BULLETIN: Attorney Jonathan Star Bristol has been arrested by federal agents and is scheduled to make an appearance in Manhattan federal court this afternoon to face criminal charges of money-laundering amid allegations he helped convicted fraudster Kenneth Ira Starr siphon money from clients though an escrow fund.
“Today’s indictment should serve as a reminder to attorneys and others that you should always know the source, nature, and ownership of funds transferred through our financial systems,” said Charles R. Pine, IRS special agent in charge. “IRS Criminal Investigation is at the forefront of this type of investigation and will continue to hold professionals accountable in any field where they are entrusted with other people’s money and engage in money laundering transactions.”
Bristol was sued only hours ago by the SEC. Now comes word that there also was a sealed criminal indictment in the case.
“Jonathan Bristol, a lawyer and an officer of the court, allegedly helped his client Kenneth Starr hide the proceeds of his massive Ponzi scheme,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “Along with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to pursue corrupt professionals in both the public and private sectors who betray their duties of trust.”
Pine said attorneys who turn a blind eye to sources of funds risk prosecution.
“A professional, such as an attorney, cannot knowingly use an escrow account funded with illegally obtained monies, or look the other way without questioning where the monies came from,” Pine said.
Among the specific criminal allegations against Bristol was that his former law firm was concerned that Starr had not paid $750,000 in legal fees he had racked up.
“In March 2010, Bristol reported to senior management that STARR would be paying $100,000 of the at least$750,000 that Starr owed,” prosecutors said. “Bristol’s law firm did receive a $100,000 payment that month, but it did not come from Starr — it came from Starr’s clients, laundered by Bristol through Bristol’s escrow accounts.”
Bristol also was accused of using the escrow accounts to help Starr steal $7 million to acquire a luxury New York condo with five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, prosecutors said.
He also was accused of hoodwinking Starrs’ clients about how their money was being used.
“In 2009 and 2010, Bristol regularly used his escrow accounts to receive funds belonging to Starr clients and then transferred the monies directly to Starr & Co. to pay the company’s operating expenses,” prosecutors charged.
The SEC has suspended trading of Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. (AEHI) stock and gone to federal court in Idaho to seek an emergency asset freeze, the agency said.
AEHI was manipulating its stock price with a blitz of press releases while CEO Donald L. Gillispie and Senior Vice President Jennifer Ransom were reaping secret profits, the SEC charged.
The agency said the firm was a “self-described Idaho nuclear power company” that “has essentially no revenue and minimal operations.”
Despite this, the agency said, Gillispie, 67, channeled money from secret stock sales to fund “lavish personal expenses such as his Maserati sports car.”
Among the bogus claims to suck in millions of dollars from investors in the United States and Asia was a claim that no company officer had sold any stock.
In reality, the SEC charged, Ransom, 36, had “sold at least one million shares. She hid her stock sales from AEHI investors and the public, failing to file forms notifying the Commission of her sales. In addition, Gillispie himself directed sales of more than one million shares of AEHI stock through nominees, thereby hiding from the public his conduct.”
Some of the money funded the Maserati purchase, the SEC charged.
“In light of AEHI’s ongoing efforts to raise funding while promoting itself through a daily deluge of press releases, we needed to take immediate action to get to the bottom of the company’s misleading statements,” said Marc Fagel, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office. “Documents we have obtained to date indicate a scheme to personally enrich the CEO at the expense of investors.”
Court documents allege that AEHI positioned itself as an upstart in 2006 that sought to raise $10 billion for the construction of a nuclear-power plant in Payette County, Idaho. The company also pitched ventures that included the purported harvesting of lightning from thunder storms, the development of fuel additives and the use of “nuclear-powered desalination reactors to provide the third world with clean water,” the SEC charged.
Efforts to pump the stock began four years ago, but the firm “has no realistic possibility of building a multi-billion dollar nuclear reactor,” the SEC charged. “AEHI has never had any revenue or product.”
BULLETIN: The SEC has charged attorney Jonathan Star Bristol with aiding and abetting the Ponzi and fraud scheme of convicted swindler Kenneth Ira Starr, the so-called “financial adviser to the stars.”
Starr pleaded guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and money-laundering in September. Among his former clients were former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, actress Uma Thurman, actor/producer Ron Howard, singer/songwriter Carly Simon and celebrity outfitter Jacob Arabo, known as “Jacob The Jewler.”
Bristol, according to the SEC, permitted Starr to use “attorney trust accounts” hidden from the management of a law firm for which Bristol worked “as conduits when Starr stole money from advisory clients.”
“Bristol had a legal and professional responsibility not to assist Ken Starr in conduct that he knew was unlawful,” said George S. Canellos, director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office. “Bristol crossed the line from lawyer to conspirator when he failed to safeguard funds entrusted to him, helped Starr steal client money, and lied to the victims to perpetuate the scheme.”
When one of Starr’s victims “confronted” Bristol about an unauthorized transfer of $1 million, “Bristol lied to the victim that the funds were being bundled with other clients’ funds for an investment with UBS Financial Services,” the SEC said. “In fact, Bristol had already used the misappropriated funds to pay a multi-million dollar legal settlement with one of Starr’s former clients.”
Taking the deception one step farther, the SEC said, “Bristol subsequently sought to represent that same victim after the victim was contacted by SEC staff in its investigation. In addition to the fact that such representations violated the ethical obligations of lawyers, Bristol’s clear intent was to obstruct and undermine the SEC’s investigation in order to conceal the wrongdoing.”
Kenneth Ira Starr also is known as Kenneth Starr, but he is not the same Kenneth Starr whose famous “Starr Report” led to impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998 and 1989 in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has gone to federal court in California to halt a precious-metals and options scheme operated by a man who claimed to have the same award for business achievement as AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, according to web listings.
Like Bowdoin, the head of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, Ryan A. Nassbridges of Laguna Niguel, Calif., claimed to possess an important award known as the Congressional Medal of Distinction, according to a website that bears his name and is registered in his wife’s name.
Also like Bowdoin, Nassbridges now has been charged in a massive fraud scheme. The CFTC said today that Nassbridges, who once was known as Ryan Nasserabadi, was operating a “precious metals futures and options fraud” that gathered $5.5 million from at least 80 customers.
He also was accused of lying to investigators about the scheme.
Also charged were Nassbridges-affiliated companies known as American Bullion Exchange (ABEX Corp.) and American Bullion Exchange LLC (ABEX LLC).
Other web listings suggest Nassbridges was referred to by multiple names online. While one site refers to him as Ryan A. Nassbridges, another refers to him as both Ryan A. Bridges and Ryan N. Bridges. The site that uses the Ryan A. Bridges and Ryan N. Bridges names is registered behind a proxy, meaning the owner of the domain is unclear. Curiously, documents on the domain list the name of Ryan A. Nassbridges.
Equally curiously, the entire left sidebar of both websites stream images of the awards purportedly received by Ryan A. Nassbridges.
It was not immediately clear if Nassbridges operates the sites and why the sites used different names.
Both sites tout the Congressional Medal of Distinction and include photographs of Nassbridges posing with prominent Republican politicians, including former President George W. Bush. Whether the photos were authentic was not immediately clear.
One thing that is clear is that the medal now has been linked to at least two alleged Ponzi schemes and that both alleged schemes have traded on the name of the President of the United States.
In the ASD case, the medal was described as a marketing memento for making campaign contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Bowdoin was accused earlier this month of using Ponzi proceeds to make the donations and not correcting the record when affiliates told prospects he had received an important award from the President of the United States.
The websites that use the one or more forms of the Nassbridges’ name claim that he received the medal for his “contribution toward the passage of the tax cut.”
CFTC did not reference the medal in its allegations against Nassbridges, saying only that he used participants’ funds to make “political contributions” of an unspecified amount.
He also used about $586,100 to make mortgage payments, $305,000 to make credit-card payments, $90,100 to make car payments and $157,700 for cash withdrawals, CFTC charged.
Some investors received Ponzi-like payments, CFTC charged. It added that investors did not know that Nassbridges and the companies were trading commodity futures and options while “sustaining significant trading losses.”
Investors believed they were trading in precious metals, including gold, palladium, platinum, silver bullion and gold and silver coins, CFTC said, noting that the alleged scheme was advertised on Fox, MSNBC and Home and Garden Television.
The complaint described an operation by which “account representatives” were required to make a minimum of 350 “prospecting calls” per day.
The websites tout Nassbridges as the “2005 Businessman of Year” and the recipient of the “Presidential Certificate of Merit Signed by the President of United States of America.”
“[H]e is among those few who are Awarded with the ‘Eisenhower Commission’ Signed and presented by 3 former President’s (sic) of United States of America for helping the USA Small Business Organization and talented entrepreneurs create jobs for the American working class,” according to the websites.
His wife, Bita Nassbridges, who was named a relief defendant by CFTC for allegedly receiving ill-gotten gains from the scheme, is referred to as “Mrs. Bridges” on one of the sites and “Mrs. Nassbridges” on the other. The couple is pictured in poses with Republicans Bush, former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Sen. John Thune.
NOTE TO READERS: The PP Blog anticipates that it will publish a story this evening that will say a second financial scandal involving the so-called “Congressional Medal Of Distinction” is evolving.
It is the same award claimed by AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin — and this time it has been used by a California man accused of swindling investors. The man appears to have used as many as three names and has had his picture taken with some of America’s top politicians.
The 3 Hebrew Boys' party bus. (Screen shot from for-sale ad by Beattie B. Ashmore, the court-appointed receiver. The bus, a Prevost XLII 68988 VIP/Executive Coach, is marked "SOLD.")
UPDATED 4:16 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Yesterday U.S. District Judge Margaret B. Seymour of the District of South Carolina sentenced the “3 Hebrew Boys” — Tony Pough, Joseph Brunson and Timothy McQueen — to a combined total of 84 years in federal prison for a massive Forex fraud and Ponzi scheme.
Today the region’s top prosecutor said the fraud sentences handed down by Seymour were the “highest” in the history of the South Carolina federal district. Seymour also ordered the men to pay $82 million in restitution to victims of the colossal scam.
“As U.S. Attorney, especially in this time of economic hardship, I will continue to seek out and aggressively prosecute those who prey on their fellow citizens and deprive them of their hard-earned savings,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles. “I hope that those who would defraud their neighbors, friends, and associates hear this message loud and clear.”
McQueen, 52, and Brunson, 47, each received sentences of 27 years. Pough, 47, was sentenced to 30 years because he had a prior conviction, Nettles said.
The men purchased a $5 million Gulfstream jet and a $900,000 “party bus” as part of their caper, prosecutors said. They also bought expensive cars, real estate and luxury suites at the NFL stadiums of the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons.
People of faith and members of the military were among the victims, prosecutors said.
“These schemes wrecked the lives of thousands of people,” Nettles said, pointing out that South Carolina fraudster Al Parish had been sentenced to 24 years in a separate case that involved $66 million.
Beattie B. Ashmore, the court-appointed receiver, has recovered about $20 million so far for victims, prosecutors said.
In a case that features elements remarkably similar to the AdSurfDaily litigation, a federal judge in South Carolina has sentenced three defendants in the “3 Hebrew Boys” fraud case to a combined total of 84 years in prison.
Joseph Brunson, Tim McQueen and Tony Pough were jailed immediately after their convictions a year ago in an $82 million, foreign-currency fraud and Ponzi scheme case that traded on religion. The men, who called their business a debt-relief ministry, accused former U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkens of “treason” last year and of committing acts of war against them.
The sentencing occurred today, with U.S. District Judge Margaret Seymour giving Pough 30 years and Brunson and McQueen 27 years each. The office of U.S. Attorney William N. Nettles of the District of South Carolina did not immediately return a call from the PP Blog for comment. The Associated Press first reported on the lengths of the sentences tonight, noting that the terms were “so harsh in part because the judge found they tried to obstruct justice at every turn.”
Brunson, McQueen and Pough became known as “3 Hebrew Boys” after operating a website with the same name, which is based on a biblical story of believers who escaped a furnace by relying on their faith. The Ponzi scheme operated under the name Capital Consortium Group LLC.
In 2007, the men filed a court document that described their investment program as an effort to free people from government “bondage” and referred to the investigation as “Satan’s handiwork.”
A year later, in 2008, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin described the case against his purported Florida “advertising” firm as the work of “Satan,” comparing it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Bowdoin, 76, was indicted earlier this month on Ponzi scheme charges.
The 3 Hebrew Boys’ operation sought to chill law enforcement, regulators and members of the media from scrutinizing operations, prosecutors said.
In an approach similar to one used by the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, members were forced to agree to a confidentially clause that purportedly prohibited them from discussing the company outside the confines of meeting places. Participants were threatened with a $1 million penalty for sharing information.
A court-appointed receiver published documents that listed an astonishing array of luxury purchases made by the 3 Hebrew Boys schemers with investors’ money. Among the items were a Gulf Stream jet, a Prevost Motorcoach and automobiles with famous names such as Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, Saab, Cadillac and Lincoln.
In the “3 Hebrew Boys” case, Brunson filed documents that appear to have asserted immunity from prosecution on the grounds of purported sovereignty. The documents appear to have been designed to force Wilkens, then the U.S. Attorney, to default on a contact to which he never had agreed. The approach sometimes is referred to as “paper terrorism” or “mailbox arbitration.”
A similar approach has been used by litigants in the ASD case.
Screen shot: Joseph Brunson declared last year that then-U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkens was guilty of treason, insurrection and conspiracy to overthow the U.S. government in his efforts to prosecute Brunson.
Brunson wrote in a court filing he described as a “Bill of Peace” that Wilkens had a duty to appear before a notary public and acknowledge Brunson’s assertion of sovereignty in “red ink.” The document demanded that Wilkens use his “Christian name” in his response to Brunson.
A refusal by Wilkens to carry out the demands within three days, Brunson said, would result in a contractual agreement that Wilkens was “an enemy of One and the [U]nited States of America and the people, Constitution, and Government thereof.”
A federal judge in California has halted a marketing scheme in which the symbols and language of government and the names of bogus government agencies with “official sounding names” were used to trick consumers into believing they’d won a sweepstakes, the FTC said.
Twelve defendants have been charged in the alleged scheme, which charged consumers a $20 fee to qualify for bogus prizes and used artwork depicting the bald eagle and the words “In God We Trust,” the agency said.
Among the defendants are National Awards Service Advisory LLC, Central Processing of Nevada LLC, International Award Advisors Inc., Spectrum Caging Service Inc., Prize Registry Bureau Inc., Consolidated Data Bureau Inc., Registered Data Analytics Inc., Lloyd Brannigan Exchange Inc., Geovanni Sorino, Jorge A. Castro, Tully A. Lovisa, and Steven McClenahan.
Some of mailers used in the scheme used names such as the “State of Illinois Commissioners of Regulation,” the FTC said. Similar mailers used the names of California, Florida and Georgia to sanitize the scheme, the FTC said.
The word “voucher” also was used as part of the scam, according to evidence exhibits.
Kenneth Wayne Leaming, also known as "Kenneth Wayne."
BULLETIN: A bizarre lawsuit filed against the U.S. government by AdSurfDaily figures Kenneth Wayne Leaming and Christian Oesch has been dismissed.
In dismissing the complaint, Judge Christine Odell Cook Miller of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed with the government’s contention that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the claim.
The judge described the complaint by Leaming, Oesch and an affiliated company known as MYHUB GROUP LLC as a bid to argue about “an unlawful taking of the forfeited property” in the ASD case, which was heard in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Meanwhile, the judge ruled that MYHUB GROUP inappropriately sought to act as its own attorney.
Corporations are required to have professional counsel to appear in court, the judge ruled.
ASD President Andy Bowdoin suffered a similar setback last year when he tried to represent ASD pro se in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Leaming and Oesch appear to have tried to use the U.S. Court of Federal Claims as an appeals court for U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, while apparently seeking the staggering sum of $29 trillion from a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent involved in the ASD Ponzi scheme forfeiture case.
“Plaintiffs’ challenge took the form of presenting claims issued by Tina M. Hall, a notary public in the State of Washington to officials associated with the forfeitures,” Cook Miller noted in the order of dismissal. “Ms. Hall issued ‘Certificates of Default on February 16, 2010, against these government officials for failure to respond to plaintiffs’ claims ‘in admiralty.’ At this point the complaint deteriorates into rambling.”
The judge also barred Leaming and Oesch from seeking sanctions against the government.
“As an initial matter, this court notes that, during the course of briefing on defendant’s motion, defense counsel has suffered the opprobrium of plaintiffs’ aspersions and disparagement, including charges of unethical practices,” Cook Miller said in the ruling. “Defendant charitably characterizes this argument as hyperbole . . . and the court will lay the matter to rest by denying any request for sanctions that plaintiffs may be making.”
UPDATED 9:28 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) On Dec. 1, a federal magistrate judge set bail of $350,000 for AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin and ordered him not to commit a federal, state or local crime after his arrest by the U.S. Secret Service on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
Bowdoin, 76, was specifically warned that he could be held in contempt of court for violating conditions of his bail. The conditions included an order not to obstruct the investigation or tamper with witnesses.
Now an email attributed to former ASD and AdViewGlobal executive Gary Talbert has surfaced that is raising questions about whether Bowdoin is trying to suppress the victims’ count and manipulate ASD members who seek to file restitution claims with Rust Consulting Inc., the official claims administrator in the $110 million Ponzi case.
The email specifically references Bowdoin’s arrest, but makes no reference to the bail conditions set by U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas G. Wilson in advance of a scheduled appearance by Bowdoin in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Dec. 17.
Bowdoin made his initial court appearance before Wilson in Florida.
“Got a email from Andy and he told me to go ahead and send this email out to everyone,” noted the email attributed to Talbert, who filed a sworn affidavit on ASD’s behalf in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2008. “He does have a hearing on Dec. 17th in Washington D.C. He and his lawyers are still positive on the out come.”
“Here is just a idea and I think this will work for everyone,” the email continued. “This should keep everyone legal. Because I think everyone understood it was not a investment. I believe it is time to fill out the info. from Rust inc. with the following addendum.
“Where it asks for your signature write in there ‘See addendum’.
“Now put this in your own words on the addendum. Here is a out line.
“On the addendum write that you knew this was not a investment and you where purchasing advertising. Now since the gov. stopped my advertising company and I did not get my advertising I would like to get my advertising money back from whom ever is holding it now. Sign it and send it in with the forms from Rust.”
News about the email attributed to Talbert was spreading among ASD members last night. Separately, ASD figures Kenneth Wayne Leaming and Christian Oesch have filed an ASD-related lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that apparently seeks the spectacular sum of $29 TRILLION from a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a Secret Service agent involved in the ASD Ponzi case.
On June 30, 2009, AdViewGlobal was cited as an extension of ASD in a racketeering lawsuit filed against Bowdoin by ASD members. The reference was dated June 29, 2009, the same day Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for his Ponzi scheme.
Federal prosecutors now say Bowdoin faces up to 120 years in prison if convicted of all counts against him.
“AVG is the next iteration of the Ponzi scheme auto-surf programs, which [are] staffed with former ASD executives and Bowdoin disciples, including George Harris, the stepson of Bowdoin, who is listed as an AVG trustee, Gary Talbert, former ASD executive served as CEO of AVG and now serves as an accountant, Nate Boyd, a former compliance officer at ASD, serves as ‘Protector’ of the AVG association, and Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee who testified on ASD’s behalf at the evidentiary hearing before this Court last fall is a customer service representative of AVG,” the RICO plaintiffs claimed.
The grand jury that indicted Bowdoin began to meet in May 2009. During that same month, AVG was scurrying to reconfigure itself after gathering money from members and offering 200 percent “bonuses” for months. AVG launched in the aftermath of the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin in August 2008, the filing by the government of a second forfeiture complaint against ASD-connected assets in December 2008 and the filing of the racketeering lawsuit against Bowdoin.
In January 2009, just days prior to its official launch in early February, AVG bizarrely both confirmed and denied it had ties to ASD.
The appearance of AVG graphics in an ASD-controlled webroom after the federal seizure was an “operational coincidence,” AVG memorably explained. The announcement was attributed to Chuck Osmin, himself a former ASD employee.
Even though AVG previously had denied ASD ties, the upstart surf then announced that Talbert was its CEO.
“Since Mr. Talbert was and is the C.E.O. for both companies and had worked with the same web room company while at ASD, it would be very natural for him to choose and use many of the same venders (sic) that he had used before. So, the fact that ASD and AdView Global are using the same web room hosting company is no accident, in fact it is an operational coincidence,” AdViewGlobal said.
Why the surf identified Talbert as ASD’s CEO was unclear. He was listed in his own sworn court documents in the ASD case as ASD’s “Human Resource Manager, Assistant CFO and Website Editor.”
By March 2009, AVG announced that Talbert had resigned as AVG’s chief. It also announced that its bank account had been suspended, blaming the development on members.
In May 2009, AVG announced that it had secured a new, offshore wire facilitator to help it gather money from members. The announcement was made on the same day the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore financial fraud. (See this story and included links for updates on AVG’s purported facilitator, KINGZ Capital Management. There is a tie between KINGZ and Minnesota Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook.)
By June 25, 2009, AVG announced it was suspending cashouts, again blaming the development on members while threatening members and journalists with copyright-infringement lawsuits for reporting the news.
Just four days later, on June 29, 2009, the RICO plaintiffs in the ASD lawsuit referenced AVG in a court filing docketed the following day, June 30. By September 2009, federal prosecutors made a veiled reference to AVG in filings in the ASD case.
By Sept. 29, 2009, an email attributed to ASD spokeswoman Sara Mattoon was circulating among ASD members. The email specifically instructed members not to fill out a government form that would be used as part of the restitution process.
“Soon after the ASD shutdown, the DOJ (Dept of Justice) set up a website for people to file a claim for the money they had in ASD,” Mattoon was quoted as saying in the email. “As soon as I heard about it, I told everyone not to do it because I could see what the Government was trying to do, but some people didn’t realize what it was and afterwards they regretted doing so.”
The Matton email referenced an earlier email attributed to ASD member and purported trainer Robert Fava. Like the Mattoon email, the Fava email discouraged members from filling out the government form, describing it as “ammunition” that could be used against ASD.
This is actually Post No. 1,007 since the PP Blog switched to the WordPress platform two years ago this month. We’d hoped to commemorate our 1,000th WordPress post in the actual 1,000th post, but missed the chance because of Breaking News concerning the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force’s Operation Broken Trust.
The PP Blog's Breaking News graphic was stolen and used in a promotion for Data Network Affiliates (DNA) earlier this year. DNA, which purports to be in the business of helping the AMBER Alert prohram rescue abducted children, now apparently has morphed into a company known as OWOW, which has instructed members to advertise a secret cure for cancer.
Several hours after we reported that the Task Force now was counting investment-fraud victims by the tens of thousands and noting that even deaf people had been targeted in massive scams, we reported that Walmart had joined the “If you see something, say something” terrorism-awareness campaign operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Walmart was instantly and savagely pilloried on YouTube, apparently for holding the view that DHS deserved private-sector help in its work to keep America safe. On. Dec. 6, when the PP Blog first observed the DHS video on YouTube announcing the Walmart partnership, the video had received only 310 views. That number now has shot up to 289,657. YouTube posters called DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano names that could peel paint. We’ll leave it at that, except to say that scores of Americans appear to have emerged as kneejerk critics and appear unwilling to view America’s economic well-being within the lens of national security.
Indeed, how safe is America — and the world at large — if fraud victims are being counted in numbers that would fill stadiums and vast sums of wealth are being consumed and disappearing down ratholes? In the Task Force announcement, Attorney General Eric Holder said that, since Aug. 16 alone, cases investigated by the Task Force have uncovered losses of more than $10.4 billion. The schemes affected at least 120,000 victims.
The victims’ count in just this relatively small cluster of cases is more than enough to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena or Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, America’s largest college-football stadium.
Just prior to our Operation Broken Trust post — in Post No. 999 — we reported that the AdPayDaily autosurf, which has promoters and members in common with both AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal, was showing signs of collapse. Flash forward to Post No. 1,002: In this post, we reported that a New York Internet Marketer had been arrested by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for cyberstalking.
Vitaly Borker apparently believed it prudent to use the Internet to threaten to rape women who had received what investigators described as bogus and inferior-quality goods from him. A fair reading of the complaint against Borker shows that he used the same type of gutter language directed at Napolitano on YouTube — you know, for her apparent High Crime of asking Walmart shoppers to be aware of their surroundings in the Age of Terrorism.
We next reported on a 54-year prison sentence handed down to a former Indiana pastor who duped Christian investors in a Ponzi scheme. After that, we reported that a company that once did business with Steve Renner’s Cash Cards International had been implicated in a massive Forex scheme that affected at least 800 investors.
Renner was the operator of the INetGlobal autosurf, which the U.S. Secret Service said in February was operating a Ponzi scheme affecting thousands of people, including victims of Chinese descent who may have limited ability to understand English. The Secret Service said an undercover agent had been introduced to INetGlobal by an AdSurfDaily member.
On Dec. 8, we reported that a Maryland man had been arrested after the FBI intercepted his plot to detonate a car bomb at a military-recruitment center. A similar plot had been unmasked by the FBI in Portand, Ore., on the day after Thanksgiving. It was aimed at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, meaning it was aimed at children and families.
Here is one way to look at the alleged Thanksgiving plot: The arrest was announced on Nov. 26. By Dec. 6, crackpots were flooding YouTube with paint-peeling comments about Napolitano and the terrorism-awareness campaign. Two days after that, on Dec. 8, a man was arrested in the Maryland plot. He allegedly also talked about blowing up Andrews Air Force Base, which happens to be the home base of Air Force One, which happens to be the aircraft used by the President of the United States.
We haven’t even written about Wikileaks and the arrest in Britian of Julian Assange. Wikileaks’ sympathizers reacted by bringing DDoS attacks, apparently based on the belief that the best way to show support for Assange was to send out an army of bots to disrupt the websites of businesses that did not support Assange.
By week’s end, Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were surrounded by a mob unhappy about the skyrocketing costs of getting a college education in the United Kingdom. Civility, it seems, can be cast out the door in a country minute and replaced by the taunts of a mob.
Yesterday, as we again sought to commemorate our 1,000 post, word arrived about the apparent suicide of Bernard Madoff’s son on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest.
There is no doubt — none whatsoever — that Ponzi = Pain. There also is no doubt that the Internet has ushered in an era of unprecedented, mass-produced, viral crime. Criminals have been aided in their nefarious pursuits by crackpots who employ no editorial filters and simply create or repeat lies that institutionalize crime as an occupation and even celebrate it.
At the precise moment in time in which Americans and other citizens of the world could benefit most from serious words and serious research backing those words, some of the world’s great publishing companies are struggling to make ends meet. Print circulation is down. Journalists are losing jobs. Designers and salespeople are losing jobs.
The switch to electronic publishing platforms has been accompanied by piracy, wanton theft and trademark infringement that further erodes the value of words and intellectual property, undermines the economy and adds to concerns about national and international security. People, including well-intentioned people, simply copy-and-paste entire editorial wells from one site to another. The public becomes confused about the original source of material, which often is shoe-horned to fit a specific agenda.
Earlier this year, the PP Blog’s Breaking News graphic was stolen by a member of Data Network Affiliates (DNA), an MLM company that routinely targets promos at Christians and, among other things, has claimed it is helping the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children. DNA now apparently has morphed into a company known as OWOW, which is asking members to suggest that a product known as TurboMune cures cancer.
This is not “freedom,” as the scammers would have you believe; it is theft and piracy on the high electronic seas, plain and simple. It also often is the case that this specific brand of theft also gets mixed with appeals to faith, meaning the scammers are seeking to pluck heartstrings and separate Believers from their money.
There simply is no way that any government or branch of government can be at all places at all times. Although it is fashionable to describe efforts to battle crime in the Age of the Internet and the Age of Terrorism as an effort by Big Brother to assign each individual citizen his or her own bureaucrat to bring commerce and freedom to a screeching halt, such opinions often are simple rants that lack any real-world context.
Within hours of the PP Blog’s publication of a story about the alleged Portland plot, the Blog was bizarrely assailed by an MLM aficionado for DNA/OWOW as a tool for Israel. Michael Chertoff, a former federal judge, federal prosecutor and DHS secretary, was described as a “suspect” in the 9/11 attacks, which the poster blamed on Israel while calling Chertoff an Israeli scum bag.
As noted above, when Janet Napolitano announced a simple partnership with Walmart to encourage citizens to be aware of their surroundings, she encountered vicious name-calling — and it all happened during the same week yet-another bombing plot was unmasked, the Task Force was noting that America’s largest stadiums were not large enough to accommodate recent victims of financial fraud, DDoS attacks were aimed at companies deemed by third parties to be unfriendly to Wikileaks and the future king of England and his wife were surrounded by an angry mob.
Even if one is willing to assume that Wikileaks seeks to serve a higher, noble purpose, directing DDoS attacks at businesses and government sites hardly helps Assange elicit sympathy or understanding. He lost an important round in the PR war last week, as did the unthinking crowd that assailed Napolitano and the mob that heckled Prince Charles and the Duchess.
The lionization of crackpots of all stripes is rapidly emerging as a dangerous, unintended consequence of the Internet — as are all the tortured claims that MLM products treat or cure cancer, create vast sums of wealth for ordinary participants and the tortured claim that appropriating the names of Walmart and Winfrey and Trump and Buffet and Clinton is just another word for freedom.
Far from promoting freedom, the crackpots and criminals are promoting anarchy. They do not seek to compete in either a free marketplace of commerce or a free marketplace of ideas. Rather, they seek to commit crimes on a global scale and to fill entire stadiums with victims — even as would-be terrorists speculate about throwing cocktail bombs into military-recruitment centers and shooting soldiers and staff as they flee the flames through the doors.
In Portland, meanwhile, the idea was to kill wide-eyed children contemplating the miracles of Christmas and Santa Claus with a fireball that also would consume their parents.
We conclude this 1,000 post commemoration with a simple thought: Death and taxes are not the only two certainties of life. It is equally certain that law enforcement needs the proactive participation of the public more than ever. It is one thing to direct reasonable criticism at agencies and public officials; it is quite another to cheer against the people who are responding to unprecedented security challenges while trying to make sure the stadiums fill up with football fans, not victims.
BULLETIN: Attorney Jonathan Star Bristol has been arrested by federal agents and is scheduled to make an appearance in Manhattan federal court this afternoon to face criminal charges of money-laundering amid allegations he helped convicted fraudster Kenneth Ira Starr siphon money from clients though an escrow fund.
