Category: The Economy
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BULLETIN: Prosecutors, FBI Say Man Engineered $28 Million Securities Fraud By Manipulating Court With Aid Of ‘Sham Lawsuits’ Brought By ‘Florida-Based Lawyers’ Who Obtained ‘Pleadings From A Single Manhattan-Based Law Firm’
BULLETIN: The former president and chief executive officer of Unico Inc. in San Diego has been indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and obstruction of justice, amid spectacular allegations of legal chicanery. Mark Anthony Lopez was accused of conspiring with New Jersey-based stock trader Mark Allen Lefkowitz to manipulate the share…
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UPDATE: Prosecutors Ask For 50-Year Prison Sentence For Peregrine’s Russell Wasendorf, Saying He Stole More Than $215 Million And Presided Over Fraud For 2 Decades
The fraud at Peregrine Financial Group Inc. began at least sometime between 1993 and 1994 with an unlawful $250,000 transaction involving customer funds and grew to consume more than $215 million, federal prosecutors said while asking a federal judge to put Russell Wasendorf Sr. behind bars for 50 years. Wasendorf, 64, tried to kill himself…
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Bizarre Events Unfold At Florida Bankruptcy Proceeding For RoboVault; Purported ‘Sovereign’ Claims To Derive Authority From ‘The Pope’
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story in the Sun Sentinel was recommended by a reader. Indeed, Florida is serving up another strange one. To set the stage, RoboVault is a secure storage facility in Fort Lauderdale that allegedly is wasting away because its former owner, Marvin Chaney, somehow came to believe the facility is storing “sovereign bonds”…
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UPDATE: Hearing For Gary Calhoun, MPB Today Operator, Reset For Feb. 4
UPDATE: A hearing for Gary Calhoun set for yesterday in Florida’s Escambia County Circuit Court on a state-level racketeering charge has been rescheduled for Feb. 4, according to the docket of the case. Calhoun, 56, of Pensacola, was arrested last month on the racketeering charge. He is the operator of the MPB Today MLM “program”…
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Man From Colorado Town Of Fairplay Ran ‘Gold Coin’ Fraud Scheme, Prosecutors Say
James P. Burg, formerly of Fairplay, Colo., ripped off his customers for gold coins and, in at least one instance, “used one customer’s payment for coins to refund funds to another customer,” federal prosecutors said. The scam fetched more than $2.4 million and operated through three websites, prosecutors said. Burg, 61, became the subject of…
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FBI Offers Up To $10,000 Reward For Info Leading To Capture Of Accused Ponzi Schemer And International Fugitive Peter Heckman
A German national who allegedly conducted a Ponzi scheme in Hawaii and then fled to Indonesia is the subject of an FBI manhunt. Peter Heckman, 63, ran a Ponzi scheme in which he promised investors “guaranteed returns of 10 to 15 percent for terms as short as two weeks,” the FBI said. The scam allegedly…