BULLETIN UPDATED 11:51 A.M. ET (U.S.A.): Mark Madoff, the older of Ponzi swindler Bernard Madoff’s two sons, has been found dead in New York on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, the New York Times is reporting.
The death was the apparent result of a suicide by hanging, the newspaper reported. Mark Madoff’s body was found this morning in his Manhattan apartment.
“Mark Madoff took his own life today,” said attoney Martin Flumenbaum in a statement released on BusinessWire. “This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy. Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo. We are all deeply saddened by this shocking turn of events.”
Bernard Madoff confessed his scheme two years ago today, ushering in an era of unprecedented Ponzi scheme investigations and the unmasking of so-called “mini-Madoffs” in businesses large and small across the United States.
Flumenbaum is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Flumenbaum represents Mark Madoff and Andrew Madoff, Bernard’s Madoff’s youngest son.
Mark Madoff was 46. He had not been charged with a crime. Neither has Andrew Madoff. Lawsuits have been piling up around the massive Bernard Madoff swindle.
BULLETIN: UPDATED 4:03 P.M. ET (U.S.A.): A man has been arrested in a plot to detonate a car bomb at a military recruitment center in Maryland. The alleged plot was intercepted by the FBI.
In court documents, the FBI identified the man as Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain. He was charged with attempted murder of federal officers/employees and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against property owned or leased by the United States.
Martinez potentially faces life in prison, if convicted.
“[T]here was no actual danger because the people Mr. Martinez asked to help carry out his attack actually were working with the FBI,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland.
An FBI agent said in charging documents that Martinez was a “recent convert” to Islam. The plot was intercepted by the FBI in October, according to the documents.
Martinez, 21, sought to recruit three other people to launch an attack against a military-recruiting station in Catonsville, Md., according to the documents. Catonsville is near Baltimore. The plot was presaged by posts on Facebook by Martinez.
In the early stages of the plot, Martinez talked about acquiring weapons and using gasoline and propane in an attack, according to the documents. As the plot developed, Martinez spoke of stationing himself on the roof, going inside, waiting for military personnel to arrive, and then shooting “everybody in the place” with the aid of an accomplice and burning down the building to “instill fear.”
Martinez also speculated about stuffing the exhaust systems of cars with socks, which he believed could be a way to kill drivers by making deadly fumes back up into passenger compartments.
“Just some ideas,” he was quoted as saying. “You know what I’m saying?”
Later, Martinez speculated about throwing cocktail bombs into the recruiting station and shooting people as they ran out, according to the documents. He also speculated about blowing up Andrews Air Force Base.
By mid-November, the focus shifted to detonating a car bomb at the recruitment center, according to the documents.
Martinez had multiple opportunities to back away from the plot, but chose to move forward, according to the documents. He attempted to detonate the bomb earlier today, but it had been engineered by the FBI to be inert.
A similar plot in Portland, Ore., was exposed on the day after Thanksgiving by the FBI last month. The agency had arranged a sting in the Portland case.
Martinez became aware of the Portland sting operation after the fact, fretted that he was being set up — but still decided to carry out his plot, according to the documents. He found out today that, like the Portland suspect, he, too, had been targeted in a sting and had been under constant surveillance by the FBI.
A Mexican company listed as a customer of Steve Renner’s Cash Cards International (CCI) in a 2005 scam known as MegaFund now has been charged by the CFTC with running a massive Forex fraud scheme that gathered at least $28 million from more than 800 U.S. customers.
Named defendants by the CFTC were MXBK Group S.A. de CV, a private Mexican financial services holding company, and its Forex trading division, MBFX S.A. Court records show that MXBK Group S.A. de CV formerly was known as MexBank Group SA de CV or MexBank.
Separately, the SEC has charged three men with fraud for blindly pitching the MexGroup program and raising “tens of millions” of dollars in the process. Charged in Utah federal court were Clifton K. Oram, Don C. Winkler and William R. Michael.
“Beyond the fact that none of the defendants understood how the Forex market or Forex trading functioned, neither Oram, Winker or Michael took any significant steps to investigate MexGroup, its principals, or the viability of the investment,” the SEC charged. “Instead, they blindly accepted MexGroup’s representations about its background, veracity, and track record.
“Further, Michael and his company used MexGroup’s purported performance numbers on his company’s website and made misleading representations and omissions regarding their own Forex trading experience,” the SEC continued. “Even more egregious, Winkler and Oram continued to offer and sell the MBFX offering even after the November 2008 collapse.”
Renner, the operator of both CCI and the INetGlobal autosurf, currently is serving an 18-month prison sentence for tax evasion. In February 2010, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that Renner was operating a Ponzi scheme through INetGlobal.
Renner has denied the Ponzi allegations.
The CFTC case against the Mexican companies and the SEC case against the promoters were brought as a result of a joint cooperative investigation among the regulators, the FBI and the IRS, officials said.
Read the CFTC complaint, which alleges the MXBK Group Forex scam began in 2005.
Here is a snippet:
“U.S. customers sign up to participate in the Defendants’ forex trading enterprise by completing forms electronically on the Defendants’ internet website. However, when completing their customer applications, U.S. customers are required to designate certain U.S. individuals or entities, sometimes called ‘resellers’ or ‘introducers,’ who in turn act as liaisons for U.S. customers with Defendants’ operations in Mexico. The resellers or introducers receive rebates described as ‘PIPs,’ which are purportedly based upon the volume of trading.”
(NOTE: The full complaint is highly recommended reading if you follow HYIP and Forex fraud schemes.)
BULLETIN: Vaughn Reeves has been sentenced to 54 years in prison after bilking Christians in a $120 million Ponzi- and affinity-fraud scheme in Indiana.
Reeves, a former church pastor, is 66. He told investors in Alanar Inc. that it was their “Christian responsibility” to become pitchmen for his then-undiscovered bond scheme. Congregants believed they were helping raise money for church-building projects, but it was a scam that led to foreclosure proceedings against eight places of worship, prosecutors said.
The case was brought by the office of Sullivan County Prosecutor Bob Hunley, with assistance from the Indiana State Police and the office of Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita.
“Investors felt they were helping to build churches, not buy the Reeves expensive homes, fancy cars, airplanes and swimming pools,” Hunley said last year.
Three sons of Reeves — Chip, Chris and Josh — are scheduled to go on trial next year. Like their father, they were charged in June 2009.
“The Reeves allegedly targeted their victims through their faith, and then exploited their religious convictions in order to hide their elaborate Ponzi scheme from potential investors,” Rokita said last year.
A New York man was arrested by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service yesterday in a bizarre case in which it was alleged he threatened to assault customers of his bogus online eyeglasses shop.
Vitaly Borker, 34, of Brooklyn, was denied bail. He bizarrely told the New York Times weeks ago that he threatened customers as a means of improving Google search-engine listings for his company, DecorMyEyes.com.
Federal prosecutors now say Borker used multiple identities in his cyberstalking scheme and was selling “counterfeit and inferior quality goods.”
“Online consumers should never be in fear for their safety simply because they have chosen the convenience of Internet shopping,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “But that is what allegedly occurred in this case. Vitaly Borker, an alleged cyberbully and fraudster, cheated his customers, and when they complained, tried to intimidate them with obscenity and threats of serious violence.”
The allegations against Borker, who allegedly used the aliases of “Tony Russo” and “Stanley Bolds,” are stunning. Borker allegedly:
Called one customer a “[f******] whore” and threatened to “come after” and “get” the victim and her husband and to sue them.
Told another customer he knew where she lived, that he lived only “one bridge away” and that he would come to her home and carry out a violent sexual assault. The threats continued repeatedly.
Told the same customer he had sued her in small-claims court and provided a bogus docket number.
Emailed a photo of the victim’s residence to the victim. Later advised her that “I AM WATCHING YOU!”
Told another female victim that he knew where she lived, that he was watching her and threatened to “kick her ass” and carry out a violent sexual assault.
Threatened a male customer and emailed the customer’s work colleagues, accusing the customer of being a narcotics user and describing the customer to his colleagues as a homosexual.
Called another customer vulgar names and threatened to “crush” eyeglass frames the customer had returned and “ship the powder back to him.”
After Borker’s arrest, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger denied him bail, saying that the defendant was either “verging on psychotic” or had “an explosive personality,” according to the New York Times.
The Times earlier had reported that Borker claimed to have mistreated customers because it helped him improve his search-engine rankings.
It has become kneejerk sport to deride Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano as “Big Sis.”
Today the attacks on Napolitano turned even more caustic, with the announcement by both DHS and Walmart that Walmart had joined the DHS-operated “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign.
Walmart issued a news release today saying it was proud to become part of the campaign, linking its announcement to a 44-second DHS video that will begin playing in 588 Walmart stores across the United States in the coming weeks .
“Homeland security starts with hometown security, and each of us plays a critical role in keeping our country and communities safe,” said Napolitano. “I applaud Walmart for joining the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign. This partnership will help millions of shoppers across the nation identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to law enforcement authorities.”
Snarky, vile comments were posted on the DHS YouTube site in response to the video — some of the sort that made the “Big Sis” slam seem almost like a compliment.
Walmart, though, is not alone in backing the campaign.
Other DHS partners in the campaign include Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, sports and general aviation industries and state and local fusion centers across the country.
Walmart’s announcement that it had joined the campaign occurs against the backdrop of a recent terrorist plot targeted at a community Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore. The plot, which was detected by the FBI, was scheduled to be carried out on “Black Friday.”
“Black Friday” is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, and has become a day filled with heavy retail shopping and community events. The suspect in the foiled Portland attack allegedly told the FBI that the plot would be less apt to be detected because the city was not front-and-center on law enforcement’s antiterrorism radar screens.
“. . . it’s in Oregon; and Oregon, like, you know, nobody ever thinks about it,” the FBI quoted the Portland suspect as saying.
There also have been bizarre events this year in which Walmart’s name was appropriated by members of murky multilevel-marketing businesses. Members of MLM programs known as Narc That Car/Crowd Sourcing International and Data Network Affiliates/OWOW instructed prospects to take photos of the license plates of cars parked at Walmart and other large retail stores.
The plate numbers purportedly were to be entered into databases controlled by the MLM firms as a means of helping law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children. No evidence has surfaced that either of the MLM firms has any tie to the AMBER Alert program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Meanwhile, bizarre promos for an MLM program known as MPB Today routinely used Walmart or its branding materials as backdrops for a purported program that suggested a one-time, $200 purchase from MPB Today could lead to free groceries for life.
In its news release announcing it had joined the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign, Walmart urged customers to support the program, but did not say precisely why it had made the decison to become to first national retailer to partner with DHS.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and members of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force said this morning that a nationwide sweep known as “Operation Broken Trust” has netted 343 criminal defendants and 189 civil defendants.
Among the targets of the sweep were purveyors of Ponzi schemes, affinity fraud, prime bank/high-yield investment scams, foreign exchange (FOREX) frauds, business-opportunity fraud and other similar schemes, investigators said.
Some of the defendants “filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid claims by victim-investors,” investigators said.
The combined losses in the schemes, which affected 120,000 investors, were estimated at $10.4 billion, Holder said. He was joined in the announcement by FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami; U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Chief Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell; Deputy Chief Rick Raven of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); Acting Director of Enforcement Vince McGonagle of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); and other members of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
“With this operation, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is sending a strong message,” said Holder. “To the public: be alert for these frauds, take appropriate measures to protect yourself, and report such schemes to proper authorities when they occur. And to anyone operating or attempting to operate an investment scam: cheating investors out of their earnings and savings is no longer a safe business plan — we will use every tool at our disposal to find you, to stop you, and to bring you to justice.”
The calling card of the schemes was greed, Henry said, adding that undercover probes are part of the Task Force’s arsenal.
“This operation highlights the scope of this problem, and its impact on individuals from all walks of life,” said Henry. “This one sweep alone involves fraud schemes that harmed more than 120,000 victims. The schemes may change, but the underlying greed does not. Working with our partners, we in the FBI will use all the investigative techniques in our arsenal, including undercover operations, to bring those responsible to justice.”
Khuzami, meanwhile, said the law-enforcement community was pursuing multiple forms of fraud.
“Fraud by well-known companies or high-profile executives gets the biggest headlines, but other scams are equally devastating to hard working families and retirees,” said Khuzami. “Victims want justice and don’t much care who the fraudster is or how unique the fraud. Today’s actions underscore that law enforcement agrees and will pursue fraud in whatever form.”
President Obama authorized the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force in November 2009. In January 2010, Holder ventured to Florida to speak about the aims of the Task Force and to warn scammers that the government was serious about putting them in jail.
A surf firm with membership and promoters’ ties to AdSurfDaily may be disintegrating — but is still encouraging participants to send in money, a member said.
“[T]he earnings/payouts nearly [stopped] but of course we were ‘encouraged’ to continue making purchases so that our earnings/payouts could continue as before,” the member said of the surf, which is known as AdPayDaily (APD).
The PP Blog reported in June that members of the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum were listed as having high positions in APD.
APD’s website was registered on Nov. 18, 2008. That’s just one day before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that ASD had not demonstrated it was a lawful business and not a Ponzi scheme. APD’s domain-registration date also coincides with a string of registration dates by the so-called ASD clones, including AVG, AdGateWorld and BizAdSplash — all of whose domains were registered after the seizure of ASD’s assets in August 2008 and all of which eventually went missing.
“I feel like we are being strung along to keep on paying in,” an APD member told the PP Blog.
ASD President Andy Bowdoin was arrested last week on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Like Bowdoin, APD urged members to keep their faith in the enterprise.
Also like ASD, APD told members in a recent email that it was experiencing “tech issues.”
“Just a note to let everyone know that we’re still working on tech issues in with the Administrative section of our website,” APD wrote last month. “If you have continued to surf you know that the daily payouts are minimal at best and that probably won’t change until we secure the necessary funding.
“In the meantime we’re still working to resolve all issues and we are extremely hopeful that we’ll have everything in order by years end,” the company said. “We will keep you posted with our progress.”
As AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin was explaining to a federal magistrate judge in Florida Wednesday that he’d honestly come by $110 million the government intends to make subject to criminal forfeiture, two other ASD figures were awaiting a ruling by a judge in another venue on whether they could proceed with their bizarre, ASD-connected lawsuit against the U.S. government.
One of the men, Kenneth Wayne Leaming of Spanaway, Wash., described himself in court documents as a “sovereign man.” Records in Washington state show that he once filed a lien against a faith-based Franciscan hospital for $9.24 billion, threatening to attach the money, furnishings and fixtures of the healthcare facility, which serves tens of thousands of patients.
Leaming, who also has a history of filing liens against public officials, has been assessed sanctions totaling at least $15,000 in Washington state for filing bogus claims, according to records. He also has been accused of the unauthorized practice of law.
Leaming and Christian Oesch filed a complaint against the United States in July 2010. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, appears to be tied to an earlier failed bid by Leaming and Oesch to demand a payment for the astronomical sum of $29 TRILLION from a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a U.S. Secret Service agent for their actions in the ASD civil-forfeiture cases filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2008.
At a bail hearing Wednesday in Florida after Bowdoin was arrested on federal charges of wire fraud and securities fraud for his operation of ASD, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas G. Wilson specifically ordered Bowdoin not to intimidate witnesses, jurors and officers of the court — and not to obstruct the investigation, tamper with witnesses or engage in retaliatory actions against witnesses, victims or informants.
As a condition of bail, Bowdoin was ordered not to commit a federal, state or local crime. Wilson warned him that he could be prosecuted for contempt of court for violating the conditions of his bail.
Bowdoin, 76, was granted bail after he told Wilson that he had a heart condition, diabetes and high blood pressure — and that he gives his wife medication because she has a brain tumor. He noted that he looked forward to going on trial in Washington, D.C., on the charges for which he was arrested on Wednesday, and had lined up experts to testify on his behalf.
Prosecutors argued that Bowdoin should be jailed, saying he was a flight risk, has ties to international countries, potentially could acquire false travel documents and has a large amount of money available to relocate.
Wilson set bail at $350,000. Bowdoin was freed after bail was secured by two properties in his wife’s name and a relative agreed to post a surety bond. Bowdoin was ordered to surrender his passport and not to travel outside the Northern and Middle Districts of Florida and the District of Columbia. He was further ordered to report by telephone to the federal Pre-Trial Services Agency in Tampa each Wednesday by 4 p.m., except for when he is attending court in the District of Columbia.
His first appearance in Washington is set for Dec. 17 at 1:45 p.m.
In June 2010, the PP Blog learned yesterday, Leaming and Oesch prepared documents that demanded payments totaling more than $29 TRILLION from U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer; Jeffrey A Taylor, the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Vasu B Muthyala, an assistant U.S. Attorney; William Cowden, a former assistant U.S. Attorney and Roy Dotson, an active-duty agent with the U.S. Secret Service.
According to a document obtained by the Blog, the public officials were sent “invoice billing statements” for the purported debt.
Collyer, the presiding judge in the ASD forfeiture cases, had issued two final orders of forfeiture earlier this year. She later blocked Leaming and Oesch from filing documents in the ASD case.
Collyer’s name was misspelled as “Collier” in the payment demand, which was made in the form of a “Notice of Final Determination and Judgment.” The bizarre document sought a sum that would more than double the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2009. The precise sum demanded from the public officials was twenty-nine trillion, four-hundred-forty-four billion, one-hundred-one-million dollars — “PLUS interest and compounded penalties.”
Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within the borders of an entire country during an entire year. GDP for the United States in 2009 was about $14.25 trillion, meaning that Leaming and Oesch sought to collect from five public servants a sum that was more than twice the production output of the entire U.S. economy last year.
Leaming and Oesch said they defined $1 as “one ounce of .999 fine silver, or a pre-1964 United States Silver Dollar, whichever value is greater.”
In 2009, silver production in the United States totaled only 1,230 tons with an estimated value of $520 million, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The men said they’d accept U.S. “fiat currency” for payment if it was tied to the “spot price for silver as established on the date of tender at London, England.”
When the public officials did not cede to the payment demand, Leaming and Oesch appear to have turned to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to enforce it, in effect arguing that Collyer, Taylor, Muthyala, Cowden and Dotson had defaulted on a contract.
Such scorched-earth litigation has been referred to as “paper terrorism.” As part of the apparent strategy, Leaming and Oesch also sought to force the government to post a bond of $100 billion and to “Cease and desist in all investigation and harassment of ASD, its officers and staff, and its member/distributors FOREVER.”
The U.S. Department of Justice responded by filing a motion to dismiss the complaint filed by Leaming and Oesch in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction over ASD-connected forfeiture matters, that Leaming and Oesch were trying to use the claims court as an appeals court and that neither man had standing in the forfeiture actions.
The Justice Department pointed out that Leaming is not a licensed attorney and had been accused in 2005 by the Washington state Law Practice Board of engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.
In 2009, Leaming filed a lien against St. Clare Hospital, a Franciscan facility in Lakewood, Wash., for more than $9.24 billion. The lien sought to attach the hospital’s money, furnishings and fixtures, according to records.
AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Florida after his arrest yesterday on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities, the PP Blog has learned.
Bail for Bowdoin was set at $350,000. The bail was secured by two properties and a surety bond from a relative. Bowdoin was released after posting it.
No date has been set for the arraignment. Because Bowdoin was arrested in Florida on charges filed in the District of Columbia, the initial proceedings were conducted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
History was made yesterday. “Wink-nod” marketing deceptions — the use of disingenuous language supplemented by willful blindness in the cancerous autosurf and HYIP trades to create plausible deniability — were pronounced dead by a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia.
Members of the insidious trade can thank ASD President Andy Bowdoin for the much-anticipated pronouncement.
The grand jury, which began meeting in May 2009 and returned an indictment against Bowdoin that was unsealed yesterday, repeatedly referred to Bowdoin’s alleged wink-nod wordplay and incongruous claims to hide his massive international Ponzi scheme.
Want to position yourself as a man of God from a stage in Las Vegas (or in any city or home office) and tell your audience that you are a “money magnet” — and then plant the seed that audience members can become “money magnets” just like you if they turn over their cash to you?
It’s time for autosurf purveyors to anticipate that a grand jury just might have something to say about it on a time and date uncertain. Bowdoin’s grand jury handed him back his “money-magnet” line repeatedly. Federal agents arrested Bowdoin yesterday in Florida. His booking and bail status still are unclear hours after his arrest. The government previously argued that Bowdoin was a flight risk who had moved money offshore and now says he faces up to 125 years in federal prison.
And what if you’re an autosurf aficionado and want to use wordplay to tell the troops that they’re not purchasing an investment in the form of an unregistered security — but instead are purchasing “advertising” in the form of “ad packages” (or a similar phrase) you’ve concocted to mask the nature of your “program?”
Well, the grand jury had an answer for that one, too: Charge the fraudster with felonies.
Want to tell the troops that your “program” has passed muster with the SEC and does not need to concern itself with registering when the claims are untrue? The grand jury had an answer for that one, too: Charge the fraudster with felonies.
Among the grand jury’s conclusions was that Bowdoin, who’d previously been charged twice with securities offenses and modeled ASD after the 12DailyPro securities, fraud and Ponzi scheme, was blowing smoke to tens of thousands of people at a time.
KABOOM! “Wink-nod” was blown to bits yesterday.
Want to create an incongruous condition in which people are standing in line for hours at “rallies” to purchase “ad packages” that pay “rebates” of up to 150 percent and an “instant bonus” on top of the “rebates” just for signing up?
The grand jury had an answer for that one, too: Charge the fraudster with felonies.
Want to counsel members on how they should refer to the “program” and what words to avoid when presenting the “program” to others? Want to be like Bowdoin and send an email that says, “[L]et’s don’t (sic) use the words investment and returns. Instead, lets (sic) use ad sales and surfing commissions. The Attorney Generals in the U.S. don’t like for us to use these words in our program?”
The grand jury had an answer for that one, too: Charge the fraudster with felonies.
KABOOM! “Wink-nod” was blown to bits yesterday.
Will autosurf forum life ever be the same? Not a chance, except among a core group of serial criminals. The grand jury signed off on a document that neatly exposes “wink-nod.” The next time a forum “expert” cautions posters not to call a surf program an investment, autosurf critics can point out that Bowdoin said the same thing — and that his words got him indicted.
At the very same Saturday “rally” in Las Vegas at which Bowdoin called himself a “money magnet” and encouraged others to become “money magnets” by giving him their cash, Bowdoin implored members not to miss a fabulous opportunity to hand him a virtually unlimited sum in the final hours before the company would enforce a $50,000 “cap” beginning on Monday, according to the grand jury.
Handing him any more than $50,000 beyond Monday might bring out the regulators, Bowdoin ventured, pointing out that “there are so many people that want to come in now and want to purchase two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, half a million and a million dollars . . .”
The grand jury pointed out that Bowdoin, incongruously, was selling advertising to people who did not even own businesses to advertise in the ASD “rotator.”
After observing any number of incongruities associated with ASD and its use of wordplay to skirt securities laws, the grand jury had a message for the whole of the autosurf and HYIP worlds: Charge the fraudsters will felonies.
It was the beginning of the end for wink-nod promoters — and it occurred in no small measure due to the efforts of the U.S. Secret Service, an agency Bowdoin and his apologists compared to “Nazis” and “Satan” after telling a Las Vegas crowd to plunk down unlimited sums on Saturday because he was lowering the limit to $50,000 on Monday.
Bowdoin’s theory behind enforcing a cap was that $50,000 might be a low enough sum to keep ASD under the radar, according to the grand jury.
Only in the incongruous world of the autosurf could someone sell himself on the notion that limiting purchases to $50,000 on Monday somehow created a safety buffer for others who plunked down higher sums two days earlier. Only in the incongruous world of the autosurf could someone instruct members to “act fast” and plunk down more than $50,000 on Saturday because the safety buffer would be enforced two days later.
And wink-nod also began its race to the Internet graveyard in no small measure due to the efforts of William Cowden, now in private practice — but once a federal prosecutor and the chief of the Asset Forfeiture Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia.
Cowden was the man some ASD members loved to hate. They called him “Gomer Pyle” on the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. They called him a “goon.” They called him “Crowden.” They called him “Cow-dung.” They called for a “militia” to storm Washington. They said Cowden should be placed in a torture rack. They “prayed” for God to strike Cowden and other federal prosecutors dead.
And then they called themselves Christians.
In the months that followed, the Secret Service, Cowden and others at the Justice Department set the stage for the complicated nature of autosurfs and HYIPs to be both understood and rejected by a grand jury that assessed ASD’s wordplay and the sea of incongruities and decided that felonious self-indulgence needed to be dealt with by returning felony indictments and destroying wink-nod.
Indeed, history was made yesterday. It was the day “wink-nod” died, the day the music died for “money magnets” and autosurf scammers on stage and in home offices and online forums everywhere.
BULLETIN UPDATED 11:51 A.M. ET (U.S.A.): Mark Madoff, the older of Ponzi swindler Bernard Madoff’s two sons, has been found dead in New York on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, the New York Times is reporting.
