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Category: The Economy

The Cross-Border UFunClub Menace

From a promo for UFunClub/UToken online.

UPDATED 7:57 A.M. EDT U.S.A. UFunClub and its purported digital currency known as UToken are the latest examples of grandiose absurdities in the MLM/network-marketing HYIP sphere. These transnational schemes pose an untenable economic and political danger. They must be destroyed.

To the people of Thailand and likely an incredibly large number of people in other nations, UFunClub/UToken is what a combine/knife cutter bar is to a field of grain: The people — living, breathing human beings — have been reaped, threshed and winnowed by equal-opportunity MLM/network-marketing scammers operating with reckless abandon.

Some of the alleged scammers reportedly were driving hot red sports cars or black ones.

The heart of the scam is that people are being duped into believing they’re investing in something Bitcoin-like, only on the ground floor, only better and only without any inherent risks such as price volatility and imbalances in supply and demand. As the screen shot above demonstrates, investors are told UToken values only can rise and never can fall.

The identity of UToken’s official scorer and the location from which he or she delivers this purportedly permanent miracle are unknown.

What is known is that harebrained schemes in this sphere are infamous for con men such as AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin, a “man behind a green curtain” who fabricated numbers to make the impossible appear to be plausible. This was done prior to the collapse, of course.

After the 2008 collapse — and prior to the imposition of a prison sentence against Bowdoin — investors were falsely told the government didn’t understand the “program” and the new way of doing business electronically.

Rigging numbers to create eye-pleasing (and wallet-opening) math also is an element in the prosecution of Paul Burks and others from the Zeek Rewards scheme that collapsed into a pile of Ponzi and pyramid rubble in 2012.

Burks’ green curtain allegedly was situated in a North Carolina building with an attached coin-operated laundry. Bowdoin’s was in a former flower shop in Florida. UFunClub/UToken appears to have arranged a much better backdrop for photos: an office tower.

Drones And Cops

Despite the arrests of his colleagues and an ongoing pyramid/Ponzi investigation by the police in his host country, Jamison Palmer, an American UFunClub/UToken promoter living in Thailand, has positioned himself as an insider.

In the aftermath of Ponzi/pyramid police raids against UFunClub/UToken in Thailand, it’s important to have the “proper perspective,” Palmer drones on video, building a narrative that the police have been misinformed and that the “media” is the real culprit.

UFunClub/UToken is not a Ponzi or pyramid scheme and is not the problem, he contends. The problem is that “the media in Thailand is notoriously corrupt.”

For good measure, Palmer adds, “Here in Thailand, it’s possible to pay off the media. UFun has a lot of jealous competitors, and so that may be what we’re looking at here. There’s obviously some type of agenda.”

It is common for MLM/network-marketing firms and affiliates to blame events on competitors with axes to grind. (Read here how Dawn Wright-Olivares did so at Zeek Rewards before the SEC shut down the “opportunity” and before she was sued civilly and charged criminally.)

Even Thailand’s Prime Minister has recognized that the country’s media lies and twists things, Palmer contends.

The Prime Minister, according to Palmer, is on record saying that “he’s going to shut the media down” if reporters keep telling lies. Palmer did not explain how the head of a Democracy answerable to 67 million inhabitants would go about the draconian business of halting presses, blocking broadcast signals and preventing web publishing.

In the wake of the Thailand investigation, UFunClub has been working with their “teams of attorneys” and is preparing “a calculated response,” Palmer says, prodding investors not to lose faith.

“We’re planning on acquiring as many UTokens as we possibly can,” he says of his recruitment team.

But even the core stories surrounding UToken are hard to reconcile. Some promoters say at least 22 percent of its value is backed by gold. Palmer claims that UToken holds “money-generating assets” such as interests in Asian commercial developments and the “marble-mining project, which has an estimated value of tens of billions of dollars.”

These dollars prop up the purported UToken “reserve,” Palmer says.

Even as the Thai probe moves forward, questions have been raised about whether UFunClub/UToken has found political cover in Malaysia. If the answer proves to be yes, it will only add to the cross-border horror. (Please see Concluding Note at bottom of column on a PP Blog theory of what could be contributing to the impression that UFunClub/UToken is operating with impunity in Malaysia.)

Thai police have been on the case since at least April 10, the date raids were conducted and the first arrests were made. The dollar volume involved may exceed $1.17 billion (U.S.).

UFunClub/UToken likely is based in Asia. Exactly where is unclear, even though there is a glistening office building in Bangkok that promoters point to as proof no scam exists. The “program” may be operating through layered nominees in multiple Asian nations and through corrupt Asian distributors who effectively are the local faces of the “program,” but are puppets on a string to the true braintrust.

How deeply it has penetrated the United States is unclear. But if you look at the screen shot below from a UToken promo in English and then visit this story and review some of the graphics and narratives from the TelexFree and AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme stories, you will quickly learn that UFunClub/UToken promoters used the same insidious marketing methods that put nearly $2 billion on the table for TelexFree and ASD combined.

Compare these instructions given to UFunClub/UToken recruits to those given recruits of TelexFree and AdSurfDaily.

There have been reports that some UToken investors, unnerved by reports of investigations, are trying to offload their holdings. The same thing happened with TelexFree “AdCentrals.”

Make no mistake: UFunClub, like TelexFree before it, is doing things that encourage black-market profiteers. And because serial scamming is part and parcel to this noxious sphere, scammers within the larger scam can be relied upon to expand the black market.

Some UFunClub/UToken figures are considered international fugitives. Some of these figures may not be managers or principals at all. Rather, they may be individuals who rented their faces or credentials to the “program” to give it a veneer of legitimacy.

The UFunClub/UToken Band Plays On

Despite the well-documented actions of Thai police to contain the damage, the UFunClub/UToken band plays on in Malaysia. Propaganda videos from American cheerleaders for the schemes appeared online over the weekend. They show Dato Daniel Tay, UFun’s purported executive chairman, being given the welcome of a rock star. Never mind that he is a suspected international felon allegedly involved in a colossal cross-border fraud.

An Ongoing MLM Symphony Of The Bizarre

The U.S.- and Brazil-based TelexFree “program” was an alleged $1.8 billion, cross-border pyramid and Ponzi scheme that potentially affected more than 1 million people in virtually all corners of the earth. You didn’t really believe the absurd claims that President Obama had TelexFree’s back and that TelexFree was engaging in lawful crowdfunding, did you?

Zeek Rewards was an alleged $897 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. Zeek was promoted in part as a “private, invitation-only” program.

How is UFunClub/UToken being promoted? Well, as a “private member registration only” program. In short, UFunClub/UToken’s script apple didn’t fall very far from Zeek’s insidious tree.

Zeek may have scalded 800,000 or more investors while also triggering Ponzi clawback litigation against thousands and thousands of alleged “winners” across the world. The claim that Zeek was “private” did nothing to forestall these lawsuits.

In Thailand so far, the prospect of Zeek-like clawback lawsuits has not been raised. Instead, in the early days of the probe, police appear to have concentrated on seizing vehicles, homes and other personal property. MLM/network-marketing fraud schemes typically are labyrinths with interconnected rabbit holes.

What else does one see online about UToken? Convenient, shoehorned daily claims that UToken is better than Bitcoin and has perfected a means by which the UToken value, unlike Bitcoin, only will rise and never will fall. As noted above, there are companion claims that UToken is backed by gold. The odd thing about that is that gold values fluctuate — and yet UToken purportedly does not.

How is UToken’s purported permanent upward movement possible? Well, to hear the cheerleaders tell it, UFunClub also has investments in mineral mining (marble) and major construction projects that are indefatigable cash cows, apparently whether building occupancy and retail activity is zero percent or 100 percent and whether consumer and corporate buying power rises or falls.

Remember the 2008 economic crisis that swept across the world and caused, among other things, waves of foreclosures in the United States at rates unseen since the Great Depression? Remember those sad and disturbing images of the stick-shells of homes and commercial sites sitting empty, their partially installed, tattered insulation flapping in the wind?

To hear the UFunClub/UToken Happy Land cheerleaders tell it, UFunClub/UToken apparently insulates investors worldwide from all of that — in fact, from any negative that could come down the pike.

UFunClub’s apparently perfect investments in marble and development projects apparently also serve as a hedge against drops in the price of of government-issued currency, further guaranteeing that UToken never will go down. The natural extension of this fantastic line of logic is UToken will go up even if gold and real estate go down and even if the dollar crashes.

It’s purportedly win-win with UToken in perpetuity, 24/7/365, apparently even if a recession occurs across the world, even if terrorists carry out a political assassination or an attack against masses of people that panics the markets, even if a major power grid goes offline through infrastructure neglect or actions by terrorists, even if an earthquake ravages a major population center and destroys commerce in that area or releases a radiation cloud.

Reduced to its essence, nothing can cause UToken to go down, not even the current criminal investigation that likely will expand into other countries. The narrative holds that income from UToken will be “passive,” there will be “splits” when it reaches a certain dollar value, the wealth will rain down on members as a whole and create an endless number of “millionaires,” and UToken will start trading on NASDAQ in 2016.

Wouldn’t you just love to see an SEC registration statement or a prospectus for an offering tied to a digital currency that purportedly is backed by a “private” reserve and can never go down in value? Can you imagine a jaw-dropping footnote that reads, “UToken’s value is perennially guaranteed to increase because we hold investments in marble and profit-generating construction projects?”

Of course, UFun also purportedly engages in the sale of products such as cosmetics and perhaps juices. There’s not much talk about it, though. Almost all of the talk is about the miraculous marriage of businesses that apparently are unaffected by general marketplace conditions, inflation, interest rates, supply-chain issues, cross-border logistics and regional differences in money values.

Precisely who is keeping the books isn’t clear. Also unclear is how UFunClub/UToken deals with compliance issues in the dozens of countries in which it conducts operations.

The three screen shots in this PP Blog editorial are from the same online promo for UFunClub/UToken. Among the information not shown in the shots are references to a “home run” and these text lines (italics added/not in order as they appear in the text):

Talks and Agreements are also being held between the Chinese Governrment [sic] and UFUN Management to Officially Upgrade Utokens as China’s Recognized Digital Currency.

With so many more projects in The pipelines, It is no longer a SECRET that The Top Elites in Asia are Rushing to buy THEIR UTOKENS! And now it’s the English speakers turn to get their slice of this ever-growing massive pie!

NOTE

Please hold all bank wires until further notice

Hello Team,

I just got finished messaging with Jamison and have been told that we need to put a stop to sending wires altogether. They are on the verge of releasing their payment gateway and have asked that the wiring of funds cease. I do not have any further info about the payment gateway as of yet, but once that it established, we can move forward full steam ahead.

Based on the text lines, it seems clear that UFunClub/UToken has solicited investors across the world to wire money to the “program.” At some point, a marching order went out to stop using wires. This adds yet another layer of general murkiness.

A Special Message For American Promoters

This PP Blog column is mostly for “serial” American MLMers/network marketers who boarded the UFunClub/UToken train and became promoters: You are making your trade look ridiculous on a global scale. You are injuring people while you turn a blind eye and pursue illicit profits. You are making your country look ridiculous.

Some of you started as exporters of Ponzi and pyramid schemes. Now, you’re importing them to your friends, neighbors, family members and loved ones. It is not macular degeneration that afflicts you; it is willful blindness. You are not promoting capitalism and “freedom”; you are promoting naked greed and anarchy.

UFun/UToken is, at its essence, an insidious scam that relied on disguised, cross-border crowdfunding and claims about future IPOs to advance a preposterous offering fraud that is tied to an equally preposterous digital currency. The suggestions that Thailand is a “little” country and therefore there’s nothing to fear from the probe ring every bit as hollow as the claims that Profitable Sunrise investors had nothing to worry about because North Carolina was a “small” state.

History shows that the claims that TelexFree investors had nothing to fear because the original action was brought by the “small” Brazilian state of Acre were equally vapid.

More than anything else, UFunClub/UToken demonstrates there is no ceiling to the willful blindness and criminality within MLM and network marketing. A pulse is the only thing needed to become a target.

And once you become immersed in the lunacy, some of the lunatics who melted your brain even may try to get you to turn against your own country.

America got a new Attorney General yesterday. She very likely will have a relatively short stint, given that President Obama will leave office in early 2017.

Loretta Lynch nevertheless will have a chance to cement an enduring legacy. It could start with an all-out assault against the insidious schemes that are weakening America and its allies even as these words go to print.

Prospects across the world are being told to buy into UFunClub/UToken for sums ranging from $575 to $57,500 and that the “program” plans to begin trading on NASDAQ in 2016.

Concluding Note

Malaysia is coming under editorial fire for not cracking down on UFunClub/UToken. There are companion reports that a member of the prime minister’s family somehow is involved with the “program.”

There is do doubt that various MLM/network-marketing scams have tried to influence the political process and have thrown around money to politicians. This happened in the United States with AdSurfDaily, Zeek Rewards and WCM777, and prosecutors have pursued all three “programs” aggressively.

These schemes are heavily layered and murky. All investigations require time to “follow the money.” Dozens and dozens of money-moving conduits, shell companies and nominees could be in play. One way to reverse-engineer a scheme is for a government to inject capital into it and watch how and where the money moves. After that, a government can introduce chokeholds to stop the flow of illicit cash.

There is no doubt this happened in the United States with AdSurfDaily and TelexFree. It very likely also happened with Zeek, given that there are multiple active criminal prosecutions.

Looking at the current situation involving UFunClub/UToken in Malaysia, the PP Blog would not rule out the possibility that what appears to be inaction on the part of the government is not that at all. Viewing the seeming inaction in a favorable light, the PP Blog theorizes that the government may not fully understand the system and may be creating time to determine the extent to which the “program” established ties in the country and with whom.

We know, for example, that U.S. government agents working undercover were in rooms in which TelexFree cheerleading sessions were taking place — even as the scheme operated. Undercover investigators also interacted with AdSurfDaily promoters.

Could the same thing be happening in Malaysia with UFunClub/UToken? Could Malaysian agents be observing events and introducing money into the system to better understand what the government is dealing with?

Copycat scams are infamous in MLM/network marketing. To be sure, international criminals are observing events in both Thailand and Malaysia and will look to introduce ruinous schemes if they detect so much as a crack in national defenses.

The narratives surrounding UFunClub/UToken are shopworn, fantastically bizarre and betray colossal ignorance. Malaysia, a constitutional monarchy, has to understand this. Don’t rule out that it does and that it has infiltrated the “program.”

If it hasn’t or if it is covering up the actions of the political elite, it might as well post a sign that says it welcomes thieves drunk on their own narratives operating within its borders.

Apr 28, 2015
BULLETIN: Receiver Seeks Default Judgments Against Key Zeek Rewards’ Clawback Defendants

BULLETIN: (6th Update 8:34 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) Zeek Rewards’ receiver Kenneth D. Bell has gone to federal court in the Western District of North Carolina, seeking default judgments against key clawback defendants and alleged “winners” Trudy Gilmond and Jerry Napier, a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme story.

Bell is seeking more than $2.129 million from Gilmond. He is seeking more than $2.041 million from Napier.

Both Gilmond and Napier failed to defend the actions against them — with Gilmond missing an April 3 deposition in Vermont and Napier missing an April 2 deposition in Detroit, Bell wrote in a court filing.

In the alternative, Bell is asking Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen to force Gilmond and Napier to appear in Mullen’s North Carolina courtroom no later than May 15 to “show cause as to why default judgment should not be entered against” them.

This is from Bell’s assertions against Gilmond (italics added/light editing performed):

In granting the Receiver’s Motion for Class Certification, the Court held that all Named Defendants, including Ms. Gilmond and her company, would need to “provide the Receiver with any and all evidence of their financial status and the location of all net winnings received from ZeekRewards, including deposition testimony as to the same.” . . .

Pursuant to this Order, the Receiver noticed Defendants’ deposition for April 3, 2015 in Vermont, Ms. Gilmond’s state of residence, in compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Ex. 1, Notice of Deposition of Trudy Gilmond and Trudy Gilmond, LLC. The Notice was served on Defendants’ counsel via U.S. mail, hand delivery and email on February 27, 2015. Id. And, after Defendants’ counsel withdrew from the case, the Notice was also sent directly to Ms. Gilmond via email at an email address provided by her now former counsel.

In spite of the Court’s Order and repeated notice, Ms. Gilmond has refused to appear for her noticed deposition.

Largely the same assertion was made against Napier.

Zeek Rewards is believed to be one of the largest MLM/network-marketing Ponzi- and pyramid schemes in U.S. history. The “program” allegedly gathered $897 million.

The SEC shut down Zeek Rewards in August 2012.

Even being “flexible on the logistics” of the Gilmond and Napier depositions was not enough to get them to appear, Bell contended.

From the receiver’s assertions against Napier (italics added):

In sum, it seems clear that Mr. Napier does not intend to appear for a deposition or produce the related requested documents. He has offered no explanation for his refusal to appear or otherwise defend the action. Accordingly, it is appropriate for the Receiver to move the Court for judgment against Mr. Napier and the alternative relief requested.

Largely the same assertion was made against Gilmond.

In the earliest days of the SEC’s action, Gilmond litigated aggressively. She continued to do so as Bell pursued clawbacks from more than 9,000 alleged Zeek winners.

Why she apparently isn’t doing so now is unclear.

Bell has expressed concerns that some MLMers/network marketers are moving from one fraud scheme to another.

NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

Apr 24, 2015
Loretta Lynch Confirmed As Attorney General

BULLETIN: The U.S. Senate — after a period of considerable partisan rancor and delay — has approved Loretta Lynch to be the next Attorney General of the United States. She will replace Eric Holder.

A statement by Barack Obama, the President of the United States (italics added):

Today, the Senate finally confirmed Loretta Lynch to be America’s next Attorney General – and America will be better off for it. Loretta has spent her life fighting for the fair and equal justice that is the foundation of our democracy. As head of the Justice Department, she will oversee a vast portfolio of cases, including counterterrorism and voting rights; public corruption and white-collar crime; judicial recommendations and policy reviews – all of which matter to the lives of every American, and shape the story of our country. She will bring to bear her experience as a tough, independent, and well-respected prosecutor on key, bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform. And she will build on our progress in combatting newer threats like cybercrime. Loretta’s confirmation ensures that we are better positioned to keep our communities safe, keep our nation secure, and ensure that every American experiences justice under the law.

The New York Times put the vote at 56-43, reporting that 10 Republicans voted to confirm Lynch. She will become the first African American woman to hold the job.

Obama nominated Lynch in November. Although her qualifications never were in much doubt, some Republicans saw her as too friendly to Obama’s immigration policies, especially those instituted by executive action.

Apr 23, 2015
RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Bank Of The Underworld’

UPDATED 12:12 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A thoughtful reader sent this along this morning. It’s a story by Jake Halpern in The Atlantic titled, “Bank of the Underworld[:] Liberty Reserve was like PayPal for the unbanked. Was it also a global money-laundering operation?”

Here’s a snippet (italics added):

Costa Rica was also increasingly known as a place where dirty money could be cleaned. The country’s geography—with drug producers to the south and their customers to the north—was ideal for money launderers. According to Global Financial Integrity, a nonprofit that monitors international money laundering, Costa Rica exported $5.4 billion in laundered money in 2006, equivalent to 24 percent of its GDP. By 2012, that number was up to $21.6 billion—a whopping 48 percent of GDP. Ólger Bogantes Calvo, the deputy director of the country’s anti-narcotics enforcement agency, told me that the government simply never has the funds, manpower, or materiel to fight the criminal elements it faces. “Realistically, [the criminals] will always be a step ahead,” he said.

Liberty Reserve, the choice of HYIP Ponzi schemers and other criminals, is DOA, of course. Post-Liberty Reserve, however, it might be a good time for investors and prospects of SVM Global Initiative to question why a purported arm of the New York City-based enterprise extends into Costa Rica.

Such a question might help educate the MLM/network-marketing masses who continue to push one bizarre scheme after another. After all, the highly publicized Liberty Reserve case was brought in the Southern District of New York, the same venue in which SVM appears to be operating with a purported “professional intuitive” at the helm.

SolidTrustPay, an offshore processor that had been friendly to the AdSurfDaily and Zeek Rewards Ponzi schemes, reportedly is in the SVM fold. (In a complaint announced April 14, the SEC said a Ponzi scheme known as CashFlowBot and perhaps better known as DollarMonster was using STP.)

While they’re at it, MLMers/network marketers might want to question why SVM appears to be contemplating a “advertising” module of some sort.

And they also might want to question why AdSurfDaily “advertising” Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin allegedly once hopped on a plane and ventured to Costa Rica.

Meanwhile, they might want to question why cross-border schemes such as TelexFree ($1.8 billion) and Zeek Rewards ($897 million) had “advertising” components.

Speaking of “advertising”: The emerging MAPS cross-border scheme has the word in its name — along with promoters’ ties to Zeek and TelexFree. Like Zeek and ASD, MAPS, short for My Advertising Pays, says it takes SolidTrustPay.

Apr 23, 2015
UFUNCLUB: Securities Division ‘Will Look Into The Extent Of A Colorado Connection’

As Thailand investigates UFunClub and UToken, U.S. regulators may be asking questions.

UPDATED 10:52 A.M. EDT U.S.A. The Colorado Division of Securities said it “will look into the extent” of promotional ties the UFunClub “program” now under investigation in Thailand may have in the state.

Whether other U.S. states would follow Colorado’s lead was not immediately clear. Earlier cross-border MLM/network-marketing schemes such as Profitable Sunrise and WCM777 met stiff resistance from state-level regulators.

The dollar volume of UFunClub’s alleged fraud may be mushrooming. Early reports pegged it at about $307 million (U.S.). Citing Thailand police, the Bangkok Post yesterday reported the sum could rise to 38 billion baht, the equivalent of more than $1.17 billion (U.S.).

If the number holds, UFunClub would rival in dollar volume the $1.8 billion TelexFree scheme shut down by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2014 and surpass the $897 million allegedly collected by the Zeek Rewards scheme before its 2012 shutdown by the SEC.

Prior to Monday, the Colorado Division was unfamiliar with UFunClub, said Lillian Alves, Colorado’s Deputy Securities Commissioner.

Some UFunClub promoters have claimed that Jamison Palmer, a purported UFunClub “VIP,” moved from Colorado to Asia to promote the “program” and a companion digital currency known as “UToken.”

Palmer, according to posts attributed to him online, has claimed UToken is the “future” of digital currency. He further has claimed the United States is using the “dollar” and its “banking system” to “blackmail the rest of the world.”

Palmer’s full name is Michael Jamison Palmer. He is associated with several Colorado businesses and has used a Colorado Area Code and addresses in Centennial, Broomfield and Superior. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.

These Palmer businesses include Max Response LLC, Red Spider Media LLC, Insider Secrets Club LLC, MasculineLife, a magazine for men, and Woman’sLife, a magazine for women.

On April 19, the PP Blog reported that an individual who spoke on an April 14 conference call for a “program” known as SVM Global Initiative made a veiled reference to UFunClub during the SVM call. The person identified himself as “Nelson” and said he was calling from “Saskatchewan, Canada.”

Before getting off the SVM line, “Nelson” described the United States as “the Republic of the United States of America.” It is a term associated with “sovereign citizens.”

SVM operator Sheila V. Tabarsi has claimed she is under investigation by the FBI. She also has claimed the “Bush administration” had the aim of shutting out 99 percent of the world population from wealth flows.

Tabarsi conducted another SVM call on April 20.

During this call, she claimed to be a “professional intuitive” — a fancy name for a psychic.

She also repeatedly dropped the name of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and also the name of Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a state Senator who represents the Bronx in New York.

SVM may operate in part from the Bronx and Manhattan.

During her business career, Tabarsi said, she became “one removed” from Kerry, and “John Kerry was helping with, you know, with whatever my needs were as I was in the process of developing this further . . . That’s Secretary of State John Kerry.”

It is not unusual for MLMers/network-marketers to drop the names of famous people or members of the government as a means of creating a veneer of legitimacy for a scheme. (As just one example, Zeek Rewards clawback defendant T. LeMont Silver, in a 2014 promo for a Bitcoin-themed scheme known as BitClub Network, dropped the names of California Gov. Jerry Brown, “China’s Central Bank Governor” and Gerogy Luntovsky, “deputy chairman of the bank of Russia.”)

At one point, Tabarsi referred to Kerry as just plain “John,” almost as though she could pick up the phone and get him on the line with no trouble at all.

Tabarsi further contended that she had the ability to read minds over the Internet, perhaps particularly the minds of SVM critics who’ve raised questions about the “program” on Blogs such as BehindMLM.com, which covers emerging MLM schemes.

“I used my own abilities as an empath and a telepath to read their body and read their feelings and read their minds and hear what they’re really thinking behind what they’re saying,” she claimed.

Apr 22, 2015
BRIEF: ‘Digadz’ Admin Reportedly ‘Paralyzed’

“Beejay,” the purported “admin” of a “program” known as “Digadz,” is “seriously injured and [his] whole body is paralyzed,” according to chatter circulating on Facebook and on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum.

The purported cause was an automobile accident at an unspecified location, according to the chatter. Beejay purportedly was the admin of a previous scheme known as AdBonuz.

Skeptics immediately questioned the paralysis claim. The PP Blog cannot independently confirm the report that Beejay suddenly confronted a grave medical circumstance.

Parts of the report appear to conflict with one another. Although the claim was made that Beejay’s entire body was paralyzed, another part of the same report claims “he can move one finger and can speak a little but cannot write.”

The report was attributed to “his wife,” who purportedly sent out a text message to someone who’d been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to contact “Beejay.”

“His wife,” according to the report, “forbid him to work.”

Claims of sudden illnesses and medical emergencies inflicting “program” figures are common in the HYIP sphere. So are claims of violent windstorms affecting payouts or claims that an admin had to travel to attend a funeral or a wedding.

“Dengue fever” was a purported element in the JSSTripler 2 Ponzi-board fraud in 2012. JSS Tripler 2, which apparently stole its name from another Ponzi-board scam and hatched at least two other companion frauds (T2MoneyKlub and Compound 150), later disappeared.

A Massachusetts-based scam known as World Marketing Direct Selling (WMDS) and OneUniverseOnline (1UOL) and aimed at Cambodian immigrants blamed Hurricane Katrina for payout delays. In 2014, reports surfaced that a scheme whose admins went missing was affected by Typhoon Vongfong. This scheme was known as “BitcoinTrader.”

NOTE: Thanks to Eagle Research Associates for providing info for this story.

Apr 20, 2015
COLORADO: ‘Achieve Community’ Subject Of ‘Order To Show Cause’

UPDATED 6:17 A.M. EDT APRIL 21 U.S.A. The Colorado Division of Securities has directed an “Order to Show Cause” to “Achieve Community,” alleged in February 2015 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to be a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that gathered at least $3.8 million.

Colorado’s order cites a “Division Case No.” of “XY 15-CD-08.” This may mean the Division has filed a crease-and-desist order against Achieve. Details were not immediately clear, but a hearing was scheduled for April 17.

“We do expect to issue orders in Achieve community this week,” said Lillian Alves, Colorado’s Deputy Securities Commissioner.

And, she noted, “We plan on doing a statement later this week.”

Based on information on Colorado’s website, the Show Cause order applies to “The Achieve Community; Achieve International, LLC; Work with Troy Barnes, Inc.; Kristine Johnson ( Also known as Kristi Johnson).”

Johnson, of Colorado, and Barnes, of Michigan, were the alleged operators of Achieve Community.

Achieve was known to be under investigation by the Division, Colorado’s state-level securities regulator. On Feb. 18, the Division said that “[t]he factual basis of our investigation parallels that of the SEC case.”

The SEC complaint described Achieve Community as a “pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme” whose revenue “has consisted entirely of investor-contributed funds.”

Achieve International, an entity named a relief defendant in the SEC’s case, has been tied by the SEC to Johnson. At noted above, Achieve International likewise is cited in Colorado’s state-level proceeding.

The action at the state level shows that scams using an MLM or network-marketing business model also may face local trouble — in addition to the trouble they encounter through actions filed by federal agencies such as the SEC.

Some Achieve Community promoters pushed multiple HYIP schemes simultaneously. Some of them, including “Bring The Bacon Home” and “Trinity Lines,” appear already to have gone belly-up. RockFeller.biz, also pushed by some Achieve Community hucksters, may be experiencing payout delays, a source told the PP Blog last week.

Payout delays typically are a sign of doom in the HYIP sphere.

Americans and other peoples of the world who push HYIP schemes may be helping criminal networks gain size — and therefore the ability to steal larger and larger sums of money.

Some Americans are known to have pushed “UFunClub,” a scheme now under investigation in Thailand. Arrests have been made overseas in the UFunClub case, and the dollar volume involved may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The PP Blog reported yesterday that a veiled reference to UFunClub was made last week in a conference call for a “program” known as “SVM Global Initiative.” This may suggest the two cross-border “programs” have promoters in common.

Some of the language on the SVM call was reminiscent of language used by “sovereign citizens,” groups of individuals that — though perhaps loosely connected — may push scams and engage in antigovernment extremism.

Apr 20, 2015
PP Blog Addresses Change In Google Search Algorithm To Accommodate ‘Mobile’ Readers

The PP Blog on a desktop or laptop (left), and the Blog on an Android or Windows mobile phone (right). The Blog is making certain changes to accommodate a change in the Google search algorithm that reportedly will benefit users of mobile devices.

The PP Blog has been experimenting with ways to render the Blog better on mobile phones. This has occurred in response to an upcoming change in the Google search algorithm.

“Starting April 21, Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal,” Google said. “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results optimized for their devices.”

Desktop and laptop visitors to the PP Blog should continue to see something that approximates the rendering at the left, as shown in the screen shot on the left. Mobile-phone readers should see something that approximates the rendering shown on the right side of the screen shot.

Because we’re still experimenting, some mobile readers may see something that approximates the image below.

As the Blog adjusts to changes in the Google search algorithm, some mobile readers will see a rendering approximating the one shown in this screen shot.

In Response To The Change In The Google Search Algorithm

The Blog is using the mobile utility of Jetpack now and also has been testing WPtouch.

In the spirit of this transition to accommodate mobile traffic, the Blog has adopted a mobile favicon and implemented some other changes. One of them is that we’ve brought back Gravatars. We briefly used them long ago, but dropped them because we were concerned about a drag on system resources.

After years of Blogging, we’re still inexpert at SEO. Along those lines, we have continuing concerns about material online that is presented not as free-form journalism, but as an effort to steal traffic and game search engines.

Here we’ll point out that Akismet has blocked more than 1.366 million spams sent to the PP Blog by bots and humans over the past six years. (Yes, more than 1.366 million.)

These forced interlopers want to ride on our bandwidth — usually in a bid to send traffic to an almost countless number of schemes, including knockoff designer goods. In recent days, the Akismet system blocked a spam from a sender with the name of “isis,” so some people apparently have adopted the belief that there’s money to be made by adopting the moniker of an international terrorist organization that beheads journalists, humanitarian aid workers and other human beings it enslaves.

And, as the Blog reported last year in the context of our TelexFree coverage, some HYIP spammers were trying to use the name of traditional MLM companies to drive traffic to outrageous fraud schemes. (This occurred after some MLMers spammed funeral notices in pursuit on downline recruits for TelexFree, of course.)

At the moment, it’s hard to say precisely what this change in the Google search algorithm will mean to the PP Blog. One Google analysis says we’ve passed the test, but another says we’re still not mobile-friendly.

DISCLOSURE: The PP Blog has a business relationship with Google.

Apr 19, 2015
In Conference Call For ‘SVM Global Initiative,’ Speaker Makes Veiled Reference To UFunClub Cross-Border Scheme Under Investigation In Thailand: Are North American ‘Sovereign Citizens’ At Work?

Are “sovereign citizens” immersed in the “SVM Global Initiative” and “UFunClub” cross-border, network-marketing schemes?

“Sovereign citizens” may have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. It is not unusual for them to be involved in financial fraud, and some “sovereigns” have been linked to MLM HYIP frauds and securities offering frauds.

Individuals who join such schemes may not understand they have signed on to enterprises engaging in international fraud and that a political agenda or even political extremism may be driving events.

In a conference call Tuesday night for SVM, a man who identified himself as “Nelson” calling from “Saskatchewan, Canada” came on the line. He explained that he’d been with SVM “from the very beginning” and was involved in “world-shaking affairs, including the global currency reset.”

Precisely what constituted the purported “reset” wasn’t explained, but the term has been associated with banking conspiracy theorists and “sovereign citizens.” AdSurfDaily Ponzi story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, for instance, allegedly claimed “the Rothschilds” were hiding in a “bunker in India” while controlling the central bank of Iraq, according to a 2011 complaint against Leaming that accused him of filing bogus liens against public officials and other crimes.

The complaint was filed by a member of an FBI Terrorism Task Force operating in Washington state. Leaming, who’d been under federal surveillance, later was convicted on charges of filing false liens, harboring two federal fugitives wanted in a separate home-business caper in Arkansas and being a felon in possession of firearms.

Banking conditions in Iraq were causing the Rothschilds to lose money, and the “inner circle” is “jumping ship,” Leaming allegedly told a colleague, “just like body odor’s inner circle in the White House.”

“Body odor” was a veiled reference to President Obama. ASD was a “program” that claimed a daily payout rate of 1 percent. The $119 million scheme spread over the Internet, creating thousands of victims. ASD was broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008.

A Troubling Narrative: Was A Rallying Cry Of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ Part Of It?

On the call hosted by SVM’s Sheila V. Tabarsi, “Nelson” further ventured that he had “many connections in the international banking arena.

“I have many connections in law; I have many connections in military — on and on and on,” he said.

During his fawning over SVM, “Nelson” went on to make a veiled reference to UFunClub, now the subject of a major investigation in Thailand. This leads to questions about whether he is involved in two separate cross-border schemes and whether other SVM members also are pushing multiple schemes.

“Nelson” said this before he got off the line (italics added):

“And God Bless the Republic of the United States of America.”

It is a term often associated with “sovereign citizens” and, in written form, may be abbreviated and stylized RuSA. The term is closely associated with James Timothy “Tim” Turner, who was sentenced to federal prison in 2013 for his role in a bizarre tax scam. (Also see Quatloos thread on RuSA.)

BehindMLM.com’s Review Of SVM

Here we’ll point you to BehindMLM.com’s April 13 review of SVM. We’ll note that the Tuesday SVM call more or less was an effort to slime the online publication, which reports on emerging MLM schemes.

SVM appears to operate out of Greater New York City, perhaps from the Bronx and Manhattan — with an arm in Costa Rica.

Prior to “Nelson” coming on the line, Tabarsi asserted BehindMLM.com was a “pawn” and a “coward” that works with an unidentified third party to “bring network-marketing companies down.”

“To me, this is real Illuminati kind of stuff,” Tabarsi said. “Granted, the success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative could do some devastating things to the network-marketing industry.”

Other MLM schemes have trotted out the theme that dark forces — usually cast as competitors unhappy that downlines are leaving one “program” because another has found the Holy Grail — are controlling things behind the scenes or secretly. It is not unusual for political rhetoric, conspiracy theories or antigovernment sentiment to become part of the narrative, and this may be happening with SVM.

Tabarsi, for example, said during Tuesday’s call that the “Bush administration” was involved in an “effort to dismantle this world economy” and that the effort has been “so concentrated” and “so diligent.”

The aim, she contended, was to concentrate 99 percent of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

“We are a threat to that,” she said. “The success of Sheila V and Associates and the SVM Global Initiative is a threat to this establishment that is trying so long and so hard to take everybody down.”

Any number of MLM schemes have advanced forms of this narrative. The $1.8 billion TelexFree scheme broken up by the SEC last year was positioned as a “revolution” that would put wealth in the hands of ordinary people. Though much smaller in scale, the Achieve Community scheme broken up by the SEC earlier this year advanced a similar narrative.

TelexFree and Achieve — like the Zeek Rewards scheme in 2012 — were operating combined Ponzi- and pyramid schemes, the SEC has alleged.

SVM, through Tabarsi, has positioned itself a network-marketing enterprise with three arms. Working together, these three arms — Sheila V. and Associates LLC (New York), The Marketplace at SV&A LLC (Costa Rica) and SVM Redesign Your Life America with an organ called “The Freedom Fund” — purportedly will elevate people out of poverty.

On her website, Tabarsi says she is a “4th Generation Native Cherokee/African American Spiritual Life Coach, Universal Life Church Minister, Business and Medical Intuitive with 17 active years of practice performing Clair-empathic healings and various forms of intuitive readings.”

She also notes she is a “corporate administrative manager, former U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant and Veteran of the ’91 Gulf War” who established “SVM ReDesign Your Life America, a non-profit organization to convert abandoned military bases into places to end poverty and homelessness.”

In a March conference call, she claimed she was under investigation by a U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, among others. She denies she has done anything wrong.

“The FBI is involved only because I have international clients, but not that there’s too much they can really act on,” she said during the call last month.

Because SVM says it has a presence in the Bronx and Manhattan, the PP Blog on Wednesday contacted the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York for comment on SVM, UFunClub and “Nelson’s” line about the “Republic of the United States of America” during the Tuesday SVM call.

The office has not responded to the request.

NOTE: Also see the MLM Skeptic Blog: “Is a Scam Targeting Veterans ‘to end poverty’ citing a FAKE JAG lawyer?”

Apr 19, 2015
EDITORIAL: SEC Announced TelexFree Prosecution 1 Year Ago Today, But Many MLMers Have Missed Or Ignored The Lessons

UPDATED 7:10 A.M. EDT APRIL 18 U.S.A. A year has passed since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the prosecution of TelexFree. Here’s the lede from the PP Blog’s story on April 17, 2014:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against the alleged TelexFree pyramid scheme and a federal judge has granted an asset freeze.

TelexFree was a sham to mask an investment scheme known as “AdCentral” in which affiliates were told they could earn money without selling anything as long as they placed “meaningless ads” for the the program’s VOIP product on the Internet “and recruit[ed] others to do the same,” the SEC charged.

The TelexFree “program” was targeted mainly at “Dominican and Brazilian immigrants in the U.S.,” the SEC alleged.

We learned later that TelexFree had been under investigation since at least October 2013 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This probe was part of an undercover operation. A criminal complaint was filed against alleged TelexFree principals James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler in May 2014. They were indicted in July 2014.

Merrill is free on bail and is awaiting trial. U.S. prosecutors say Wanzeler ducked out of the United States via Canada in April 2014 and boarded a flight to Brazil. They describe him as a fugitive.

Some TelexFree members sent doodles to the federal judge presiding over the SEC’s fraud case. Redaction by PP Blog.

Carlos Costa, a TelexFree figure in Brazil, tried to turn the tables on investigators by running for a seat in Brazil’s Congress. This occurred alongside claims by U.S. prosecutors that TelexFree “has a disturbingly cult-like quality.”

Federal Police in Brazil carried out “Operation Orion” against TelexFree in July 2014. Costa reportedly suffered a nonfatal heart attack on Sept. 2, 2014. In October 2014, he was trounced at the polls in Brazil.

In a February 2015 filing in the TelexFree bankruptcy case, trustee Stephen B. Darr called TelexFree a “pyramid scheme” that may have involved 1 million or more participants globally and gathered as much as $1.8 billion in about two years of cross-border operation.

If the numbers hold up, it would mean that TelexFree has surpassed the Zeek Rewards scheme in both victims’ count and haul. Zeek is estimated to have created about 800,000 victims, while gathering about $897 million. Zeek was shut down by the SEC in August 2012. Zeek also operated for about two years.

Prior to Darr’s February 2015 observations about TelexFree, the SEC — in January 2015 — tweeted that its April 14, 2014, announcement about the TelexFree prosecution was the “#1 most-viewed news” item on the agency’s website last year.

Regardless, any number of American MLMers appear to have ignored important lessons that could be learned from the TelexFree and Zeek cases. “Programs” such as “Achieve Community” and “Wings Network” and “UFunClub” rose to the fore.

The SEC has brought charges against Achieve and Wings. UFunClub is under investigation in Thailand. There have been reports about arrests and suspects fleeing. Early reports put the U.S. dollar sum involved at $307 million.

Apr 17, 2015
Two Readers Who Made A Difference — And How You Can, Too

NOTE: This post originally was published March 30 at 12:21 a.m. It will remain in this slot for several days, but new posts will appear below it.

Dear Readers,

In November, I introduced “penny-a-post” annual subscriptions. These were designed to allow readers to value the PP Blog’s editorial well of 2,500 articles between 1 cent and 4 cents each.

A couple of my readers did something special for me: They subscribed twice — first at the $25 level in November, and then once again in January and February, respectively. They have been with me for a long time, practically since Day One. They play active roles in the antiscam community and have helped educate many, many people across the world.

I am deeply appreciative for what they did. It was most unexpected, and provided one of those moments that restore a doubting soul. I hadn’t even contemplated double-subscribers.

Even so — and despite the fact these two extremely thoughtful readers created a life-affirming moment for me — I want to discourage double subscriptions. One has to be enough, at whatever level an individual reader can comfortably afford.

In thinking about their gesture toward me and this Blog and what I need to do to survive contractions or inconsistent revenue in other areas, I have come up with another approach. I am hoping several of you will become a special type of subscriber, a PPBlog100 subscriber.

When I introduced the penny-a-post theme, I was hoping to attract 25 subscribers at the $25 level immediately and another 100 to 150 within a few months. I expected a smaller number at the higher levels, perhaps 50 or so spread across the three other options during the course of a year. It was my hope that the numbers in all the penny categories would build as the months progressed.

As I saw it, new subscribers coming aboard each month would improve month-to-month revenue and perhaps even fortify it by guarding against revenue declines elsewhere. The automatic renewals a year later, coupled with staggered renewal times across a 12-month period, would reduce the number of fires in a very uncertain world for journalists and publishing in general.

Because the volume at the $25 level simply isn’t where I need it to be and I managed only to pick up one subscriber at a level higher than $25, I am now introducing a $100-only category, the PPBlog100. It is my hope this category will help maximize revenue on a per-subscriber basis in the immediate near term while giving the lower levels — especially the $25 and $50 levels — more time to grow.

Regardless of category, all paid subscribers will be helping keep the Blog free for those who cannot afford to subscribe and for those who simply choose not to. There is no paywall at the PP Blog.

Our editorial well now stands at 2,627 posts since December 2008. Our stories help keep people out of harm’s way and provide genuine opportunities to learn. When something reminds us of something else — an emerging fraud scheme pulling the same tricks as an earlier scheme — we inform readers. The sooner they spot the pattern, the safer they will be.

Much of the history of the online Ponzi world since the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008 is recorded in our well. We connect dots and describe patterns and common themes. Some readers and researchers use the Blog as a means of understanding how schemes evolve.

The button below is solely for the $100 PPBlog100 subscription with annual renewal. No one who has to dig deep should subscribe at the $100 level. It is for readers who can do so comfortably and want to make sure that the Blog and I can continue to weather the continued storm in publishing.

The other options remain available here.

My sincere thanks goes to all of my readers — tonight especially to the two described above and others like them who have gone the extra mile as the battle against the cross-border Ponzi scourge continues.

Patrick

Apr 15, 2015