PatrickPretty.com

Category: The Economy

  • BULLETIN: Court Orders $2.1 Million Judgment Against Trudy Gilmond, Key Zeek Rewards’ Clawback Defendant

    breakingnews72UPDATED 9:35 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Saying that Zeek Rewards’ clawback defendant Trudy Gilmond of Vermont “refused” to appear in North Carolina federal court on May 27 as directed, Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen has entered a judgment against Gilmond for $2,129,522.27.

    Mullen’s ruling is a significant win for Zeek receiver Kenneth D. Bell. Bell alleged in April that Gilmond and fellow Zeek clawback defendant Jerry Napier of Michigan had failed to defend the actions against them and had missed depositions in Vermont and Detroit, respectively.

    Bell sought default judgments against both Gilmond and Napier and asked Mullen to make them appear in federal court for the Western District of North Carolina to show cause why judgments should not be entered against them.

    “On May 11, 2015, the Court entered an Order directing Trudy Gilmond to personally appear before the Court on May 27, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. to show cause why judgment should not be entered against her as requested by the Receiver,” Mullen wrote in an order dated yesterday. “Ms. Gilmond failed to appear as directed. Indeed she advised the court by letter that she refused to do so.

    “IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the Receiver’s Motion is GRANTED and judgment is hereby ENTERED against Defendants Trudy Gilmond and Trudy Gilmond LLC in the amount of $2,129,522.27,” Mullen wrote.

    The news was better for Napier, from whom the receiver is seeking more than $2.041 million.

    Bell informed the court that “Mr. Napier has appeared for a deposition and is cooperating in the production of documents,” Mullen wrote in a separate order dated yesterday.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

  • Judge Orders Sann Rodrigues Off The Road

    From YouTube.
    From YouTube.

    UPDATED 3:19 P.M. EDT U.S.A. TelexFree and IFreeX MLM promoter Sanderley Rodrigues de Vasconcelos (Sann Rodrigues) won’t be putting the pedal to the metal of his Lamborghini anytime soon — unless he wants to risk going back to jail.

    That’s because U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven C. Mannion of the District of New Jersey issued an order May 21 for Rodrigues to surrender his driver’s license as one of the conditions for his release on a charge of immigration fraud. There are other tight conditions, including home confinement, electronic monitoring, secured bond and passport surrender.

    And if any doubts remained that U.S. authorities were unaware of the TelexFree-related allegations of securities fraud against Rodrigues in Massachusetts federal court when he was busted in New Jersey earlier his month on the immigration charge, those doubts have been put to rest.

    That’s because Mannion specifically referenced the TelexFree case. Indeed, the New Jersey judge informed Rodrigues that he’d deem it “evidence of the defendant preparing to flee” if the Massachusetts court determined the Brazil native had “moved assets” after the immigration bust and violated an injunction flowing from the SEC’s civil case against Rodrigues and seven others filed in April 2014.

    Such gamesmanship would be treated as a violation of his bail conditions in New Jersey, Mannion warned.

    Mannion also ordered Rodrigues to obtain “[m]ental heath testing/treatment” at the direction of pretrial services. No reason was cited.

    The SEC alleged last year that Rodrigues had claimed on YouTube that “God” made MLM and “binary” and that Rodrigues had claimed he’s “never going to stop this.”

    In 2006, Rodrigues was named an SEC defendant in a complaint that charged he operated a pyramid scheme known as Universo Fone Club that involved phone cards. TelexFree, which surfaced about six years later, purportedly sold VOIP services.

    In May 2014 — a month after the SEC brought the TelexFree-related action against Rodrigues and seven others — Rodrigues appears to have become involved in an unsuccessful effort to create the impression he’d been accorded honors by the Brazilian Senate.

    Rodrigues, according to court filings, informed Mannion that he owned two cars — one of them a 2007 Lamborghini of “unknown” value used for the purposes of “Business.” The other car, said to be worth $60,000, was not described.

    A “Sann Rodrigues” YouTube account shows Rodrigues posing with three flashy rides, including a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a Mercedes-Benz.

    Prior to his immigration arrest, the TelexFree huckster was seen tooling around in a Ferrari and playing highway cowboy. Rodrigues has a wife and two young children, according to court filings.

    Meanwhile, Rodrigues owns two “unencumbered” homes — one worth $400,000, the other $175,000 — and currently makes $80,000 a year, according to court filings.

    As the PP Blog reported on May 25, the IFreeX site went offline sometime after Rodrigues was arrested on the immigration charge. The reason why remains unclear.

    One thing that is clear is that Mannion also ordered Rodrigues not to break any federal, state or local laws while he was out on bail.

    The state of Massachusetts — the U.S. base of TelexFree — put out an IFreeX warning last year.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

     

     

  • Sann Rodrigues Released On ‘Conditions’

    Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for TelexFree.
    Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for TelexFree.

    TelexFree and IFreeX promoter Sann Rodrigues has been released on “conditions,” including “the surrender of his passport and the passports belonging to his family members, a $200,000 secured bond, 24-hour electronic monitoring, and home confinement.”

    A U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of New Jersey imposed the conditions on Rodrigues, according to a statement today by the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts. Here’s the headline of the release: “Pyramid Scheme Promoter Arrested on Visa Fraud Charges.”

    The release does not mention IFreeX, whose website went offline yesterday and was the subject of a warning by the Massachusetts Securities Division last year. But the release does mention TelexFree, noting that Rodrigues was charged in 2014 by the SEC “for his role in promoting TelexFree, a pyramid scheme that purported to sell a voice over Internet service.”

    At the same time, the release noted that Rodrigues had been charged by the SEC in 2006 with “owning and operating Universo Fone Club and defrauding investors of millions of dollars.” The SEC alleged that Universo Fone Club was a pyramid scheme.

    Rodrigues, of Davenport, Fla., was arrested earlier this month at Newark International Airport on visa-fraud charges after returning from Israel, prosecutors said.

    A citizen of Brazil, according to court filings, Rodrigues presented his U.S. “green card to Customs and Border Protection Officers on May 3, 2015, at Logan Airport [in Boston], knowing that he obtained that document based upon false statements to immigration officials,” prosecutors said.

    TelexFree operated from Massachusetts. A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee has said TelexFree gathered on the order of $1.8 billion in about two years.

    Read the full statement by prosecutors on the arrest of Rodrigues and his release on conditions.

  • IFreeX Site Offline; At Least 2 U.S. Officials Involved In TelexFree Ponzi Prosecution Also Involved In Sann Rodrigues Prosecution On Immigration Charge

    From a 2014 YouTube promo for iFreeX. Masking by PP Blog. In 2014, T-Mobile told the PP Blog that it was XX
    From a 2014 YouTube promo for iFreeX. Masking by PP Blog. In 2014, T-Mobile told the PP Blog that it was seeking to determine if IFreeX was misusing T-Mobile’s intellectual property.

    The website of IFreeX.com is offline. The PP Blog could not immediately determine why. Visitors are seeing a GoDaddy.com page.

    A PP Blog reader reported the outage at 6:49 p.m. EDT today. The outage occurred one week to the day after TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues was arrested at a New Jersey airport on allegations related to visa fraud.

    Google cache suggests IFreeX.com was online earlier today.

    As part of its reporting, the PP Blog has reviewed certain documents pertaining to the criminal prosecution of TelexFree figures James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler and documents pertaining to the immigration arrest of Rodrigues. The documents show that the same U.S. federal prosecutor is involved in both the Merrill/Wanzeler case and the immigration case involving Rodrigues.

    At the same time, the documents show that the same Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent also is involved in both prosecutions. In addition to filing paperwork against Rodrigues in the immigration case, the agent filed paperwork that led to the 2014 arrest on a TelexFree-related material-witness warrant at JFK Airport in New York of Katia Wanzeler.

    Katia is the wife of Carlos Wanzeler, who has been described by the United States as an international fugitive. Katia later was released. HSI, which conducted a TelexFree-related undercover operation beginning in 2013, is an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler were indicted in July 2014 on eight criminal counts of wire fraud and one criminal count of wire-fraud conspiracy. Earlier, in April 2014, Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler, Rodrigues and five others were charged civilly with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

    TelexFree, which hawked a VOIP service, has been described in Bankruptcy Court filings by a court-appointed trustee as a cross-border pyramid scheme that gathered $1.8 billion in about two years.

    Separately, BehindMLM.com is reporting in a story dated May 26 that a website known as 2PayNet also is offline. The site may be connected in some way with IFreeX.

    In September 2014, Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin described IFreeX as something that appeared “to be nothing more than a rebranded TelexFREE fraud for mobile phones.”

    On Oct. 1, 2014, T-Mobile told the PP Blog that it was seeking to determine if IFreeX was misusing T-Mobile’s intellectual property in online promos for IFreeX.

    The Department of Homeland Security also is involved in intellectual-property cases. It is unclear if the agency investigated IFreeX for abuse of intellectual property.

    Says DHS on its website (italics added):

    Intellectual property rights theft is not a victimless crime. It threatens U.S. businesses and robs hard-working Americans of their jobs, which negatively impacts the economy. It can also pose serious health and safety risks to consumers, and oftentimes, it fuels global organized crime.

    NOTE: In an affidavit accompanying the immigration complaint against Rodrigues, a footnote leads to a report on Rodrigues by the PP Blog. The story was published on Feb. 6, 2014. It is titled, “MORE FROM MLM LA-LA LAND: Former SEC Defendant In Pyramid-Scheme And Affinity-Fraud Case To Headline TelexFree Event In Spain.”

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

  • REPORTS: TelexFree Figure Sann Rodrigues Arrested In New Jersey

    Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for the TelexFree international convention in Spain in 2014.
    Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for the TelexFree international convention in Spain in 2014.

    BULLETIN: (Updated 9:27 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) TelexFree and iFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues has been arrested in New Jersey, according to the Blog of Joaldro Dalla “Billy” Costa, citing a report on radio station WSRO 650 AM in Framingham, Mass.

    Billy’s story is in Portuguese. Here is the English translation by Google Translate.

    Rodrigues — listed as Devasc Sanderley Rodrigues in online booking records and believed to be a native of Brazil who has lived in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Florida — appears to have been arrested May 18.

    On the same day, U.S. and Brazilian law-enforcement officials met in Washington, D.C. Whether the international talks and the arrest were a coincidence was not immediately clear.

    The records suggest Rodrigues was detained at the Essex County Correctional Facility.

    Billy’s story suggests the booking was immigration-related. The PP Blog could not immediately confirm the information.

    The Essex County site provides a link to http://www.eccorrections.org/inmatelookup. When the name Sanderley Rodrigues is typed into the form and viewers click on a follow-up link, a booking photo of Rodrigues appears.

    No release date appears, suggesting Rodrigues, 43, still is being held. Information on bond and a specific charge was not posted.

    Rodrigues was one of eight TelexFree figures charged civilly with securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He is a recidivist securities violator, according to the SEC.

    TelexFree, an alleged Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that may have gathered on the order of $1.8 billion in about two years, is under investigation by the SEC and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Alleged TelexFree operators James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler have been charged criminally.

    U.S. authorities have called Wanzeler an international fugitive perhaps living in Brazil.

    On May 18, officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, met in Washington with officials from the Brazilian National Police.

    The officials “discussed the joint commitment to continued information-sharing and conducting investigations into child exploitation, financial fraud and human trafficking, among other topics,” according to an ICE news release dated May 21.

     

  • (1) Ponzi Cash Allegedly Paid For ‘Breast Augmentation’; (2) John Sposato Case Shows ‘Small’ Schemes On U.S. Radar; (3) What UFunClub/UToken Investors Can Learn

    recommendedreading1A Louisiana man ripped off investors in a multifaceted Ponzi scheme and used some of the cash to buy a “new Chevrolet Camaro for one girlfriend and breast augmentation surgery [for] another girlfriend,” according to a bill of information filed against him.

    John Sposato, 64, of Slidell, has been charged with wire fraud, the office of U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite of the Eastern District of Louisiana said.

    Much of the charging document describes typical Ponzi fare. When payments were delayed, for instance, Sposato allegedly blamed events on the weather, family illnesses and “issues with the international financial institutions in which the funds were supposedly invested.”

    Perhaps hinting that prime-bank fraud was part of the swindle, the charging document references “international bank instruments.”

    Sposato also made “lulling payments” from “new investor money” to keep the Ponzi alive and to dupe investors into believing the scheme was legitimate, according to the charging document.

    In addition to the purported “international bank instruments,” Sposato also allegedly pushed supposedly “cutting edge oil remediation and recovery” and real-estate investments. The Sposato-linked companies referenced by prosecutors included Pegasus Investment & Development Corporation LLC; Pegasus Investments; Oil Eaters LLC; Organic Miracle Incorporation; S&J Corporate Properties LLC; Pegasus Demolition & Debris Removal Service LLC; and Pegasus Truck Lines Inc.

    The investments were described as “never at risk,” according to the charging document.

    As is the case in many schemes, Sposato’s investors allegedly were told “their principal investments were immune from market volatility and were secure from any losses.”

    UFunClub/UToken, a scheme currently under investigation in Thailand and also operating in the United States, has made similar claims, according to promoters. There also are reports about problems with banks and delayed or absent payouts. At the same time, there are reports that sports cars have been seized by police and that the UFun/UToen probe has spread to Malaysia.

    Read the Sposato charging document that alleges a Ponzi swindle of more than $811,000. Prosecutors said the scheme was “national” in scope , that 48 individuals in the United States invested with Sposato and that he “provided prospective investors false or fraudulent documents to make the investments appear legitimate and to conceal the true nature of the Ponzi scheme.”

    Like the Achieve Community case filed by the SEC in February, the Sposato case demonstrates that even “small” Ponzi schemes are on the radar of U.S. law enforcement.

    UFunClub/UToken, apt to have gathered a far greater sum than either Achieve or Sposato, may have affected tens of thousands of investors worldwide, including hundreds or more in the United States. As was the alleged case with Sposato, UFunClub/UToken may be operating through multiple companies.

     

     

  • BULLETIN: Traders Operated ‘The Cartel’; Banks Charged Criminally

    breakingnews72Forex traders at four multinational banks — Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland plc — formed “The Cartel” and conspired to manipulate the prices of the U.S. dollar and the euro, the U.S. Department of Justice said today.

    All four banks have been charged criminally in an investigation that began when Eric Holder was Attorney General, said Loretta Lynch, Holder’s successor.

    UBS AG, a fifth multinational, has been charged criminally with manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and other benchmark interest rates, the Justice Department said. The UBS prosecution came about after the agency ripped up an earlier nonprosecution agreement (NPA) with bank, alleging that UBS had violated the terms of a pact reached in December 2012 to resolve the LIBOR matter.

    Barclays also breached an NPA struck in June 2012 over the LIBOR matter and has agreed to pay an additional $60 million, the Justice Department said.

    The charges, all felonies, include conspiring to fix prices and rig bids. They are filed against Citicorp, Barclays, JPMorgan and RBS.

    A felony charge of wire fraud was filed against UBS, the Justice Department said.

    “In other words,” Lynch said, according to her prepared remarks released by the Justice Department, “UBS promised, in other resolutions, not to commit additional crimes — but it did.”

    As for Citicorp, Barclays, JPMorgan and RBS, Lynch said, “Starting as early as December 2007, currency traders at several multinational banks formed a group dubbed ‘The Cartel.’ It is perhaps fitting that those traders chose that name, as it aptly describes the brazenly illegal behavior they were engaged in on a near-daily basis. For more than five years, traders in ‘The Cartel’ used a private electronic chatroom to manipulate the spot market’s exchange rate between euros and dollars using coded language to conceal their collusion.”

    All five of the banks have agreed to plead guilty to the criminal charges at the “parent level,” the Justice Department said.

    Here, according to the Justice Department, are the market-manipulation timelines and the agreed-to criminal fines:

    • Citicorp, involved from as early as December 2007 until at least January 2013, $925 million.
    • Barclays, involved from as early as December 2007 until July 2011, and then from December 2011 until August 2012, $650 million.
    • JPMorgan, involved from at least as early as July 2010 until January 2013, $550 million.
    • RBS, involved from at least as early as December 2007 until at least April 2010, $395 million.
    • UBS (for NPA breach that occurred after December 2012), $203 million.

    A statement by the Justice Department includes the type of language the agency normally directs at street criminals when it is trying to send a message. In this instance, however, the language is directed at the banks. From the statement (italics added):

    Citicorp, Barclays, JPMorgan, RBS and UBS have each agreed to a three-year period of corporate probation, which, if approved by the court, will be overseen by the court and require regular reporting to authorities as well as cessation of all criminal activity.  All five banks will continue cooperating with the government’s ongoing criminal investigations, and no plea agreement prevents the department from prosecuting culpable individuals for related misconduct.  Citicorp, Barclays, JPMorgan and RBS have agreed to send disclosure notices to all of their customers and counter-parties that may have been affected by the sales and trading practices described in the plea agreements.

    Today, in connection with its FX investigation, the Federal Reserve also announced that it was imposing on the five banks fines of over $1.6 billion; and Barclays settled related claims with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for an additional combined penalty of approximately $1.3 billion.  In conjunction with previously announced settlements with regulatory agencies in the United States and abroad, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), today’s resolutions bring the total fines and penalties paid by these five banks for their conduct in the FX spot market to nearly $9 billion. 

    Holder, Lynch said, “oversaw this investigation from its inception.

    “His relentless work made this resolution possible, and I want to thank him for his commitment to this important effort,” she said.

    Lynch replaced Holder last month.

  • REPORTS: Police In Small Florida Town Of Eustis May Have Been Targeted For Attack With Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher

    Multiple media accounts coming out of North Central Florida say the Marion County Sheriff’s Office learned of a plot to attack the Eustis Police Department today with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

    The alleged plot apparently was foiled over the weekend. A news conference reportedly will be held at 2:30 p.m. EDT today. The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that two arrests have been made and that 22 weapons, black powder and drugs were found during a police action. The WFTV video below shows Eustis Police Chief Fred A.M. Cobb making early remarks.

    Eustis is a small city of about 19,000 in Lake County, which borders Marion County. The city’s website says the police department has 45 sworn officers and 15 additional employees. The Marion County Sheriff’s office is based in Ocala.

  • Bogus Offer To Take Over Avon Turns SEC Website Into Crime Scene

    Avon logoOn May 14, someone used the SEC’s EDGAR database to plant a bogus news release that claimed a company known as PTG Capital Partners LTD. had made an offer to buy out Avon Products Inc. for $18.75 a share. As NPR put it on May 15, this was “a huge premium.”

    DealBook, on May 14, reported that the “federal government’s system for filing securities documents may not be as secure as many on Wall Street assume.”

    Given that the typo-laden hoax that appears in part to have been a copy-and-paste job in which words were lifted from the website of a legitimate company caused Avon’s stock price to surge, the news release looked like a pump-and-dump bid. It could be that, of course.

    But it also could be something more sinister: a marketplace taunt, if not a taunt at the U.S. government itself that more or less screams, “Look what we can do! And we don’t need even to hire an editor!”

    The theatrics that effectively turned part of the SEC’s website into a crime scene appear to have gotten under way at roughly 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. Avon responded quickly, issuing a statement within about 90 minutes.

    “In response to an SEC filing made by an entity purporting to be named ‘PTG Capital Partners,’ Avon reports that it has not received any offer or other communication from such an entity and has not been able to confirm that such an entity exists,” the company said.

    Like A Ponzi-Board Scam

    Remember Profitable Sunrise, the egregious scam shut down by the SEC and state regulators in 2013? The SEC alleged that Profitable Sunrise operated from a “mail drop” in England and had a registered agent based in Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean.

    A listing for PTG Capital Partners on the SEC’s website claims the business has a street address in London and was incorporated in “BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY.”

    In a May 15 story, the Wall Street Journal, reporting on an FBI inquiry into the bogus Avon takeover bid and citing information from a U.K. government official, noted that “[t]here are no businesses registered in the British Indian Ocean Territory.”

    Any number of recent scams appear either to have fabricated U.K. addresses or used mail drops to reach out and pluck the masses. The utterly preposterous Rockfeller.biz was only one of them. Others include MooreFund and SummitOilProfits.

    These scams, which often use an MLM or network marketing component in which affiliates are promised recruitment commissions, are stealing millions and millions of dollars. The money disappears down ratholes.

    Now, Avon, an MLM company, appears to have been targeted in a similar scheme — one that may have the appearance of a pump-and-dump but perhaps was calculated to taunt the government.

    In March 2014, the SEC alleged that a “program” known as Fleet Mutual Wealth Limited (or Mutual Wealth) effectively had filed invalid Forms D with the commission to dupe the masses. “Pre-IPO” scams also are of concern. (See UFunClub.)

    Some international scammers allegedly have traded on American-sounding names to fleece their marks. (See ProfitsParadise.)

    The bogus PTG Capital Partners offer to buy Avon is of significant concern. It should be investigated as an attack on the free market.

     

     

     

     

  • BULLETIN: Zeek Receiver Names More International Clawback Defendants

    breakingnews72BULLETIN: (Updated 8:41 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) Zeek Rewards’ receiver Kenneth D. Bell has filed an amended clawback lawsuit that names 10 more defendants with addresses in the British Virgin Islands.

    Bell earlier sued five individuals with BVI addresses.

    One of the new defendants is alleged to have received more than $2.036 million from the Zeek Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. The development means that at least two BVI addressees now are alleged to have received more than $2 million each from the fraud.

    The 10 new alleged “winners” and sums:

    • Vernon Lettsome of Road Town, Tortola, $2,036,742.37 directly and through his shell company, VI Computer & Business Services, under one or more usernames, including “vicabs” and “vicabs1.”
    • Trevor Potter, no specific town listed, $293,221.85, under one or more usernames, including “tpo01.”
    • Simon Potter, no specific town listed, $230,570.611. under one or more usernames, including “potter.”
    • Esther Potter, no specific town listed, $187,990.96, under one or more usernames, including “LurenaPotter7.”
    • Elcina Frett, no specific town listed, $148,000.22, under one or more usernames, including “frette.”
    • Hercules Fraser, no specific town listed, $67, 201.35, under one or more usernames, including “reindeer01.”
    • Kishma Reefe, no specific town listed, $55,149.26, under one or more usernames, including “wq.”
    • Ruth Matthew, Road Town,Tortola, $136,277.95, under one or more usernames, including “ram01.”
    • Wesley Legair, Road Town, Tortola, $117,079.49, under one or more usernames, including “gkozy1.”
    • Sophia Richards, Road Town, Tortola, $96,238.79, under one or more usernames, including “sophiarich2.”

    In February, Bell named these five BVI addressees as clawback defendants:

    • Agnita Solomon, Road Town, Tortola, $2,057,355.61, under one or more usernames, including “ASolomon.”
    • Marguerite D. Hodge, $115,776.29, under one or more usernames, including “mdh01.” (In the amended complaint, Hodge’s addresses is listed as East End, Tortola. No specific town was listed in the original complaint.)
    • Susan Forbes, Tortola, $603,288.30, under one or more usernames, including “ladysue.”
    • Marcus Drigo, Road Town,Tortola, $70,262.52, under one or more usernames, including “mjblues.”
    • Patrice Harewood, Road Town, Tortola, $59,940.74, under one or more usernames, including “Susielee.”

    Each of the defendants named in February’s original complaint remains a defendant in the amended complaint. The amended complaint was docketed today in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

    Bell has sued international winners with addresses in the BVI, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil, Israel, France, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.

    Through a class-action complaint, he has sued more than 9,000 individuals with U.S. addresses.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

     

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Did Colombian Narcotics Cartel Use TelexFree To Wash Cash?

    breakingnews72Headline Updated 12:15 p.m. EDT Published reports in the Dominican Republic say authorities there are trying to determine if a man arrested in a Colombian money-laundering case involving the Clan Úsuaga narcotics cartel also was involved in TelexFree.

    Early reports are sketchy. Dominican media have identified the man as Jorge Mercedes Cedeño, describing him as an evangelical pastor in the Dominican Republic. Whether he had a specific church affiliation is unclear, but media reports say Colombian authorities believe churches in both Colombia and the Dominican Republic were used to wash cocaine cash.

    All in all, four people with alleged ties to the cartel were arrested in Colombia this week. At least one of them is a woman.

    From a May 12 Tweet by Colombian National Police:

    TelexFree may be the largest combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme in the history of MLM/networking-marketing. It may have gathered on the order of $1.8 billion in about two years of operation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security both are involved in a U.S.-based probe of TelexFree, and TelexFree also is under investigation in Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

    A TelexFree-related raid carried out last year by Dominican police occurred in the area of San Pedro de Macoris. That’s the same area in which Cedeño reportedly conducted his apparent ministry.

    The PP Blog reported on May 9 that a court filing in the TelexFree bankruptcy case references “reports related to Colombian investigation.” Although the nature of the Colombian probe is not spelled out in the filing, one individual from Colombia appears to have filed a claim for $3 million.

    TelexFree’s penetration of the Dominican Republic appears to have been staggering. One document in the bankruptcy case consists of 2,329 pages — a list of potential Dominican creditors. With about 55 potential creditors listed per page, the document suggests that TelexFree could have on the order of 128,000 creditors in that nation alone. Any number of individuals may have multiple TelexFree accounts.

    Here’s the lede in a May 13 story in Dominican Today that reports on the arrests in Colombia and local concerns over a possible TelexFree tie (italics added/verbatim):

    Santo Domingo.- The Justice Ministry’s Anti-money Laundering Unit on Wednesday reviewed computer files looking for evidence that a Colombian cartel used a local evangelical church to launder money is the same on that swindled hundreds of Dominican out of millions of dollars in the Telexfree scandal last year.

    Unit director Germán Miranda said they don’t rule out that the “pastor” Jorge Mercedes Cedeño, arrested in Colombia along with others, is the same being sought in connection with the Telexfree case since last year.