PatrickPretty.com

Category: Alleged Ponzi Schemes

UPDATE: Ponzi ‘Shakedown’ Suspects Who Impersonated Federal Agents Get 6 Months’ Home Detention And Are Placed On Probation For 2 Years

Three people charged with conspiring to impersonate federal agents in a bid to rattle the nerves of a Ponzi scheme suspect and recover money have been sentenced to 180 days of home confinement and placed on federal probation for two years. A fourth defendant in the shakedown scheme avoided a sentence of home confinement but…

Sep 13, 2010
EDITORIAL: Animated Attack On Obama Goes Missing From MPB Today Affiliate’s Sales Arsenal; PP Blog Declines Request From Affiliate’s MLM Sponsor To Remove Story That Describes Bizarre Sales Pitch Painting President As Nazi

Regular readers of the PP Blog know that it supports the efforts of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to weed out the purveyors of schemes who brought the U.S. and much of the world economy to its knees. Obama is a Democrat. What readers may not know is that the Blog is written…

Sep 11, 2010
MPB Today Affiliate Website That References Food Stamp Program Has Links To At Least 100 ‘Surfing’ Programs — Some Of Which Already Have Gone Belly-Up; ‘Ken Russo’ Defends Program On Ponzi Forum

A promotional website for the MPB Today multilevel-marketing (MLM) program specifically references the U.S. Food Stamp program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and includes links to at least 100 “paid to surf” programs, including programs that use domains registered offshore and programs that appear already to have failed. Separately, an MPB Today affiliate…

Sep 10, 2010
PHOTO EDITORIAL: The MPBToday Flap: Affiliates Target Food Stamp Recipients, Ponzi Scheme Victims, People Of Faith, Foreclosure Subjects — And Say Government Backs MLM Cycler Matrix Tied To Florida Grocery Business

EDITOR’S NOTE: UPDATED 3:12 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Florida-based MPBToday is one of the programs pitched on Ponzi boards such as ASAMonitor, MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. It also is being pitched via email and on social-media sites such as YouTube. All three of the forums are referenced in court filings — including filings in criminal cases —…

Sep 6, 2010
Forex Ponzi Schemers Who Targeted Deaf Investors Hit With $6.2 Million In Sanctions; ‘Billion Coupons’ Case Drew Comparisons To Defunct Noobing Autosurf

A Hawaii man and his company were hit with sanctions totaling $6.2 million in a case that alleged they targeted people with hearing impairments in a Forex Ponzi scheme. Both the SEC and the CFTC filed actions against Marvin Cooper and his Honolulu-based firm, Billion Coupons Inc. (BCI). The CFTC announced the judgment against Cooper…

Sep 3, 2010
Ponzi Pitchman Pleads Guilty To Alleged Role In Massive Oil-And-Gas Swindle; ‘We Will Be Relentless In Our Pursuit’ Of Scammers, Top Federal Prosecutor Says

A Dallas man accused of fleecing investors in oil-and-gas schemes that gathered $535 million in Texas and Michigan has pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged schemes. â€œInvestment fraud is, at its core, a betrayal of trust by one person to another,” said U.S. Attorney John M. Bales of the Eastern District of Texas.Â …

Sep 1, 2010
KABOOM! (Florida — Again): FTC Hits Bogus Credit-Repair Firm With $14 Million Judgment; Alleged Schemers Lose Cars, Real Estate In Miami-Dade, Broward Counties

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 11:27 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The Federal Trade Commission has lowered the boom on Clean Credit Report Services Inc. of Florida and three individuals associated with the firm. In a settlement from a case brought in October 2008, the FTC has obtained a judgment of $14.4 million. The defendants must surrender their assets, including…

Sep 1, 2010
BULLETIN: Ponzi Scheme Figure William Walters To Be Extradited From Argentina, FBI, Colorado AG Say; Another ‘Offshore’ Myth Exposed

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 9:32 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) William L. Walters has been extradited to the United States from Argentina to face Ponzi scheme charges in Colorado, prosecutors announced. â€œThis extradition is the culmination of years of work and cooperation between my office and the FBI,â€ said Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. â€œIn this case, justice delayed…

Aug 30, 2010
BULLETIN: Ponzi Suspect Kills Self, New York Newspaper Reports; Ashvin Zaveri Was Implicated In $35 Million Swindle

A New York man implicated by the FBI and the IRS in a Ponzi scheme has killed himself, the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester is reporting. It is at least the second Ponzi-related suicide in the United States in recent weeks. Florida Ponzi suspect Wayne McLeod, suspected of bilking federal employees, killed himself in Florida…

Aug 30, 2010
Dennis Bolze, Tennessee Ponzi Schemer Who Fled After Fraud Was Exposed, Sentenced To 27 Years In Federal Prison

Dennis Bolze, a fraudster who silently bolted from Tennessee during the same month Bernard Madoff provided a glimpse of how a shocked nation would come to view Ponzi schemers, has been sentenced to 327 months in federal prison. Bolze, 61, was arrested in Pennsylvania on March 12, 2009, about three months after news of Madoff’s…

Aug 27, 2010
WRETCHED, TAWDRY AND CHEAP: AdSurfDaily Members Now Targeted In Pitches For An MLM 2X2 Cycler — One That Trades On Walmart’s Name While Affiliate Offers ‘Blessings’

UPDATED 7:11 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) When U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sentenced Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook to a quarter of a century in federal prison earlier this week, the judge used some powerful words to describe Cook’s colossal fraud. Rosenbaum described the scheme that bilked investors out of at least $158 million as “wretched, tawdry…

Aug 26, 2010