URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: TelexFree’s James Merrill To Plead Guilty, Reports Say
9TH UPDATE 2:08 P.M. EDT U.S.A. U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Hillman’s calendar shows a plea hearing for TelexFree operator James Merrill at 2:30 p.m. Monday at the federal courthouse in Worcester, Mass. The Boston Globe, citing the “U.S. Attorney,” is reporting Merrill will plead guilty “to fraud and other charges.” The Telegram & Gazette also is reporting […]
WCM777 Receiver Proposes To Disallow Huge Percentage Of Claims; Some ‘Leaders’ Allegedly ‘Perpetrated Their Own Side Scheme’
Because we’re writing about the uber-bizarre HYIP wing of MLM/direct sales, we’ll emphasize at the beginning of this story that the WCM777’s receiver’s recommendation to a federal judge to disallow nearly 85 percent of filed claims DOES NOT MEAN she gets to pocket the money from the disallowed claims. HYIP hucksters are infamous for recklessly […]
Firm In Which TelexFree Figure Faith Sloan Allegedly Hid Money Charged With Fraud In Separate Case
UPDATED 12:14 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Back in April 2014, the SEC charged online huckster Faith Sloan with fraud for pushing the TelexFree scheme. Two month later, in June 2014, the SEC accused Sloan of violating the TelexFree asset freeze by sending nearly $15,000 to an online scheme known as Changes Worldwide LLC for the purchase of “business […]
REPORT: Nicholas Smirnow, Pathway To Prosperity Operator, Sentenced To Prison In Canada
Nicholas Smirnow, the operator of the Pathway To Prosperity Ponzi-board “program” charged with fraud by U.S. authorities in 2010, has been sentenced in Canada to seven years in prison. News of the sentence appeared Sept. 30 at MuskokaRegion.com. Smirnow was arrested in Canada for P2P-related crimes in 2014. The United States has submitted an extradition […]
EDITORIAL: Traffic Monsoon Apologist Goes All-Trump, Calls Receiver ‘Piggy’ And ‘Lying Cow’
UPDATED 3:51 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Peggy Hunt, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney in Salt Lake City, is the court-appointed receiver in the SEC’s Ponzi- and securities-fraud case against Traffic Monsoon and Charles David Scoville. Her impressive Dorsey bio says she has worked in the areas of bankruptcy and receivership law for more than 25 years […]
BULLETIN: Judge Certifies Class-Action Lawsuit Against 15,000 Alleged TelexFree ‘Winners’ In United States
BULLETIN: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Melvin S. Hoffman has certified a defendant class-action lawsuit brought by TelexFree Trustee Stephen B. Darr against about 15,000 alleged TelexFree “net winners” in the United States. The ruling means “clawback” cases against alleged U.S. winners will proceed. Darr has alleged aggregate payments to the domestic net winners exceed $100 million and must […]
Payments To 41,000 Zeek Participants At Risk
If you were a claimant in Zeek Rewards — and if you did not submit the required OFAC certification and release — you are at risk of not receiving a payment from the court-appointed receiver. OFAC stands for the Office of Foreign Assets Control. As receiver Kenneth D. Bell explained on the FAQs section of the receivership […]
TELEXFREE: Prosecutors Docket Prospective Witness List And Exhibits Against James Merrill: Understanding The Background
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story, which easily could be titled “What NOT To Do In MLM,” summarizes a few of the witnesses and exhibits the U.S. government may use against TelexFree’s James Merrill when his trial gets under way Oct. 24 in Massachusetts. The background provided below is based on research by the PP Blog. Prosecutors filed their witness/exhibit […]
BULLETIN: Sann Rodrigues, TelexFree Figure, Agrees To Plead Guilty To Immigration Fraud
BULLETIN: (4th Update 7:23 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) Sann Rodrigues, a figure in the TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid-scheme case, has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of immigration fraud, court documents say. The agreement potentially puts the native Brazilian at risk of deportation and a U.S. prison term of up to 10 years. He last was […]
On National Drink Beer Day, SEC Announces Action Against Anheuser-Busch InBev
Anheuser-Busch InBev will pay $6 million to settle SEC charges “it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and chilled a whistleblower who reported the misconduct,” the SEC said. The SEC’s announcement came on National Drink Beer Day. Whether the timing of the announcement was a coincidence was not immediately clear. At issue, according to […]
Traffic Monsoon Apologist Declares ‘Revenue Shares Matter’ Campaign With ‘RIOT’ As Slogan
A former pitchman for the Traffic Monsoon “program” declared a Ponzi scheme by the SEC is using Facebook to promote a “Revenue Shares Matter Campaign.” This is occurring against the backdrop of three nights of civil unrest in Charlotte, N.C., after a police shooting of an African American man. The purported Revenue Shares Matter campaign, which […]