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  • Recidivist Felon Robert Stinson Of ‘Life’s Good’ Pleads Guilty To 26-Count Ponzi Indictment, Faces Decades In Prison

    Robert Stinson Jr., the Philadelphia-area recidivist felon and securities swindler accused last year of stealing $17 million in a Ponzi scheme and wiring money to prevent it from being seized even as the FBI was conducting a raid, has pleaded guilty.

    Stinson, 56, of Berwyn, faces a maximum under federal sentencing guidelines of nearly 34 years in prison, federal prosecutors said. In his most recent scam, he pleaded guilty to nine counts of money laundering, five counts of wire fraud, four counts of mail fraud, three counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements to federal agents and one count of bank fraud.

    Investors in various entities under Stinson’s Life’s Food Inc. were wiped out, and Stinson stole $17 million, prosecutors said.

    In 1986, Stinson was convicted of wire fraud and larceny in U.S. Court in Delaware, according to records. In 1987, he was convicted of forgery and larceny in New Jersey state court. During the same year, he was convicted of mail fraud in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

    Meanwhile, in 1996, he was convicted of criminal conspiracy in state court in Pennsylvania. In 2001, he was convicted of bank fraud in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

    Stinson filed two bankruptcy petitions in 1999, one in October and another in December, according to records.

    Nine years earlier, in 1990, he was charged with fraud by the SEC. He was ordered to pay a judgment of $7,680, but the judgment remains unpaid, according to court filings.

  • Former DNA/Narc That Car Pitchman Jeff Long Now Says Churches May Join Matrix Known As AutoXTen; Company Says It Uses AlertPay To Avoid PayPal ‘Limits’; Web Pitchmen Say $10 May Fetch Nearly $200,000

    U.S.-based MLM pitchman Jeff Long is one of the purported founders of an “opportunity” known as AutoXTen that is collecting money through Canada-based AlertPay and says churches may join the AutoXTen matrix. Early promos for AutoXTen claim members can “Turn $10 into $199,240.”

    Long’s recent flops include Narc That Car, which came under fire from Fox News outlets, and Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a Phil Piccolo-affiliated firm that claimed it was the “MORAL OBLIGATION” of churches to pitch a purported mortgage-reduction program.

    Long himself says churches may join AutoXTen, according to a post bearing Long’s photo on what is billed the AutoXTen Help Desk.

    “Yes a church can join, there would be no issue with this,” the post under Long’s name and photograph read.

    Both Narc and DNA purported to pay members for recording the license-plate numbers of automobiles. After leaving Narc last year and quickly setting up shop with DNA, Long also left DNA.

    AutoXTen appears to be a matrix program.

    “We are only accepting Alertpay,” according to the AutoXTen Help Desk. “Paypal limits the amount of transactions we can make per day, and we would have to cap people off from becoming paid members. ”

    Still in its early days, AutoXTen has claimed a “malicious hack” into its database that “altered and in some cases deleted member data,” according to an email members received in late July.

  • UPDATE: AdSurfDaily ‘Blast’ Apparently Has Begun; PP Blog Has Received Complaints From Members Who Say They Never Agreed To Receive A Fundraising Email; One Member May Be A Witness For The Government In The ASD Ponzi Case

    Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATE: The PP Blog yesterday began to receive complaints from AdSurfDaily members unhappy that they were being solicited to help ASD President and accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin pay for his criminal defense.

    “Check this out,” one concerned ASD member said. “Andy is asking his victims to pony up in excess of $500K to help [h]is legal defense.”

    Another member said, “How do I put in a complaint? I live in Canada and what works in the USA may not work here. I don’t want any more e-mail’s from these people. I’ve already lost 15,000.00.”

    This morning the Blog received a complaint from a person it believes potentially is a witness against Bowdoin in the government’s Ponzi case.

    “[O]f all the people to send this to he [chose] to send one to me,” the person said. “[H]e needs help!!”

    The fundraising email purports to be “100% compliant with the Can-Spam Act of Nov. 2003” and to have been sent through “NetSuccessInc and/or it’s (sic) subsidary (sic) companies.” It encourages recipients to view Bowdoin’s fundraising message and provides a link to this website:netsuccessinc.com. The email itself is attributed to Bowdoin, and the netsuccessinc website provides a link to yet another Bowdoin fundraising site: AndysFundraisingArmy.com.

    The netsuccessinc.com site is registered in the name of “Millionaire Marketing International.” Tari Steward is listed as the contact person in the domain registration. Millionaire Marketing International is listed in Florida records as a fictitious business registered in 2009. It is owned by Net Success Inc.

    Florida records show that Net Success Inc. was dissolved in September 2010 for not filing an annual report. Steward is listed as an officer of the firm. Records in Florida also show that Steward was an officer of a company known as “Millionaire Marketing Inc.” That firm’s registration appears to have been dissolved in 2009.

    Steward is listed in federal court filings as a potential witness for Bowdoin in the criminal case.

    In a July email attributed to Bowdoin, recipients were advised that Bowdoin had “hired” Steward “and his company Global Online Success Inc.” to create the “Online Fundraising System for my Legal Defense Fund.”

    Bowdoin did not say whether he was paying Steward for his services. Why ASD members now were receiving emails that advised them to visit the netsuccessinc.com. domain, which appears to be owned by a dissolved Steward company (Net Success Inc.) tied to another Steward company (Millionaire Marketing International) that has a familial relationship with another dissolved Steward company (Millioniare Marketing Inc.), was not immediately clear.

    Potentially adding another layer of confusion in Bowdoin’s fundraising bid are these words that appeared in the “blast” email that asked prospects to visit the netsuccessinc.com domain:

    “You can contact us by snail mail at 2533 N. Carson St., Suite 3167, Carson City, NV 89706.”

    Why a company whose Florida registration was dissolved listed a snail-mail address in Nevada was not immediately clear.

  • ONLY ON THE INTERNET: Accused Huckster Andy Bowdoin’s Email ‘Blast’ To Raise 500K In Defense Funds May Begin Today; Recidivist Fraudster And Self-Described ‘Money Magnet’ Also Plans Facebook Appeal

    Accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin says he plans to open a Facebook fan page this weekend so AdSurfDaily members won't miss out on the opportunity to help him raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense, according to an email some ASD members received today.

    Federal prosecutors say Andy Bowdoin scammed investors in a securities swindle in the 1990s. They add that one of his partners in the autosurf trade was accused by the SEC in the 1990s of pitching a prime-bank swindle.

    Bowdoin, 76, was arrested in December on charges that he presided over an autosurf Ponzi scheme known as AdSurfDaily between 2006 and 2008. Among the allegations against Bowdoin was that the original iteration of ASD collapsed in a pile of Ponzi dust — and that Bowdoin simply started a new autosurf scheme to replace the collapsed one.

    After Bowdoin started his replacement fraud scheme in 2007, he then presided over efforts to start at least two additional autosurf fraud schemes. Those criminal efforts became hugely successful in 2008, sucking in at least $110 million, prosecutors said.

    Bowdoin, a self-described  “money magnet,” now is using a video pitch to raise $500,000 for his criminal defense. The accused con man now says an email “blast” to 77,000 ASD members he hopes will provide the funds to pay his lawyers will take place today after having been postponed last week.

    And Bowdoin, who once referred to the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan” and claimed God was on his side, says he will launch a Facebook fan page “THIS WEEKEND” to bolster his fundraising efforts, according to an email some ASD members received today.

    Some ASD members have referred to the Secret Service and prosecutors as “goons” and “Nazis.” Others circulated a prayer calling for Bowdoin’s accusers to be struck dead from the heavens.

    In 2008, a federal judge presiding over a civil-forefeiture case involving about $80 million in seized funds linked to ASD was described as “brain dead” if she ruled against the firm.

    After the judge issued a key ruling against against the company, she was described as the operator of a “Kangaroo Court” who was conspiring with another federal judge also said to be operating a “Kangaroo Court.”

    Bowdoin, though, blamed his losses in the civil case — which included orders of forfeiture totaling about $80 million — on a “single, lone” judge.

    He also blamed his original attorneys and prosecutors. Bowdoin’s fundraising video in which he blamed the judge was released on the Internet on July 26, four days after he made his most recent appearance before the judge.

    Although the video initially advertised a July 15 launch date, that launch date was postponed until July 20 — and then until July 26.

  • ASD ECHO CHAMBER? Bizarre Ponzi Case That Included Apparent ‘Sovereign Citizens’ And Crackpot Legal Theories Ends With Spectacular Total Of 465 Guilty Verdicts Against Final 2 Defendants

    UPDATED 7:57 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) It featured a Ponzi huckster touting a can’t-miss earnings scheme in an Internet video. For good measure, it featured apparent “sovereign citizens,” crackpot claims that U.S. law did not apply to the scheme and incongruous claims that the scheme had passed muster with the SEC.

    It also included a failed bid to remove for alleged bias a federal judge presiding over both criminal and civil aspects of the case. Meanwhile, it featured a failed bid to hamstring law enforcement’s efforts to probe a large fraud scheme through assertions that investigators would suffer astronomical financial penalties in court.

    At the same time, it featured claims from supporters that a wrongfully accused promoter-in-chief actually was an astute businessman who’d found a way to provide a legitimate return of 30 percent a month and suggestions that the investigating agents simply were too thick-headed to see the beauty of the computerized business model.

    But it was not the AdSurfDaily autosurf Ponzi case, which has featured similar claims.

    Rather, it was the Forex Ponzi scheme case of Ronald Wade Smith Jr., 36, and Safeguard 30/30 Investment Club — and it has resulted in straight-line wins for federal prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia, including the return last week of a whopping 465 guilty verdicts against Smith’s wife and a fellow promoter.

    Ronald Smith, who came out of the gate loudly protesting the government’s actions, ended up pleading guilty to more than 240 counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy. The guilty pleas followed an earlier claim by Smith that he’d trademarked his name, an apparent bid to stifle scrutiny and chill investigators.

    Any federal agent who used his name in a court document would owe him $50 million for each instance his name appeared, Smith once claimed, according to court filings.

    Smith, according to court filings, also claimed that he had to personally authorize any civil or criminal prosecution against him and that Chief U.S. District Judge James P. Jones had no “authority over him because ‘the Court has authority based on the Constitution’ and he ‘was not party to the signature of the Constitution; therefore, the Constitution doesn’t apply to me unless I choose to sign it.”

    Smith’s wife, Angela Allison Duty Smith, 35, of Davenport, Va., was fund guilty Aug. 4 of 210 counts of wire fraud, 23 counts of money laundering, one count of commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

    Terrance Keith Cunningham, 39, of Alpharetta, Ga., was found guilty of 210 counts of wire fraud, 17 counts of money laundering, one count of obstruction, one count of commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

    The verdicts were returned after a nine-day jury trial.

    During the early phase of the criminal case, Ronald Smith’s father-in-law, Charles Duty, testified on Smith’s behalf despite the fact he had given his life savings to Smith and the money could not be accounted for, according to court records.

    Duty, according to court records, testified that “he was confident Smith had properly invested his money and that he believed Smith’s promise of a 30 percent return every 30 days.”

    Prosecutors moved to have Ronald Smith detained pending trial as a flight risk, but Duty said he put up his real estate as security if his son-in-law were freed. Prosecutors also asked that Ronald Smith he subjected to a competency exam. Smith ultimately was ruled competent to stand trial.

    His wife, who joined her father in testifying on Smith’s behalf after Smith claimed he had a personal net worth of $28 billion and owned a company known as Homer Securities that was worth $4 trillion, also joined with her husband in asserting that U.S. law did not apply to the scheme.

    “Both Duty and Angela Smith appear to have fully accepted the defendant’s outlandish theories and I believe they are substantially under the defendant’s control,” Jones ruled in April 2010.

    Like her husband, Angela Smith was charged criminally.

    “This case demonstrates our commitment to prosecute those who prey upon investors with false promises of unreasonably high rates of return,” said U.S. Attorney Timothy J. Heaphy. “While we will continue to identify and apprehend individuals who make these bogus claims, investors need to be vigilant and carefully scrutinize the promises made by individuals seeking to invest their money. The old adage applies: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

    Cunningham was a pitchman who recruited Safeguard 30/30 investors, according to court filings.

    All in all, investors lost about $1 million in the caper, prosecutors said.

    Cunningham and both Smiths lied about why returns were not being paid to investors, prosecutors said.

    See earlier story.

  • BULLETIN: FLORIDA — AGAIN: Destroying Hope Through Wordplay: 4 Men Arrested In Alleged Loan-Modification Scam That Used ‘HOPE’ As Acronym; Fraudsters Sucked More Than $3 Million From Distressed Homeowners In Part By Claiming To Be Nonprofit, Feds Say

    HOPE is a scam operating as a purported nonprofit, federal prosecutors said.

    BULLETIN: Federal agents from the Special Inspector General’s Office for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) have arrested four Florida men on charges they collected millions of dollars from financially distressed homeowners in a loan-modification scam that claimed to be a legitimate nonprofit business.

    Arrested this morning in Florida on federal criminal charges filed in Boston were Christopher S. Godfrey, 42, of Delray Beach; Dennis Fischer, 40, of Highland Beach; Vernell Burris Jr., 51, of Boynton Beach; and Brian M. Kelly, 34, of Boca Raton.

    South Florida has been plagued by various fraud schemes. Federal prosecutors in Washington said the Florida men were charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and misuse of a government seal in the operation of an entity known as Home Owners Protection Economics Inc., which used the acronym of HOPE.

    In reality, prosecutors said, HOPE was a scam linked to a telemarketing operation designed to pick the pockets of the very customers HOPE claimed it was helping.

    Separately, the Better Business Bureau lists 177 complaints against HOPE and a previous action filed against the firm, Godfrey and Fischer by the office of the Florida attorney general.

    Godfrey was the president of HOPE, and Fischer was vice president and treasurer.  Burris trained and managed HOPE telemarketers,  and Kelly was a key phone pitchman who also trained telemarketers, federal prosecutors said.

    Among the allegations is that HOPE collected at least $3 million in illegal up-front payments from distressed homeowners by arranging for telemarketers to lie to prospects.

    A website apparently linked to HOPE appears to have used hyphens to spell out its name in this fashion: H-OP-E.com, according to research by the PP Blog. The domain registration is hidden behind a proxy, but a “Contact” page on the site lists a building address in Delray Beach associated with at least two of the defendants arrested today.

    HOPE appears to have formed its website name with hyphens and letters from the word "hope" while claiming nonprofit status. Federal prosecutors said today that HOPE was a scam linked to a telemarketing operation.

    Home Owners Protection Economics Inc. appears to operate in Florida as a purported nonprofit under a nonplural variation of its name — i.e., Home Owner Protection Economics Inc. in which no “s” is used in the word “Owner.” Godfrey and Fischer are listed in Florida records as “directors” of the firm at 1801 S. Federal Highway, Suite 247, Delray Beach.

    The same address appears on the H-OP-E website registered behind a proxy. The firm also appears to have used the word “HOPE” as part of a phone number.

    “The indictment alleges that from January 2009 through May 2011, the defendants made, and instructed their employees to make, a series of misrepresentations to induce financially distressed homeowners looking for a federally-funded home loan modification to pay HOPE a $400-$900 up-front fee in exchange for HOPE’s home loan modifications, modification services and ‘software licenses,’” prosecutors said today.

    “According to the indictment, these misrepresentations included claims that homeowners were virtually guaranteed, with HOPE’s assistance, to receive a loan modification under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which is part of TARP and is a federally-funded mortgage assistance program.  Additional misrepresentations to homeowners included that HOPE was affiliated with the homeowner’s mortgage lender, that the homeowner had been approved for a home loan modification, that homeowners could stop making mortgage payments while they waited for HOPE to arrange their loan modification and that HOPE would refund the customer’s fee if the modification was not successful.  HOPE also claimed that it operated as a non-profit organization.”

    In reality, prosecutors said, “HOPE instructed customers to fill out the application and submit it to their mortgage lender.  According to the indictment, the HOPE customers who did use the provided forms to apply on their own for loan modifications had no advantage in the application process, and, in fact, most of their applications were denied.  Through these misrepresentations, HOPE was able to persuade thousands of homeowners collectively to pay more than $3 million in fees to HOPE. ”

    See BBB report.

  • BULLETIN: Judge Finds That Purported Forex ‘Experts’ Used Bogus Website, Former High School Coaches And J.C. Penney Sales Clerks In Scheme That Funneled Millions To Ponzi Schemer Now Jailed With Bernard Madoff

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Both the CFTC and SEC have encountered incredibly elaborate fraud schemes — some with elements that only can be described as bizarre and deeply disturbing. The story below is based on  a fraud case brought by the CFTC against Gary D. Martin and Brenda K. Martin of St. Augustine, Fla. The Martins are husband and wife. Their company, Queen Shoals Consultants LLC, also was named in the March 2011 complaint. The complaint was filed in the Western District of North Carolina.

    The CFTC now has obtained a consent order against the defendants. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. presided over the case. In issuing the uncontested order, Conrad highlighted testimony by Gary Martin. Martin’s testimony and the fact set against him and his co-defendants was disturbing in several ways. The PP Blog previously has written about “fraud creep” on the Internet, and the Martin/Queen Shoals case provides another compelling example of viral larceny that traded in part on religion and devastated senior citizens . . .

    A Florida couple scammed investors in an elaborate Forex and commodities swindle in which they posed as “experts” to recruit customers while funneling $22 million to a criminal scammer now serving a 22-year prison sentence in the same North Carolina facility that houses Bernard Madoff.

    Among the alarming consent findings by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. against Gary D. Martin and his wife Brenda K. Martin were that they used the Internet and pitchmen who had minimal or no trading credentials to fuel a fraud turbine that put money in their pockets as well as the pocket of Ponzi schemer Sidney S. Hanson.

    Hanson controlled a similarly named entity known as Queen Shoals LLC and was running a $33 million Ponzi scheme that targeted senior citizens and people of faith by using QSC and other entities as feeders, according to court filings.

    In March 2011, Hanson, 63, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. He is listed as an inmate at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C. The Martins and QSC drove $22 million to the Hanson scheme, receiving referral fees of up to 5 percent while maintaining the illusion that legitimate commerce was taking place, according to court filings.

    Said Noth Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall upon Hanson’s sentencing, “What made this case even more sickening was that the scam was crafted to appeal to victims through their deeply held religious beliefs.”

    Through a process that remains unclear, the Martins and QSC managed to recruit at least 53 “consultants” to pitch their scheme, according to Conrad’s ruling.

    “Although the Martins represented via the QSC website that ‘[our consultants have a vast background in financial services … ,’ Martin admitted that this representation was false,” Conrad wrote. “Of the 53 known QSC consultants, only 8 to 10 had taken a four day course to become ‘certified estate planners, but even these consultants had no other background in financial services. None had any experience trading forex. Martin admitted that a number of the QSC consultants represented to customers as possessing a ‘vast background in financial services’ were actually former high school coaches, J. C. Penney sales clerks, or insurance salesmen . . .”

    The ruling makes in clear that, not only were unqualified reps acting as QSC pitchmen, the QSC scheme was a fraud itself — one that was enabling an even larger fraud operated by Hanson.

    “All of the representations concerning the Defendants’ alleged experience and expertise in trading forex were false,” Conrad ruled. “Martin admitted in his testimony under oath as the corporate designee of QSC that, contrary to the Defendants’ in-person and website representations to prospective and actual customers, he and his wife had no training or experience in buying or selling foreign currency, commodity futures contracts, options on commodity futures contracts, or any other financial instrument.”

    Promises of “guaranteed” annual earnings of between 8 percent and 24 percent were used by the Martins to lure customers as part of the fraud, Conrad ruled.

    Fancy terminology such as “non-depletion,” “leveraged” trading and “proprietary trading practices” also were part of the fraud, according to court filings.

    Customers also were told that “no less than 18 different profit centers” existed and that the purported profit centers “allowed the creation of the profits claimed to be achieved by the Defendants,” Conrad ruled.

    “Indeed, the website touted that all customer funds were ‘immediately placed into our approximate (sic) 60 sub accounts’ and that the forex accounts traded by the Defendants were ‘profit generating,’” Conrad ruled.

    But “[a]ll of the representations concerning trading and guaranteed profits were false,” Conrad ruled.

    “[Gary] Martin admitted under oath that the Defendants never engaged in any forex trading on behalf of customers,” Conrad ruled. “In fact, Martin admitted that the Defendants never engaged in any type of trading or investing with customer funds. There were no forex accounts, gold accounts, silver accounts, or ’60 sub accounts.’

    “All of the Martins’ representations regarding ‘profitable accounts’ were false,” Conrad ruled. “There was no ‘leveraging’ on behalf of customers, no ‘profit centers,’ and, because there was no trading, there were no profits. Instead, the Martins simply turned over customer funds to Sidney S. Hanson . . . in return for a payment of approximately $1.44 million Martin described in his testimony as a ‘referral’ fee.”

    Read earlier story.

    Read the consent order.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Judge Declares Mantria Corp. A ‘Smoke And Mirrors’ Ponzi Scheme, Says Troy Wragg And Amanda Knorr-Led Firm Acted With ‘Sociopathic Greed’; Defendants ‘Shamelessly’ Raised $54.5 Million Through ‘Blatant Lies’

    Screen shot: Troy Wragg, whom the SEC said was a manager at a janitorial company before becoming CEO of Mantria Corp., next to President Clinton at the annual meeting on the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 25, 2009.

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Using direct, no-nonsense language, U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello has ruled Mantria Corp. a Ponzi scheme that operated with “sociopathic greed” to defraud investors of millions of dollars.

    Some investors were encouraged to drain equity in their homes to invest with Mantria, according to the ruling.

    The ruling was a straight-line win for the SEC, which charged the firm, its principals and chief pitchman in November 2009 amid allegations that Mantria had orchestrated a colossal fraud targeted at people interested in “green” energy and protecting the environment. Mantria executives Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr were charged in the caper, as was pitchman Wayde McKelvy of an entity known as “Speed of Wealth LLC.”

    Arguello found that Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.”

    The judge’s ruling specifically points to internal Mantria emails uncovered by the SEC during the probe.

    One email from Wragg to McKelvy read, “Mantria Speed of Wealth = MSOW = Many Souls Owe Wayde.” Another from McKelvy to Wragg allegedly touting seminar registrations and a new crop of suckers read, “110 registered for tonight 75% names I don’t recognize. Let’s blow them away my brother!” An email attributed to Knorr read, “Let’s just make some f*****g money.”

    Mantria traded in part on the name of former President Bill Clinton, who once presented Wragg an award for commitment to the environment. Prospective investors were shown a video that included footage of Clinton and other famous politicians and business figures.

    Fraud schemes often spread virally by planting the seed that famous people endorse the “opportunities” when they do not. In fraud case case after fraud case, celebrity endorsements, which are used to disarm skeptics and create positive feelings, have been manufactured out of wholecloth.

    In the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, for instance, the U.S. Secret Service said promoters claimed that ASD President Andy Bowdoin had received an important award from then-President George W. Bush. The “award” actually was a memento for campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to court filings.

    The Secret Service is known to have seized a significant volume of email during the ASD probe. Some of it has been described in court filings as incriminating to Bowdoin.

    Reporters who emailed McKelvy for comment after the SEC brought it charges against Mantria and Speed of Wealth received invitations to join the Trump Network multilevel-marketing opportunity.

    “YOU MUST START YOUR OWN BUSINESS Renee!” McKelvy advised a reporter in one email, according to the Denver Business Journal. “What You Have Been Taught About Building Wealth is DEAD WRONG!”

    Read the Mantria ruling on Leagle.com.

  • UPDATE: CenturionWealthCircle, ‘Program’ Pushed By Club Asteria Cheerleaders On The Ponzi Boards, May Be Trying To Address Ponzi Collapse By Implementing ‘Feeder’ Ponzi; ASD Tried The Same Thing, Only With ‘Autosurfs,’ Court Filings Say

    CenturionWealthCircle (CWC) appears to be moving from the ridiculous to the absurd, fueled in no small measure by serial, wink-nod scammers on the Ponzi boards. Members of Club Asteria, an “opportunity” that suspended cashouts weeks ago amid reports its PayPal account had been frozen, were among CWC’s early cheerleaders.

    Club Asteria promoters also have been linked to Florida-based autosurf purveyor AdSurfDaily. ASD President Andy Bowdoin was arrested in December on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He potentially faces decades in prison, if convicted.

    Bowdoin now is seeking to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense, according to a video featuring Bowdoin released last month.

    CWC began to emerge as a Ponzi darling in mid- to late June, after Club Asteria’s problems had become known. By late July, however, CWC’s website appears to have been suspended for spamming — and the site disappeared. The site appears to have switched servers, even as members were complaining about low or absent payouts.

    In an apparent bid to re-plumb a collapsed Ponzi that already had been the subject of spam complaints, CWC now appears ready to suck up more cash by implementing a “feeder” program that at least one Club Asteria cheerleader (manolo) is describing on the TalkGold Ponzi forum as a “Mini cycler” or “The Tornado.”

    Among other things, manolo claims that “more exciting updates are coming on top of the above news.”

    Various incongruities dot various posts about CWC on both TalkGold and the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums, where some posters have declared in public that CWC is in need of new money to survive.

    CWC has not said whether it is confident that its income stream is not polluted with proceeds from various Ponzi schemes. The nature of the cycler business itself is to recycle money from one group of members to another. One of the allegations against ASD was that it was a classic Ponzi scheme that recycled funds.

    These words (see next paragraph) appear in a February 2009 affidavit originally filed under seal by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi scheme forfeiture case. (NOTE: The document identifies certain ASD promoters and was used to seize their ASD-related funds.)

    “Based on his experience with 12daily Pro, and his review of the SEC’s filings against it, Bowdoin knew that a paid auto-surf program that promised returns of that magnitude and recycled (emphasis added) member funds was a business model that was both unsustainable and illegal. He also knew that selling an unregistered investment opportunity to thousands of investors was illegal. Nevertheless, after the collapse of 12daily Pro, Bowdoin agreed with his 12daily Pro sponsor to start a similar autosurf program. Both individuals were aware that, before its collapse, 12daily Pro had taken in millions of dollars from its members.”

    Among the other allegations against ASD is that it formed a new autosurf Ponzi to address a collapsed, old autosurf Ponzi — and later launched more autosurf Ponzis to sustain the deception that legitimate commerce was under way.

    CWC appears to be doing the same thing — only with cyclers, as opposed to autosurfs.

  • REPORTS: Amway Offices Raided By Police In India; Media Outlets Say News Photographer Covering Police Action Was Detained By Amway Staff

    BULLETIN: Multiple news organizations in India are reporting that police have conducted raids at nine Amway offices in India amid allegations of cheating and money-chain fraud. Early reports say that a news photographer covering the raid was detained by Amway India staff and that the photographer’s camera and baggage were seized by the staff.

    The photographer was released after news organizations protested the reported actions of Amway’s staff, according to IBN Live. At least two police organizations participated in the raid, and an Amway office at East Fort in Thrissur was “sealed” by police, according to the IBN report.

    Early reports suggest that a PR disaster that goes beyond the headlines generated by the raid may be shaping up for Amway. Not only was a photographer reportedly prevented by Amway staff from taking pictures of the police action, according to an early report in the Hindustan Times, the staff also claimed that police had “harassed” Amway distributors into “giving complaints against the company.”

    Amway India denied any cheating had occurred, according to early reports. The company, according to its website, is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S.-based Amway Corp. of Ada, Mich.

     

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Former Major League Baseball All-Star Doug DeCinces Charged With Insider Trading; Attorney, Physical Therapist And Businessman Who Knew Longtime Third Baseman Charged In Same Case

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Former Major League Baseball star Doug DeCinces, who threw out the honorary first pitch last night at a game between the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Minnesota Twins, today was charged with insider trading by the SEC.

    Also charged in the civil case were attorney Fred Scott Jackson, 65, of Newport Beach, Calif.; Joseph J. Donohue, 49, a physical therapist who resides in Trabuco Canyon, Calif.; and Roger A. Wittenbach, 69, a businessman in Lutherville- Timonium, Md.

    DeCinces, a third baseman who retired from the big leagues in 1987, spent 15 seasons in the majors, mostly for the Baltimore Orioles. He was an American League All-Star in 1983, and hit 237 career homers. He also played for the Angels and the St. Louis Cardinals, driving home nearly 900 runs during the course of his long and successful baseball career.

    But the SEC said today that DeCinces, 60, began to drive home illegal profits from insider trading when he came into possession of material, nonpublic information that Abbott Laboratories Inc. was acquiring Advanced Medical Optics Inc. through a tender offer in 2008.

    DeCinces shared the information with the other charged defendants, putting each of them in position to profit illegally, the SEC charged. DeCinces bought 83,700 shares of Advanced Medical ahead of the acquisition news, and allegedly “sold all of his shares for $1.2 million in profits.”

    “Time and again, we see reputable people engaging in insider trading and risking their good names in order to enrich themselves and those around them,” said Daniel M. Hawke, chief of the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Market Abuse Unit and director of the Philadelphia Regional Office. “People need to understand that we are watching for suspicious trading activity, and they will pay a heavy price when we catch them insider trading.”

    Donohue made $75,570 on the illegal tip, while Jackson made $140,259, the SEC charged. Meanwhile, Wittenbach made $201,692. After Wittenbach told his sister to buy the stock, she made $13,214, the SEC said. The sister was not charged.

    DeCinces agreed to settle the case for $2.5 million, without admitting or denying the allegations. The other defendants also settled without admitting or denying.

    Donohue agreed to pay disgorgement of $75,570 and a penalty of $37,785, while Jackson agreed to pay disgorgement of $140,259, prejudgment interest of $12,508 and a penalty of $140,259.

    At the same time, Wittenbach agreed to pay disgorgement of $201,692, prejudgment interest of $5,768, and a penalty of $214,906.

    Jackson bought 8,500 shares of Advanced Medical with a handheld device while having breakfast with DeCinces, the SEC said.