Sanderley Rodrigues [de] Vasconcelos. Source: INTERPOL.BULLETIN: TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sanderley Rodrigues [de] Vasconcelos (Sann Rodrigues) is the subject of an INTERPOL notice that says he is wanted by authorities in Brazil for “Tax Evasion and not obey[ing] a Judicial Order.”
Precisely when the notice was entered was not immediately clear. The notice drops the “de” portion of his last name, listing him as “Vasconcelos” as opposed to De Vasconcelos.
In a letter to a U.S. Magistrate Judge, Troy Barnes of “The Achieve Community” claims he is ignorant and will prove it.
UPDATED 10:10 P.M. EDT U.S.A. His Achieve Community cycler colleague Kristi Johnson now charged both civilly and criminally, Troy A. Barnes is professing ignorance.
In a June 22 letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig B. Shaffer of the District of Colorado, Barnes offered reasons for missing a June 3 conference call with the court. The letter was docketed June 26.
Starting off by advising the judge he “meant no disrespect” by missing the call, Barnes explained that he has a sick child who has been hospitalized since May 4.
Barnes, 52, of Riverview, Mich., went on to explain that he did not have counsel and was “Guilty of being ignorant” in the SEC’s civil case filed in February in which he and Johnson both are charged.
Saying he desired to cooperate, Barnes ventured that “I would prove that I am very guilty of being ignorant but still I want to do the right thing.”
The SEC’s civil case was brought in the District of Colorado. The criminal charges against Johnson are filed in the Western District of North Carolina.
In a 17-page complaint that was filed under seal on Feb. 12, the SEC described the Achieve Community as a “pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme” whose revenue “has consisted entirely of investor-contributed funds.”
“Johnson and Barnes have made no effort to generate profits from any legitimate business operations from which they could repay earlier investors,” the SEC charged. “Instead, the sole source of repayments to earlier investors is funds contributed by newer investors.”
Whether Barnes continues to be a subject of a criminal probe is unclear.
Johnson, 60, of Aurora, Colo., was charged criminally with wire-fraud conspiracy earlier this month and agreed to plead guilty, federal prosecutors in North Carolina said. The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service, which also is investigating Zeek Rewards.
Sann Rodrigues (Sanderley Rodrigues de Vasconcelos).
EDITOR’S NOTE ADDED 10:10 P.M. EDT U.S.A.: About 16 minutes after the post below was published, PP Blog reader “Diego” sent a note and a link to an AP report dated today. The report says Rodrigues was arrested today in Boston at the request of Brazilian authorities. Our original story is below. The URLs to the AP story and a translation to English by Google are in the first two comments below . . .
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TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues was released from the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after meeting bail conditions June 26, according to the docket of the immigration-fraud case filed against him last month by federal prosecutors in the District of Massachusetts.
A person in Florida posted $200,000 cash, as part of the arrangement, according to paperwork in the immigration case.
Rodrigues, a citizen of Brazil who also has lived in the United States, was charged on May 16 with fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents, the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said on May 26.
He was arrested at Newark International Airport on May 16, after returning from a trip to Israel that began May 3 at Logan Airport in Boston, according to documents
Though prosecutors said Rodrigues initially was released on tight conditions May 21 from detention in New Jersey, the docket of the immigration case in Massachusetts suggests he was detained again on June 8 after not meeting all the bail conditions.
Those apparently now have been met.
In addition to requiring secured bail and other measures such as passport and driver’s-license surrender, U.S. Magistrate Judge Judge Marianne B. Bowler of Massachusetts ordered Rodrigues placed on home incarceration with electronic monitoring, to comply with a civil injunction in the SEC case against him and not to break any local, state or federal law while on release.
No trial date on the immigration-related charges has been set.
4TH UPDATE 2:47 P.M. EDT JUNE 27 U.S.A. An unsigned pro se pleading docketed June 23 and attributed to Zeek Rewards’ clawback defendant Catherine Parker is leading to questions about whether Parker is a Canadian “sovereign citizen” taunting a U.S. federal court in North Carolina and the receivership judicially empowered to gather hundreds of millions of dollars for Zeek victims.
The 2008 petition called for the U.S. Senate to investigate federal prosecutors and the Secret Service, claiming that “we as Americans have a right to advertise with any company without interferences [sic] by [sic] Attorney General and /or any of its agents.”
Prosecutors said ASD was a securities company offering unusually consistent, above-market returns while posing as an “advertising” firm. Zeek, which also had a purported “advertising” element while allegedly offering securities, offered unusually consistent returns even higher than ASD.
Parker resides in Hamilton, Ontario, according to the June 23 pleading attributed to her. That’s the same city and province that appeared under the name of Catherine Parker in the 2008 ASD petition, leading to questions about whether a Zeek beneficiary with “sovereign” ties also had profited from ASD’s outrageous scheme that also was advanced by “sovereigns.”
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker was sent back to Parker’s Hamilton address for a signature, according to the clawback case docket. The case is styled “Bell v. Parker et al.” Kenneth D. Bell is the court-appointed Zeek receiver. In the early months after the SEC’s August 20012 Ponzi- and pyramid action against Zeek, Bell, a former federal prosecutor, was accused by an asserted Zeek member to have committed a felony.
Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen is presiding over the Zeek clawback actions. A longtime jurist and former Naval officer, Mullen is no stranger to poisonous filings that may be designed to embarrass or even ruin public officials by making scandalous claims against them.
In 2002, in a case unrelated to Zeek, Mullen became the alleged target of a smear campaign that used both the court docket and the Internet. Mullen then was the chief judge in North Carolina’s Western District.
In the 2002 case, the disciplinary committee of the North Carolina State Bar found that an attorney had used a website and created a “fictitious criminal record” for Mullen and had asserted that the judge had a felony record for horribly disgraceful crimes.
The attorney, who allegedly complained about “the record keeping practices of several federal, state and local entities,” including the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, the Administrative Office of the United States’ Courts, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff and the North Carolina State Bar, also allegedly tried to weaponize his own pleading accusing Mullen of felonies, according to the Bar filing.
“Now that these documents are a part of the record in this case, any person can come look at the court file, and copy only the pages that they want, and publish them in any newspaper or on any web site, with or without any explanatory comment, for any purpose they want to accomplish,” the attorney allegedly wrote. “No one is under any obligation to say that these are spoof pages and that the Chief District Judge did not do these things and was not ever arrested for these things. Isn’t freedom wonderful! And as long, as they only publish the pages, and don’t comment on whether they are true or not, they can’t be sued for libel, due to the absolute privilege that attaches to court filings.”
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker appears to contend that Parker, who faces a Zeek-related default judgment of nearly $214,000, entered a defense to the clawback claims in October 2014 and that Parker has a postal receipt to prove it — but that a 46-page document she submitted in her defense was never entered into the record of the case. The pleading, however, does not detail the asserted October 2014 defense. Nor does it appear to include a copy in the form of an exhibit that presents the claimed defense.
Instead, the pleading purports to make a U.S. court clerk for the Western District of North Carolina the “respondent.” It also contends that the clerk and two attorneys working for the Zeek receivership under Bell have “dishonored the court.” At the same time, the pleading puts the court’s Charlotte Zip Code in a bracket — “[ 28202 ]” as opposed to a straightforward 28202, the standard convention.
A pleading that asserts “dishonor” claims against public officials and litigation opponents is consistent with tactics employed by “sovereigns” and their adherents. So is the use of a bracket to encase a Zip Code. (See the Blog of the Anti Defamation League, which has a March 15, 2013, story unrelated to Zeek that references a bracket and “sovereign” conspiracy theories about Zip Codes. The ADL story reports on a particularly tragic outcome for a purported “sovereign” the PP Blog also has written about.)
Whether the asserted October 2014 filing by Parker complied with the local rules of U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina — the venue from which Parker was sued for the return of her alleged Zeek winnings plus interest — is not known. What is known is that pleading standards exist in U.S. courts. Pro se filings also are one of the hallmarks of “sovereign citizens,” individuals who may express sentiment that laws do not apply to them or that courts do not have jurisdiction over them.
A court is not mandated to accept any and all pleadings. Some “sovereigns,” for instance, have been known to submit vexatious pleadings that seek to use the courts as an outlet for smear campaigns against judges, clerks, government officials and litigation opponents. “Sovereigns” also have been known to submit nonsensical claims or antigovernment or extremist political arguments, rather than cogent legal defenses.
Whether Parker is a “sovereign” is unclear. Some individuals have fallen under spells by “sovereigns” who sell pleading kits online or at speaking engagements. Now-jailed AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming was a purported “sovereign citizen.” Fellow ASD figure Curtis Richmond also was a purported “sovereign.”
Is A Canadian ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Taunting The U.S. Court And The Zeek Receivership?
On its first page, the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker includes what appears to be an ink stamp or seal of something called the “INTERNATIONAL FLAG OF PEACE.” Some “sovereigns” have shown a fascination with ink stamps, including ones in red that purportedly signify a bloody thumb print. (See this May 13, 2015, story in the Jackson Hole News & Guide that refers to purported “sovereigns” in Wyoming and the “International Flag of Peace.”)
Meanwhile, some “sovereigns” have expressed a fascination with capital letters, arguing in essence that if their names appear in caps, the reference is to a nonperson, a person who does not exist or to a person who exists in two forms. The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker asserts she is a “natural person.”
Another oddity with the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker is that it requests “a certified copy” of any oath taken by the court clerk and “certified copies and detailed lists of all [the clerk’s] court related bonds, sureties, indemnifications, and insurance related policies.”
This, too, is consistent with filings by “sovereign citizens.”
Although the June 23 pleading attributed to Parker is typewritten, the phrase “special, private, priority” is scrawled in longhand down the left-side margin of both pages. The reason why was not immediately clear. Some “sovereigns,” however, have expressed a belief that certain word combinations and certain types of punctuation have magical properties that can render courts and litigation opponents powerless, resulting in the dismissal of a case.
The June 23 pleading attributed to Parker ends with the words “Notice to Principal is notice to Agent and Notice to Agent is Notice to Principal.” Similar words have appeared in filings by “sovereign citizens” in U.S. courts.
“Sovereign citizens” in Canada sometimes have been called “Freemen on the land.” In certain instances, they have polluted Canada’s courtrooms with gobbledygook and have behaved in fashions similar to American “sovereigns” — claiming interests in properties they do not own and asserting their actions flow from common law or the Uniform Commercial Code.
Although many “sovereigns” clutter court dockets with mind-numbing nonsense, they do not act out in violent ways.
“Sovereigns,” however, have been linked to violence, including the murders of police officers.
Questions have been raised about whether a Canadian “sovereign citizen” murdered Edmonton Constable Daniel Woodall earlier this month.
UPDATED 10:08 A.M. EDT U.S.A. Binary-options scammers may be using the names of government agencies and copying material from government websites in bids to steer people to reload schemes, Quebec’s securities regulator says.
In a new warning, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) is cautioning investors to be wary of plowing money into online schemes operated by unregistered foreign companies.
Reload schemes typically follow in the wake of collapsed or missing schemes and are designed to fleece marks all over again. Victims chasing losses from an initial scheme end up compounding their losses through second (and often subsequent) schemes.
“The AMF is particularly concerned about schemes that specifically solicit investors who have lost money or who have been unable to recover their money after investing via unauthorized on-line trading platforms in the past few months,” the agency says. “In some cases, callers even claim that they have been mandated by a regulator, such as the AMF, to help investors recoup a specific amount of the money recently lost by trading on an unregistered platform.
“The AMF also recently became aware that material from its website had been copied by a company claiming to be mandated by a foreign regulator to administer a compensation fund. This company’s website is no longer available.”
Investing through unauthorized trading platforms is “very risky and could result in difficulty recovering money and even identity theft,” AMF says. “In addition, these losses cannot be covered by the financial services compensation fund, as the transactions were carried out with companies not registered with the AMF.”
Updated List Of Websites Not Authorized In Quebec To Offer Investment Products And Services
NOTE: Names that appear in bold are the newest platforms AMF deems suspicious.
Sann Rodrigues is on the right in this TelexFree promo from 2014. Indicted TelexFree figures James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler are on the left.
UPDATED 12:55 P.M. EDT JUNE 24 U.S.A. Once alleged by a class-action plaintiff to be part of an international racketeering enterprise, TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues, on May 3, 2015, allegedly told U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Boston’s Logan International Airport that he was about to travel to Israel.
Rodrigues, charged civilly by the SEC with securities fraud 13 months earlier in a case that alleged TelexFree had targeted affinity populations, “stated that he was embarking on a trip to the holy land with a church group for a week visit,” according to a May 7, 2015, affidavit by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). HSI is an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The asserted church group was not identified in the affidavit. Also unclear is whether Rodrigues conducted business in Israel while there. What is clear is that Rodrigues had been conducting business in the United States for years. On at least one occasion, he allegedly failed to disclose to U.S. immigration officials that the SEC had brought a fraud action against him.
“Aliens” is a term under U.S. immigration law to describe foreign nationals. Rodrigues is a citizen of Brazil. Under U.S. law, aliens who’ve engaged in acts of terrorism, narcotics trafficking or seek to engage in “commercial vice” are ineligible to enter or reside in the United States, according to the affidavit.
Commercial vice typically covers crimes such as prostitution, but immigration law also addresses a “serious criminal offense” such as “any felony.” If Rodrigues is charged criminally with any Ponzi-related or other felony, it almost certainly will further cloud his immigration status. Since Rodrigues was arrested last month in the United States on a charge of visa fraud, that status already is under the U.S. microscope.
Among the allegations against Rodrigues, whose full name is Sanderley Rodrigues De Vasconcelos, was that he had obtained his U.S. green card fraudulently, the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said on May 26. Green cards provide for lawful, permanent U.S. residency.
Prior to receiving his green card in 2011, Rodrigues, in 2009, lied to the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janiero to obtain a “B2” tourist visa with the stated purpose of visiting Las Vegas for eight days, according to the affidavit.
Upon his May 16 return to the United States from Israel, Rodrigues was arrested at a New Jersey airport (Newark International). He initially was jailed, but later was released on tight conditions.
But Rodrigues now has been detained again, BehindMLM.com reported today. The issue? Rodrigues, now an alleged visa fraudster in addition to being an alleged cross-border securities fraudster, reportedly has not met his bail conditions.
From BehindMLM (italics added):
[An] 8th of June hearing saw Rodrigues ordered to remain in the custody of the [U.S. Marshals Service], ‘until an SEC accounting or alternate funds are made available for bail‘.
Put another way, Rodrigues may not have enough clean money to comply with bail conditions.
U.S. federal court filings link Rodrigues to the alleged $1.8 billion TelexFree cross-border pyramid- and Ponzi scheme broken up by HSI and the SEC last year and to a 2006 pyramid scheme known as Universo Fone Club. Massachusetts investigators, meanwhile, have linked him to the IFreeX scheme.
Court records suggest Rodrigues has been in the United States at least on and off since at least 2003. And, according to the records, Rodrigues claimed in the 2009 B2 U.S. visa application for the trip to Las Vegas that he previously had traveled to Brazil, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The TelexFree huckster allegedly failed to disclose that he’d also traveled to the United States, had lived in the United States for years and was deposed in the United States by the SEC in the 2006 Universo Fone Club case.
In fact, according to court filings, Rodrigues claimed in 2009 never to have been in the United States — this allegedly despite the SEC deposition and his own claim that he had lived in the United States between 2003 and 2006.
Cross-Border Scamming MLM-Style
Precisely how long Rodrigues has been involved in MLM/network marketing is unclear. The SEC says it’s been since at least 2006, potentially meaning the huckster who reaches across borders via the Internet and allegedly claims to be a world traveler has been scamming recruits for at least nine years.
While pitching prospects, Rodrigues publicly claimed he hauled at least $3 million out of TelexFree. The SEC said that the Universo Fone Club enterprise gathered more than $3 million. (See June 2007 story in Forbes.)
Rodrigues was among TelexFree’s purported honorees at the Madrid confab. Whether he had a large TelexFree organization in Spain remains an open question. It has been reported that 50,000 Spaniards had become involved in the “program.”
Affinity fraud in the form of schemes targeted at people who have something in common — from common nationality and common religion to common financial problems and common political beliefs — is a growing menace. The Internet in large part drives the schemes across national borders. But cross-border travel also plays a role. Pitchfests are performed in grand hotels and in budget properties. Ships at sea also have been used.
If the visa and securities charges against Rodrigues are proven, it will mean that you can add immigration fraud to the mix of ways modern network marketers are duping the public.
Zeek Rewards’ figure Robert Craddock is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud this afternoon in federal court in Orlando, Fla., in a case that alleged he defrauded a compensation fund set up to assist businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
Craddock, 54, of Port Orange, Fla., has not been charged with wrongdoing in the Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case. But he was charged in March 2015 with fleecing the Deepwater Horizon fund of more than $100,000 by crafting fictitious invoices.
In a June 12 agreement with the office of U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III of the Middle District of Florida, Craddock admitted to the crime and accepted responsibility. Prosecutors, in turn, recommended a two-level downward departure for the purposes of sentencing. If Craddock completes a financial affidavit and keeps his end of the deal, prosecutors said they’d recommended a downward departure of an additional level.
Under the terms of the agreement, Craddock will forfeit $117,700, cooperate in the identification of assets and submit to a polygraph exam if requested by prosecutors.
“The defendant agrees to take all steps necessary to identify and locate all substitute assets and to transfer custody of such assets to the United States before the defendant’s sentencing,” the agreement reads in part. “The defendant agrees to be interviewed by the government, prior to and after sentencing, regarding such assets. The defendant further agrees to be polygraphed on the issue of assets, if it is deemed necessary by the United States.”
In addition, the agreement covers only Craddock’s Deepwater Horizon-related conduct. Whether he is under government scrutiny for Zeek-related conduct or other MLM activities is unclear.
“It is further understood that this agreement is limited to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida and cannot bind other federal, state, or local prosecuting authorities, although this office will bring defendant’s cooperation, if any, to the attention of other prosecuting officers or others, if requested,” the agreement reads in part.
Though uncharged in the Zeek case, Craddock has been described by the SEC as an obstructionist who encouraged victims of the $897 million Zeek scheme not to cooperate with Kenneth D. Bell, the court-appointed receiver.
WANTED: Travis Boys, age 33. Source: New Orleans Police Department.
UPDATED 3:38 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A manhunt is under way in Louisiana for Travis Boys, who allegedly shot and killed New Orleans police officer Daryle Holloway this morning.
In a statement, NOPD said Holloway was found shot in the front seat of a police SUV he was using to transport Boys to Orleans Parrish Prison. The vehicle had crashed into an electric pole near a Shell gas station in the area of of North Claiborne Ave. and Elysian Fields Ave.
“EMS discovered Officer Holloway in the front seat of the vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound to his body,” police said. “EMS transported the officer to the hospital, where he later died.”
Holloway, a father of three, was a 22-year veteran of the department, police said.
Holloway had been transporting Travis Boys, a 33-year-old black male, from NOPD to Orleans Parish Prison after Boys had been arrested for aggravated battery and outstanding warrants. Holloway was not the arresting officer. According to the initial investigation, Boys shot Officer Holloway from within the vehicle during the transport. After the vehicle crashed, Boys fled the scene. NOPD has identified Boys as the suspect for the murder of Officer Holloway, and a manhunt is underway for his arrest.
Officer Daryle Holloway. Source: New Orleans Police Department.
“This is a tragic and very sad day for our police department and for the city of New Orleans,” said NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison. “Officer Holloway was a dedicated police officer who proudly served his community for more than 20 years and was a father of three. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. We have identified the suspect as Travis Boys, and we are working with our regional, state and federal law enforcement partners to arrest him for this heinous crime. He will be caught and he will be brought to justice for the murder of Officer Holloway and for this assault on our entire community.”
Assisting in the manhunt are regional and state law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Marshals Service, police said.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (13th Update 1:43 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) After an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, Kristi Johnson (Kristine Louise Johnson) of the “Achieve Community” has been charged criminally with wire-fraud conspiracy and has agreed to plead guilty, federal prosecutors said.
“By the time the scheme collapsed in February 2015, the conspirators owed victim-investors at least $51 million in purported investment returns, yet Johnson, her conspirators and TAC had available only 4% or approximately $2.6 million,” the office of Acting U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina said.
The SEC charged Johnson, 60, civilly in February 2015 with operating a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that allegedly had gathered at least $3.8 million. She resided in Aurora, Colo., the agency said. The securities regulator also charged Troy A. Barnes, 52, of Riverview, Mich.
Barnes disclosed in February that he was a target of a federal criminal investigation. A charge sheet (known as an “information”) filed by prosecutors yesterday against Johnson described an alleged co-conspirator as “CC#1.” The information also suggested there were other co-conspirators “known and unknown to the United States Attorney.”
These individuals were not named.
The conspiracy prosecution brought by the Secret Service and federal prosecutors appears to have upped the Ponzi dollar sum to $6.8 million. Prosecutors said Achieve “defrauded more than 10,000 investor victims” worldwide.
Prosecutors called Achieve a “sham internet company.” The case against Johnson was brought in the venue — the Western District of North Carolina — that is the center of action in the 2012 Zeek Rewards’ Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.
Achieve and Zeek are known to have had promoters in common. Both schemes instructed prospects and recruits not to call the respective programs “investment” programs in bids to skirt securities laws. Such disingenuousness dates back to at least 2008 and the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, also broken up by the Secret Service.
According to court filings, as the scheme grew in size and scope, Johnson and her conspirators concealed the true nature of the scheme through multiple misrepresentations. According to court records, when the conspirators became concerned that the use of the term “investment” would draw scrutiny from regulators, they instructed victim-investors that “We ARE NOT an INVESTMENT program, please don’t use that term when you speak or post about our re-purchase strategy.”
According to court records, Johnson and her conspirators also lied about the company’s “business model” to the third-party payment processors which processed TAC’s money transactions. When one payment processor concluded that TAC was operating a Ponzi scheme and terminated TAC as a client, court records show that Johnson and her conspirators falsely told victim investors that it was because the payment processor was unable to handle the large amount of money TAC paid to its investors.
As indicated in court documents, the investment scheme began to crumble when payment processors stopped processing the Ponzi payments to victim-investors. By the time the scheme collapsed in February 2015, the conspirators owed victim-investors at least $51 million in purported investment returns, yet Johnson, her conspirators and TAC had available only 4% or approximately $2.6 million.
Prosecutors said “a signed plea agreement was also filed [Thursday], and Johnson is expected to appear before a U.S. Magistrate judge in the coming days to formally accept the plea. The wire fraud charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As part of her plea agreement, Johnson has agreed to pay restitution, the amount of which will be determined by the Court.”
In December 2014, the PP Blog reported that Achieve boosters were parroting each other and circulating a promo that read, “We are not investing in a stock or buying shares in a company. We are using our God given universal right to spend our money the way we want. We choose not to sell out to the banking system for their tiny little 1% annual return.”
Prosecutors described Achieve’s purported 700 percent return as “bogus.” The SEC described Achieve as a “pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme” whose revenue “has consisted entirely of investor-contributed funds.”
Claims of that a “triple algorithm” made such outsized returns possible also were bogus, authorities said.
From an Achieve promo playing on YouTube. Masking by PP Blog.
Achieve offered a 700 percent ROI, according to the SEC and federal prosecutors.
Photo of suspect. Source: Charleston Police Department, via Facebook.
There has been another mass shooting in the United States — this one killing nine people during a Wednesday evening Bible study at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
Among those feared dead is the Reverend Honorable Clementa C. Pinckney, the church pastor and a member of the South Carolina Senate. In a terrible footnote, Pinckney, who led a church at which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in 1962 prior to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, was a member of the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, according to his Senate bio.
Pinckney was 41.
Charleston police have described the shooting rampage as a hate crime.
“There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of scripture,” said NAACP president and CEO Cornell William Brooks. “Today I mourn as an AME minister, as a student and teacher of scripture, as well as a member of the NAACP.”
The suspect (photo above) alleged to have fled the scene is described as a white man in this twenties who mixed with parishioners prior to opening fire and carrying out the massacre. He appears to have been carrying something on his back when entering the church.
UPDATE 11:45 A.M. EDT U.S.A. Charleston police have confirmed the arrest of Dylann Roof. UPDATE 11:59 A.M. EDT U.S.A.
Subject arrested in #Charleston shooting. Our sincere thanks to the public and our law enforcement partners. — FBI (@FBI) June 18, 2015
UPDATES 12:40 P.M./3:50 P.M. EDT U.S.A. The President of the United States addresses the American people, says he knew Pastor Pinckney:
UPDATE 1:01 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A news conference on a Medicare fraud takedown was scheduled at the U.S. Department of Justice this morning. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and other officials were on hand. Prior to the fraud announcement and the police announcement that Dylann Roof had been arrested, the Attorney General made these remarks on the church shootings (italics added):
Good morning. Before we begin today’s announcement, I want to take a moment to address the heartbreaking and deeply tragic events at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina – a crime that has reached into the heart of that community. The Department of Justice has opened a hate crime investigation into this shooting incident. The FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office are working closely with our state and local partners, and we stand ready to offer every resource, every means and every tool that we possess in order to locate and apprehend the perpetrator of this barbaric crime. Acts like this one have no place in our country. They have no place in a civilized society. And I want to be clear: the individual who committed these unspeakable acts will be found and will face justice.
As we move forward, my thoughts and prayers – and those of our entire law enforcement community, here at the Department of Justice and around the country – are with the families and loved ones of the victims in Charleston. Even as we struggle to comprehend this heartbreaking event, I want everyone in Charleston – and everyone who has been affected by this tragedy – to know that we will do everything in our power to help heal this community and make it whole again.
I encourage the people of Charleston and the wider area to continue circulating the photos of the alleged perpetrator and report any tip, no matter how minor, to the tip line, which can be reached at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
UPDATE 3:39 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Charleston County Coroner Rae H. Wooten identifies the victims:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Certain reports by the PP Blog that are available to any person with an Internet connection are referenced in a consolidated, amended prospective class-action complaint that makes claims against various defendants with an alleged association with TelexFree. Information from other publicly available sites, including BehindMLM.com, RealScam.com and others, also is referenced.
The purpose of the PP Blog is to make information available to a wide audience interested in Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, securities-fraud schemes and concerns about the interconnectivity of such schemes. The Blog was not consulted about the inclusion of its links or quoted material from the Blog. Nor was the Blog compensated. The PP Blog has no association with the class-action attorneys, who obviously are readers of the Blog and the other online publications.
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Still promoting MLM HYIP schemes in the face of evidence they cause intractable financial, legal and emotional pain that sometimes mushrooms to involve hundreds of thousands of people?
On March 9, 2015, the PP Blog reported that the name of “MyAdvertisingPays” was referenced in a TelexFree-related proposed class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December 2014.
The filing appeared to mark the first time MyAdvertisingPays, known in shorthand as MAPS, was referenced in a federal-court filing.
History shows that such references are closely watched by law enforcement. Indeed, they sometimes serve as unofficial triggering actions and presage federal regulatory action by civil authorities such as the SEC and even actions by agencies empowered to enforce criminal laws.
When the California Department of Business Oversight was investigating the WCM777 scam in 2013, for instance, TelexFree’s name popped up in the context of the cross-promotion of MLM HYIP schemes.
This was months before it became known that the SEC and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were investigating TelexFree, alleged to have gathered at least $1.6 billion in a combined pyramid- and Ponzi scheme.
Instead, the complaint alleged that TelexFree huckster Daniil Shoyfer was “the largest single Promoter” of TelexFree “in the greater New York area.” Web records showed that Shoyfer also was promoting MAPS alongside MAPS colleagues such as U.K. hucksters Simon Stepsys and Shaun Smith.
Willfully blind and supremely disingenuous MLM HYIP promoters moving from one cross-border fraud scheme to another has been a longtime problem. Such promoters may have little of their own money invested, but contribute to a condition under which banks and payment processors become warehouses for fraudulent proceeds cycling between and among scams.
New York is the financial center of the United States. The filing of the proposed TelexFree class action there contributed to questions about whether MAPS soon would be on the U.S. regulatory and enforcement radar.
The answer to that question remains unclear. What is clear is that the New York complaint was transferred to Massachusetts, the U.S. home base of TelexFree. And it’s also clear that Shoyfer has been named a defendant in an amended TelexFree class-action complaint filed April 30 in Massachusetts federal court.
Among the allegations against Shoyfer (italics added/light editing performed/formatting not precise):
TelexFree changed its compensation plan on or about March 9, 2014, much to the fury of affiliates, noted below. Shoyfer, however, continued to promote it unremittingly, sending group text messages to his network with such as the following:
Hey..my team Telexfree! ! And here we go again..Come to check out and learn about new compensation plan TF 2.0.. and how to grow it even faster and MUCH more aggressively and efficiently than the one we had before.…Here is this week’s schedule. . Monday 03/24 at Salon Delacqua (2027 86 str) at 8.00 pm (in English) ..Wednesday 03/26 at SOHO launch(2213 65th street) at 7.45 pm ( in Russian) and Thursday 03/27 at 7.30 pm at 63-112 Woodhaven Blvd in a real estate office. In my case, since I have started from absulute zero during this passed week Mon 03/17- Sun 03/23/14 I booked 11,500 from new one and 21,600 still coming from old plan..A total of 31,100 in 7 short days… Go Telex!!!
After the institution of the new TelexFree compensation plan in March 2014, Shoyfer took part in a closed meeting with TelexFree’s directors and owners in Marlborough, Massachusetts, at which Shoyfer was instructed not to discuss the new TelexFree compensation plan with others and non-insiders, as the new compensation plan was detrimental to Promoters and was adopted to forestall [TelexFree] filing bankruptcy.
So, a man who allegedly promoted TelexFree and had inside information detrimental to ordinary TelexFree affiliates allegedly kept it to himself, continued to promote the scheme — and then moved on to MAPS. This naturally leads to questions about whether Shoyfer has kept information from ordinary MAPS members.
Purpose Of The Amended TelexFree Class Action
The complaint is an effort to consolidate for the sake of efficiency various TelexFree-related class actions filed in various courts. Such actions were filed in multiple U.S. states.
But that’s not the only news: The amended complaint also names TelexFree pitchman Scott Miller a defendant alongside Shoyfer and HYIP huckster Faith Sloan. In documents prepared by Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell, Miller’s name appears as an alleged winner in the $897 million Zeek scheme.
In 2013, Miller promoted TelexFree through a publication known as Home Business Advertiser. Another advertiser promoted a cash-gifting scheme. A columnist described Jesus Christ as the person who inspired modern network marketers through his recruitment of 12 disciples.
A Semacon cash-counting machine appeared as a stage prop in a cash-gifting video advertised in Home Business Advertiser. The promos appeared after two women in Connecticut were sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a cash-gifting scheme and tax fraud.
Also named promoter-defendants in the amended TelexFree class action are Sanderley Rodrigues de Vasconcelos (Sann Rodrigues), a two-time SEC defendant in pyramid-scheme cases who allegedly also claimed his actions were inspired by a deity; Santiago de la Rosa; and Randy N. Crosby.
How the promoter-defendants will pay for their defenses in the amended class action is an open question. One of the risks of promoting such schemes is to be left totally on your own if the government or class-action attorneys file lawsuits.
Another open question is whether other shoes will drop in the government actions. The government probes are ongoing. Some of the class-action defendants conceivably could become defendants in amended or new actions filed by the SEC or agencies that have criminal enforcement power.
The amended TelexFree class action asserts fraud claims under Massachusetts law against a slew of defendants, including financial vendors and MLM attorney Gerald Nehra, also a figure in the the Zeek scheme and the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story. ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD operator Andy Bowdoin was sentenced to federal prison in 2012, after authorities tied him to at least two other cross-border fraud schemes: OneX and AdViewGlobal.
ASD’s name is referenced repeatedly in the amended TelexFree complaint, as is the name of Zeek. When the complaint will be heard is anyone’s guess. That’s because there are unresolved criminal matters against alleged TelexFree principals James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, both of whom are named defendants in the amended complaint and also are among the subjects of the SEC complaint.
Katia Wanzeler, Wanzeler’s wife, also is named a defendant in the amended complaint. So is TelexFree figure Joe Craft, another defendant in the SEC action. Brazilian TelexFree figure Carlos Costa also is named a defendant in the amended class action.
Also named a defendant in the amended class action is Jason “Jay” Borromei of Laguna Niguel, Calif. Along with a company known as Opt3, he is accused of “intentionally, knowingly, unfairly and deceptively set[ting] up TelexFree’s United States-based servers in Brazil with the intent of directly furthering, aiding or abetting their unlawful and fraudulent operation, including facilitating the placement of evidence of the Pyramid Scheme beyond the jurisdiction of the United States’ courts.”
With TelexFree itself in bankruptcy court, the class-action plaintiffs contend that “Opt3 and Borromei have a history of providing technical services within the multilevel marketing industry and hold themselves out as having related specialized knowledge. For example, Borromei previously served as chief information officer of Joystar, Inc., later renamed Travelstar, a multilevel marketing company that collapsed in approximately late 2008, and subsequently entered involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy.”
Though not named a defendant in the amended class action, TelexFree and Zeek figure Tom More also is referenced in the 200-page complaint.
‘Private Jet’ Gets A Mention
On March 9, 2014, the PP Blog reported that a person who took the stage at a TelexFree rah-rah fest in Massachusetts asserted that TelexFree had access to a “private jet” that recently had ventured to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
The “private jet” also was referenced in the class-action complaint. Details about it remain unclear.
At the moment, the April 30, 2015, amended and consolidated complaint is posted here at the website of class-action attorney Robert Bonsignore.
![Sanderley Rodrigues [de] Vasconcelos.](https://patrickpretty.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/sannrodriguesinterpol.jpg)
