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UPDATE: John Chiyuan Lee, Scammer Whose Case Shattered Ponzi-Board Myth, Sentenced To California State Prison And Ordered To Make Restitution

In fleeing to Thailand, becoming a fugitive listed by INTERPOL and leaving dozens of U.S. victims in his wake when his Ponzi scheme collapsed, John Chiyuan Lee shattered the Ponzi-forum myth that “offshore equals safe.” “Safe — for a while while INTERPOL is beaming your picture 24/7 and U.S. authorities at the local, state and…

Apr 25, 2012
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: JSS Tripler Banned By Italian Securities Regulator CONSOB; ‘Marketing The Offering’ Is ‘Prohibited,’ Agency Announces

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has banned promos for JSS Tripler, the purported arm of a “program” known as JustBeenPaid that has advertised a daily return of 2 percent and a monthly return of 60 percent. In an English translation on CONSOB’s website this morning, the regulator described JSS Tripler…

Apr 23, 2012
RECOMMENDED READING: Prospective Class Action Against Accused Ponzi Schemer Ephren W. Taylor II Names Alleged Facilitators And Raises Specter Of Crime Spigot Involving ‘Self-Directed’ IRAs

EDITOR’S NOTE: As America’s fraud plague continues, some of the scammers are polluting the free market with incongruous and even bizarre schemes — even as they purport to represent the best that freedom offers. The PP Blog highly recommends that readers check out this September 2011 document from the SEC that warns about scammers targeting…

Apr 21, 2012
Husband And Wife (And Purported ‘Sovereign Citizens’) Jailed In Georgia; Edgar Lee Rodgers And Diane Rowe Charged With Racketeering Amid Allegations They Tried To Sell Homes That Did Not Belong To Them

Bond has been set at a combined $130,000 for a Georgia couple arrested Thursday by Atlanta police on charges they tried to sell homes that did not belong to them in an alleged paperwork scam involving bogus courthouse filings. In recent years, Georgia has been near the top of the list in both bank failures…

Apr 21, 2012
BULLETIN: SEC Says British Twin Brothers Started ‘Pump And Dump’ Fraud As Teens And Pushed Fake ‘Stock-Picking Robot’; Combined Scams Allegedly Generated Millions

BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to federal court in New York, alleging that 20-year-old British twin brothers Thomas Edward Hunter and Alexander John Hunter started an elaborate online fraud scheme when they were 16 and netted millions of dollars. At least three Hunter websites were involved in the fraud, according to the SEC: DoublingStocks.com, DayTradingRobot.com…

Apr 20, 2012
On Zeek Rewards, Cheerleaders, Currency And Exclamation Points

Owing to time constraints, the PP Blog hasn’t written much about Zeek Rewards, an MLM “program” married to a penny-auction site known as “Zeekler.” For simplicity, we’ll refer to both arms as “Zeek.” The structure of Zeek and precisely what it does are just plain baffling. Even so, it appears to have a legion of…

Apr 20, 2012
AdSurfDaily Member Dwight Owen Schweitzer Ordered Not To Send Email To Federal Judge

If you’re keeping a list of the strange sidebars associated with the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, here is another entry for your notebook: U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida has ordered onetime practicing attorney Dwight Schweitzer not to contact her by email. The order was issued Monday, more than five…

Apr 18, 2012
Ponzi Schemer Arthur Nadel Dies; One Of The Original ‘Mini-Madoffs’ Succumbs At 80 At Same Prison Facility That Houses Madoff

Arthur G. Nadel, the Florida fund manager and Ponzi schemer who briefly went on the lam in the weeks after Bernard Madoff’s even-greater caper imploded, has died. Nadel was 80, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Nadel, sentenced in 2010 to 14 years in an elaborate fraud that operated between 1999 and 2009, died at…

Apr 18, 2012
Forex Version Of ‘Mad Men’ Comes To Minnesota: Bo Beckman, Pat Kiley, Gerald Durand Trial Begins This Week; 3 Accused Hucksters Were Associates Of Ponzi Schemer Trevor Cook

If you’re a fan of “Mad Men,” the award-winning AMC television drama now back on the air after a 17-month absence, you’ve seen the cigarettes, the boozing and the debauchery weekly. (Perhaps not only in the show itself, but also in AMC’s promos for the series, a key element of which is the tagline “DEBAUCHERY…

Apr 16, 2012
UPDATE: JSS Tripler 2 And Associated Scams Get More Bizarre By The Day: After Purported Bout With Dengue Fever, ‘Dave’ Purportedly Gets Married; Cashouts Now Reportedly Delayed Due To Wedding And Script Glitch — As Members Encouraged To Carry Out Blog-Posting ‘Tasks’

This will be a familiar refrain to many readers of the PP Blog: In July 2010, the Blog reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had launched a public-awareness campaign about HYIP fraud. FINRA called the HYIP sphere a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.” Just a month earlier — in June 2010 — the…

Apr 15, 2012
BULLETIN: Church Bishop/Attorney Martin T. Sigillito Found Guilty In $52 Million Ponzi Scheme; ‘One Of The Largest Fraud Schemes In Missouri History’

BULLETIN: Martin T. Sigillito, the ordained priest, American Anglican Bishop and attorney, has been found guilty of all 20 counts brought against him in a $52 million Ponzi and fraud caper. A federal jury in St. Louis that deliberated for about six hours found Sigillito guilty of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money-laundering, the…

Apr 13, 2012