClicking — makes members affirm they are not with the “government.”
If the nongovernment affirmation were not enough, Click Paid also says it reserves the right to enroll Click Paid members in other programs. (Verbatim/italics added):
19. From time to time, the Click Paid managers may import the entire Click Paid membership into another program, maintaining the Click Paid genealogy. This will also be done on the basis that people imported into the other program will have to activate their accounts by a certain deadline in order to become members of the other program. If they don’t activate their accounts by the deadline, they will be dropped from the other program. One benefit of this procedure is that Click Paid members receive their Click Paid downline in the other program (to the extent that accounts are activated). Another benefit is that those who don’t want to be in the new program will be dropped automatically if they do nothing. Prior to such an import,Click Paid managers will inform all Click Paid members via email and in the Member Area of the expected import and the reasons for it. Subsequent to the import, managers of the other program will email those imported from Click Paid to explain the benefits of the other program, and to provide them with the procedure to activate their accounts, should they wish to become members of the other program. More than one email may be sent by the managers of the other program. (Click Paid members who don’t activate their accounts in the other program by the deadline will be dropped from that program.) Click Paid members agree to receive the emails referred to in this rule 19. (Privacy: Any import per this rule 19 will be on the basis that the managers of the other program will not abuse the Click Paid email addresses in any way. Once the deadline has been reached, all unactivated accounts in the other program will be deleted and the email addresses for these deleted accounts will not be retained by managers of the other program.)
Zeek rose in part through promotions on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. In August, the SEC alleged that Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from Lexington, N.C. Court records suggest the SEC’s Zeek probe began at least in April 2012.
