REPORT: SEC Moves Against ‘TrafficMonsoon,’ Calls It A Ponzi
The SEC has filed a lawsuit against the Traffic Monsoon “program” and called it a Ponzi scheme that had gathered $207 million, the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting. The assets of Traffic Monsoon and alleged operator Charles Scoville have been frozen, the newspaper reports. On June 1, the PP Blog reported that Payza — a payment […]
EDITORIAL: With Conviction Of Zeek’s Burks, Another Senior MLMer Faces Prospect Of Decades In Prison
UPDATED 4:31 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Zeek Rewards was always inexcusably horrid, fueled by serial willful blindness and the sort of practiced disingenuousness that props up so many MLM “programs.” In dollar volume, Zeek ended up being more than seven times larger than the $119 million AdSurfDaily MLM Ponzi scheme that put ASD operator Andy Bowdoin in federal […]
Baton Rouge Cop-Killer Was ‘Sovereign Citizen’ And ‘Moor’ — And Also Claimed To Have Been In Dallas
Gavin Eugene Long, the alleged mass murderer of police officers in Baton Rouge yesterday, was a “sovereign citizen” and “MOOR,” according to a bizarre filing in his name last year with the recorder of deeds in Jackson County, Mo. The news of the filing appeared in the Kansas City Star. Here is a copy of […]
Grand Jury Was Meeting When Some Zeekers Waged Misinformation Campaign; Prosecutors Question Veracity Of Burks’ ‘Handwritten Notebooks’
New filings by federal prosecutors in the criminal case against Zeek’s Paul Burks reveal that a grand-jury investigation was under way within days of the SEC’s Aug. 17, 2012, shutdown of the “program” and confirmation by the U.S. Secret Service that it also was investigating Zeek. Burks was subpoenaed by the grand jury on Aug. […]
FEDS: Having Pocketed $11 Million In 2011, Burks Plowed Forward With Zeek, Despite Knowledge Of AdSurfDaily Ponzi Case
“Rather, [Andy] Bowdoin manufactured the revenue numbers to deceive members into believing that they could reasonably expect to receive an average daily return on their investment with [AdSurfDaily] of at least 1%. This percentage in no way corresponded to the daily revenue that ASD was generating, but had been determined by ASD’s operators to be […]
Individual Linked To Payment Processor For ‘MyAdvertisingPays’ Scheme Listed In Panama Papers
Roger Alberto Santamaria Del Cid, an apparent nominee director for offshore companies who is listed as a corporate “subscriber” for VX Gateway in Panamanian business records, is referenced at least three times in the “Panama Papers.” The PP Blog discovered the Del Cid listings today. On Monday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made its database of […]
Banners Broker Figure May Be Using ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Tactics On Canadian Court Officials
Remember when Simon Stepsys — now with the cross-border MyAdvertisingPays scheme — was pushing the uber-bizarre Banners Broker cross-border scheme? New court filings in Canada by the receiver and liquidators in the Banners Broker case now estimate the total haul of the alleged double-your-money pyramid scam at more than $156 million. That’s up from an […]
At Chicago Symposium, SEC Highlights Pyramid Scheme Task Force And Notes ‘Whack-A-Mole’ Nature Of Online Scams
“These frauds are easily duplicated, and at times, we find ourselves playing ‘whack-a-mole,’ chasing the same set of fraudsters who, after feeling a bit of heat, simply close down one scheme and quickly set up a new one under a different name.” — Andrew Ceresney, SEC Enforcement Division director, March 2, 2016 EDITOR’S NOTE: Type […]
SPECIAL REPORT: Zeek Money May Be In Collapsed Russian Bank
EDITOR’S NOTE: For background, see Feb. 17 PP Blog story: RECEIVER: Payza And Payment World ‘Facilitated’ Zeek Ponzi Scheme; Whereabouts Of $13.1 Million An ‘Open Question’ (Updated 11:14 a.m. ET U.S.A.) Money due victims of Zeek Rewards from transactions involving Payza and Payment World may have been transferred from VictoriaBank in Moldova to JSC TusarBank in […]
RECEIVER: Payza And Payment World ‘Facilitated’ Zeek Ponzi Scheme; Whereabouts Of $13.1 Million An ‘Open Question’
Zeek Rewards’ receiver Kenneth D. Bell has gone to federal court in the Western District of North Carolina, alleging that the Payza and Payment World payment processors “facilitated” the epic cross-border Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. More than $13.1 million in funds from North Carolina-based Zeek that could be used to compensate victims ended up in […]
FBI: Convicted Murderer And Cross-Border E-Bullion Fraudster James Fayed Was Scamming The Scammers
Still pushing Ponzi-board schemes in the age of cross-border fraud and terrorism? In a retrospective on the 2008 E-Bullion case, a retired FBI special agent says convicted murderer James Fayed was scamming HYIP scammers. “He just pocketed the money from all these high-yield investment programs after they ran,” said Maura Kelley. “And the money continued to come […]