Screen shot. Red highlight by PP Blog. Not only were UFun/Utoken recruits encouraged to send international bank wires through Guinea, they were further encouraged to share the instructions on at least eight social-media sites. Even as this was occurring, recruits were told to make their personal information available to their “program” sponsor — something that introduces the specter of identity theft.
UPDATED 8:18 A.M. EDT May 4 U.S.A. Affiliates of the alleged UFunClub MLM/network-marketing Ponzi- and pyramid scheme under investigation in Thailand encouraged recruits to join by wiring the Euro equivalent of sums of up to 100,000 U.S. dollars to Banque de Développement de Guinée S.A., according to promos in English published online.
Precisely how the African bank operates is unclear. Also unclear is why a “program” with an apparent base of operations in the Southeast Asia nations of Thailand and Malaysia was using a bank on the far edge of another continent.
Recruits sending wires further were instructed by UFunClub affiliates not to call UFunClub an “investment.” Rather, the recruits were told to describe UFun purchases as the acquisition of “GOODS AND SERVICES or SALARY.” The wiring instructions also suggested the acquisition could be be succinctly described as such: “Purchase Software.”
Crimes such as securities fraud, wire fraud, money-laundering, tax fraud and structuring transactions to evade bank-reporting requirements occur in this sea of wanton lawlessness. Stated “caps” or transaction limits typically suggest that the purveyors and their enablers are seeking to stay below a currency level they perceive a government may deem suspicious. (See Paragraph 23 of the 2010 indictment against AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme figure Andy Bowdoin in which his discussion of caps is highlighted. The indictment also outlines how Bowdoin, now in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud, sought to avoid using the language of investments in his Ponzi investment program by describing it as something else.)
The unusually high UFun limit of $100,000, however, potentially was something that put the “program” on the radar of governments, despite the planning of UFunClub and its enablers. HYIP schemes typically express lower limits.
In the promos by UFunClub affiliates, the $100,000 limit was described as “per single transaction,” meaning there was no real ceiling if recruits capped second and subsequent wires at $100,000. This, too, could have caught the attention of international law enforcement.
How many governments in addition to Thailand may be investigating UFunClub is unknown. Thailand appears to be conducting a very public probe and potentially signaling its neighbors in the region that something at UFunClub is seriously and dangerously amiss.
Photos of Thai police officials have been carried in the local papers and online publications just about every day since word was received of a UFunClub raid, arrests and the issuance of warrants on April 10.
In the online instructional manual published by UFunClub affiliates, recruits were told to make Banque de Développement de Guinée the “Payee” for wires. They further were provided an International Bank Account Number (IBAN), a swift code and a street address for the bank in Conakry, a port on the Atlantic Ocean and Guinea’s capital city. The capital cities of Thailand (Bangkok) and Malaysia (Kuala Lampur) both are nearly 8,000 miles away from Conakry.
After completing their wire or wires, recruits were instructed by UFunClub affiliates of a purported “need to send a proof of bank wire payment to your sponsor at this time,” something that raises the prospect of identity theft or the outright theft of funds from a recruit’s bank account.
“Your new Ufun account will be set up after your sponsor validates your bank payment information,” the instructions continued.
Here is a portion of the follow-up instructions (italics added/formatting approximate):
Proofs must contain the following information
Sender Name
Sender Account Details
Date
Amount sent / currency
Beneficiary Name
Beneficiary Account Details
If you file your wire paperwork online, we STRONGLY suggest
Use Snipping tool or a similar software to get a clear screen capture (Windows)
Use CMND+Shift+4 to get a screen capture (Mac)
Take a screen capture of a screen that shows you ALL of the above information – not just that says “Transfer Complete”
If you file the transfer your Utoken payment in a bank branch
Ask your bank to email you the proof and forward that email to your Ufun sponsor
If they give you a bank wire paper receipt, ask your bank to scan the proof or scan it yourself
UFUN Accounts Dept. will not be accepting any images that are taken by a camera phone or are blurry/unclear
UFUN Accounts Dept. will not accept any images that are edited with arrows or has information blocked out
**You also need to send your Utoken Sponsor the following information**
The username(s) you desire (please send more than 1 desired username, as your first choice may already be taken)
Your PRIMARY Email address
Your mobile telephone number
Your full name as it appears on your ID / License/Passport
Recruits were encouraged to share the wire-transfer instructions on at least eight social media sites.
As is the current case with UFunClub/Utoken, affiliates of AdSurfDaily, TelexFree and Zeek were instructed not to call their “program” an investment “program.”
BULLETIN: (3rd Update 3:44 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The Colorado Division of Securities has issued a cease-and-desist order to “Achieve Community” and accused the network-marketing “program” of securities fraud and selling unregistered securities while conducting “a pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme.”
The order applies to Achieve, Achieve International LLC, Work with Troy Barnes Inc. and Achieve founders Troy Barnes of Michigan and Kristine “Kristi” Johnson of Colorado, the Division said.
Achieve was known in shorthand as TAC.
Johnson already has settled without admitting or denying the allegations, the Division said.
Barnes did not respond to the action, the Division said.
It added that the first complaints against Achieve were submitted to the state in October 2014. The state confirmed publicly in January that Achieve was under investigation.
“Given the location of Achieve in Colorado, we believe that it is important to address this fraudulent activity on a local level and ensure that state investors are protected by barring any further illegal sale or solicitation of these securities by the respondents in this state,” said Colorado Securities Commissioner Gerald Rome.
Colorado’s action is believed to be the first state-level action brought against Achieve, which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged with fraud in February 2015. A federal judge imposed an asset freeze in the SEC case.
From a statement today by the Division (italics added):
Complainants alleged that they had bought shares in TAC after information on the company’s website promised 800-percent returns on “positions” in the TAC “matrix” costing $50 each.
According to an official complaint compiled by the Division, Barnes and Johnson both allegedly appeared in videos promising that investors would receive an unlimited 800-percent return on positions based on the funds of others who obtained new positions. Further, the founders stated that TAC was “a lifetime income plan,” that members could make “as much as you like with us, as often as you like with us,” and expressly claimed that they were not operating a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
The Division alleged, however, that the respondents committed securities fraud because the business was, in fact, a pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme. Unlike lawful multi-level marketing businesses, TAC did not sell a product. The proceeds paid to investors and to Johnson and Barnes were derived from funds obtained from later participants in the TAC matrix.
The Division asserts that, despite acting as broker dealers in order to sell the positions, neither Barnes nor Johnson were licensed with the state, as required by the Colorado Securities Act. Furthermore, respondents violated the Act with the sale of unregistered securities products in the form of the $50 positions.
The PP Blog reported on April 20 that an order to show cause had been issued against Achieve and that a cease-and-desist order appeared to be pending.
This screen shot from the “shop” section of website of UTokenUSA shows that orders were being solicited for UTokens at prices between $635 and $12,100. Not shown is a solicitation for orders at a level of $57,500. Whether orders successfully were placed is unclear. At some point, these words appeared on the site: “[01-31-2015] In order to work with the system planning, the Utrade trading system will pause for 7 days, from 00:00am, 1st February 2015 and re-open 00:01am 8th February 2015 for system upgrades and conversion of tradable UToken for investment liquidity planning. We will still be able to create membership accounts, but you will not be able to buy, sell, or trade Utokens until February 8, 2015.”In March 2015, as part of its coverage of the WCM777 cross-border scam operating out of the United States, the PP Blog reported that court-appointed receiver Krista L. Freitag said this in a Feb. 27 court filing (italics added):
“Many investors gave cash to the company and to their leaders (or upline sponsors) who then deposited the cash along with other investor funds.” (Click here to read “WCM777: More Theft And Money Laundering MLM-Style.”)
Back in 2010, something similar happened in the deeply disturbing Imperia Invest IBC scam that appears to have operated offshore and definitely targeted people with hearing impairments. The SEC first charged Imperia and, in 2011, charged alleged pitchman Jody Dunn. Millions of dollars went missing.
TelexFree may have gathered $1.8 BILLION — yes, billion with a “b.”
Welcome to the black markets of MLM/network marketing. The schemes may feature in-house transfer vessels in which participants can transfer money or cash-earning investment points to other members in underground fashion. Promoters also can do back-alley deals with recruits, opening up second and subsequent black-market tiers.
UFunClub/UToken may have plucked more than $1.17 BILLION.
Separately, the PP Blog learned yesterday that a UFunClub/UToken promoters’ group known as UFUN Team USA had published a promo that claimed this (italics/bolding added):
We blog, tweet, and write about the latest news on UFUN and UTokens. Our team provides secure transaction exchange of physical currency to UToken digital currency from all around the world. Our service at UTokenUSA includes:
1. Purchasing UTokens through our website. 2. Guaranteed safe transfer of payment to UFUN. 3. UFUN Account Setup – **Setup time varies 1-5 business days.** 4. UToken & UFUN Support. 5. Referral/Downline Support – We help setup up your referrals under you. 6. Latest News and Updated on UFUN & UTokens. 7. Discount Coupons for you to offer to future members.
This UFunClub/UToken promoters’ group claimed recruits could purchase UTokens through its website and that the promoters “Guaranteed safe transfer of payment to UFUN.”
This leads to questions about whether an unlicensed Money Services Business was gathering funds for another unlicensed Money Services Business. UToken promoters claim the value of the purported digital currency only can rise and never can fall.
The UFUN Team USA site published a phone number with the 323 Area Code in Greater Los Angeles. That’s the same area from which WCM777 was operating.
Like any number of schemes, UFunClub/UToken has been positioned as a “passive” investment opportunity that already has created anywhere from 200 “millionaires” to 5,000, depending on the source of the claims.
This brings questions about an offering fraud and the sale of unregistered securities into play. The same sorts of questions existed with WCM777, Imperia, Zeek and TelexFree.
As the screen shot below taken from a YouTube promo shows, UFunClub/UToken did an in-house announcement about the “THE CONVERSION OF TRADABLE UTOKEN TO INVESTMENT POINTS” — apparently on Jan. 31.
Source: Screen shot from a YouTube video with a publication date of Feb. 10, 2015.
Some American MLMers/network marketers have claimed they traveled from the United States to Thailand to vet UFunClub/UToken and found the “program” to be legitimate.
The Thai police say the “program” is an international fraud scheme.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
