Police in Canada are looking for Weizhen Tang, 51, to arrest him in an international investment-fraud case.
The Toronto Police Department says investigators believe Tang duped more than 100 investors in a $30 million Ponzi scheme. A warrant has been issued for Tang’s arrest.
Investigators say fraud victims exist “across Canada,” and in the United States and China. It is believed Tang operated the fraud scheme at least between January 2006 and March 2009.
Police say Tang billed himself as the “Chinese Warren Buffet” and engaged in “online trading.” He also is in trouble with Canadian regulators and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued him in April 2009
Here are Wang’s vital statistics, according to Toronto police:
Lived/lives in Toronto
Chinese descent
5 feet, 2 inches tall
130 lbs.
Short black hair
Glasses
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416−808−7238, Crime Stoppers
anonymously at 416−222−TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).
Along with suing Tang, the SEC also sued also Plano, Texas-based investment adviser WinWin
Tang
Capital Management LLC. Two other Tang entities were named relief defendants: WinWin Capital Partners LP and Bluejay Investment LLC, which did business as Vintage International Investment LLC.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that Tang told investors in February 2009 that in an effort to conceal substantial trading losses and attract new investors to the Oversea Chinese Fund, he posted false profits on investors’ account statements and used funds from new investors to return principal and pay out at least $8 million in “fake” profits to other investors.
According to the SEC’s complaint, Tang raised capital for the hedge fund from U.S. investors by offering and selling limited partnership interests in WinWin Capital Partners since November 2007.
WinWin Partners had raised, as of March 10, 2009, almost $17.3 million in principal investments from approximately 75 U.S. investors, most of whom are located in the Dallas area but also in California.
At least $9.6 million of the money raised from U.S. investors remains unaccounted for, the SEC said in April 2009.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Finding the United States an unfriendly environment, the so called autosurf and HYIP “industries” increasingly are relying on offshore money-exchange businesses and debit cards to entice participants, advising them that the offshore locations are “safe” havens that “shelter” U.S. residents from regulators and law-enforcement agencies.
In August 2009, we reported that a Dallas-based company, Virtual Money Inc., which provided debit cards to Florida-based AdSurfDaily Inc., was indicted on charges of helping a Colombian cocaine operation launder money by providing cards that were used to convert drug proceeds to cash at ATMs in Medellin. ASD is implicated in an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme.
In a follow-up story, we asked if autosurf and HYIP enthusiasts who describe the enterprises as harmless despite the fact they steal wealth from a large group to give it to a smaller one had yet felt a “lump” in their throats because law enforcement also had tied the offshore debit-card business to international narco-trafficking.
That lump only should be getting bigger.
The story below is about D.M.G. Group (DMG) and its operator, David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzman (David Murcia). DMG used debit cards as the principal part of a pyramid scheme that largely targeted the poor in Colombia. The scheme is believed to have collected hundreds of millions of dollars from as many as 400,000 people before collapsing in 2008.
Murcia, who owned two airplanes, three yachts and at least 12 luxury vehicles, was arrested in Panama in 2008, just as he was attempting to flee to Costa Rica to avoid extradition to Colombia. He was convicted of money-laundering in Colombia in December 2009, sentenced to 30 years in prison and fined $12.5 million. Viewed as a Robin Hood figure by some people, Murcia portrayed himself as a man simply interested in creating wealth for others. His arrest initially led to rioting in Colombia.
Police used tear gas to disperse protesters, and the government launched a nationwide crackdown on Ponzi and pyramid schemes and declared a state of emergency. Dozens of schemes using various corrupt business models were operating simultaneously, sucking wealth from the economy and placing it in the hands of a small number of people. At least 12 people reportedly were killed in Colombia during Ponzi/pyramid-related rioting. Only the people who got into the schemes first made money. By some estimates, 90 percent or more of the participants lost money.
One of the fraudulent companies operating at the same time as DMG was known as DRFE (Dinero Rapido Facil en Efectio), which means “Rapid Money, Easy Cash.” It, too, collapsed.
DMG, for its part, had 59 offices in Colombia; the government shuttered them all in a single day, after linking DMG money to international drug traffickers.
Here, now, the story about the dramatic extradition of Murcia to the United States yesterday . . .
David Murcia
His jailers at La Picota prison in Bogota placed him in handcuffs. They wrapped him in a heavy, bullet-proof jacket. From there they took him to the Catam military airport under heavy guard. He was led to a plane owned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Officials made sure that the moments were captured on film and videotape. They were sending a simple message: We will come after you, no matter where you are, even if you pretend you are Robin Hood.
And with that David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzman (David Murcia), known as the “Bernie Madoff of Colombia” for his collapsed financial scheme, was whisked to Miami. He’ll be tried in New York on charges of conspiring to launder millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds through his company, D.M.G. Group (DMG), a house of cards propped up by a pyramid-scheme involving debit cards and promises that participants would get back 100 percent of what they paid in and perhaps more.
“Extradition signals Colombia’s continuing commitment with the U.S. in fighting drug dealers,” said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “It is also important in attacking the money laundering that accompanies drug trafficking. The black market peso exchange is just one of many schemes to launder drug money and corrupt once legitimate business in the process. Left to their own devices, narcotics traffickers would undermine entire economies through drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion and corruption. This was an auspicious victory in a continuing fight.”
U.S. prosecutors yesterday pointedly called DMG “a vehicle for a multi-level marketing scheme.” Participants were told to buy prepaid debit cards that operated on a points system and would permit them to buy electronics and other merchandise at DMG retail stores and enable them to get back 100 percent of what they paid in and perhaps more.
Points accumulated when purchases were made and participants introduced others to the scheme, which was sold as an opportunity to buy anything they wanted — from groceries to flat-screen TVs and motorcycles — while getting the products and at least 100 percent of the purchase price back in six months.
Murcia, 28, founded DMG in Colombia’s coca-growing region. The complex scheme ultimately led to questions about how Murcia, a high-school graduate, had figured out a way to give back at least 100 percent of the purchase price of products without operating a shell game in which money was taken from new participants to pay returns to the original participants. Murcia never could explain clearly how the program worked, and sometimes used accounting terms such as “cash flow” to deflect questions. He had assembled a massive following of devotees, many of whom zealously defended the program, saying Murcia was helping people rise out of poverty.
At first it was speculated that DMG bought merchandise in bulk and sold it to debit-card customers at grossly inflated prices to create a hugely profitable spread. That all changed, however, when investigators found $3.2 million in cash stuffed in cardboard boxes in the coca-growing region — and linked the cash to Murcia — and later linked Murcia to a reputed drug smuggler.
U.S. prosecutors now say Murcia had acquired so much money that it created a problem for him — the classic dilemma faced by corrupt operations. In the fall of 2007, Murcia and Margarita Leonor Pabon Castro, a 35-year-old co-defendant in the U.S. case, “approached another individual in Colombia and said that they had cash — apparently in U.S. dollars — that they could not deposit into the Colombian banking system.”
Murcia and Castro asked the unidentified person to set up an account in the United States. A U.S. account was opened at Merrill Lynch in the name of Blackstone International Development. Neither Murcia nor Casto was listed as owners of the account.
In March 2008, Murcia and Castro told the person who had opened the account that they had “provided $2.2 million worth of Colombian Pesos to German Enrique Serrano-Reyes, 45, in Colombia, and, in exchange, Serrano-Reyes had caused nearly $2.2 million to be wired into the Blackstone Account through 18 separate wire transfers.”
Prosecutors seized the Blackstone Account in May 2008.
When Murcia was informed of the seizure of the Blackstone Account, he “told the individual who set up the account that he should not attempt to retrieve the contents of the account, and should not under any circumstances inform the authorities of [Murcia] or [Castro’s] interest in the Blackstone Account, prosecutors said.
Also indicted in the United States was William Suarez-Suarez, 41, whom prosecutors said was the head of DMG’s Colombian operations and attempted to bribe officials in Colombia.
Suarez-Suarez, according to prosecutors, helped Murcia and “others” establish “hundreds of subsidiary and affiliated companies linked to DMG in countries including Colombia, Panama, and the United States.”
DMG also had links to the drug trade in Mexico, prosecutors said. Murcia, Santiago Baranchuk-Rueda, 34, Daniel Angel Rueda 36, and Luis Fernando Cediel Rozo, 34, “coordinated the pick-up and transportation of millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds in Mexico,” prosecutors said.
“The defendants concealed narcotics proceeds by investing them in legitimate real estate
and limited liability companies in the United States,” prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said prosecutors and their law-enforcement colleagues would leave no stone unturned in fighting international money-laundering and drug-trafficking.
“David Murcia Guzman is charged with using his namesake company as cover for the laundering of illicit drug proceeds,” Bharara said. “[He] allegedly played a shell game with dirty money, masking millions for narco-traffickers as legitimate transfers. This extradition affirms that we will not tolerate the abuse of the U.S. banking system to stimulate the black market economy.”
John P. Gilbride, DEA Special-Agent-in-Charge, said investigators have the experience and the patience to peel back layers of the onion to expose the corruption.
“Hiding behind a corporation name did not make this business legitimate,” Gilbride said. “In fact, it was facilitating millions of narco drug dollars into pesos for drug traffickers worldwide. This extradition highlights law enforcement’s international efforts to identify and arrest those who profit from the sale of illegal narcotics.”
Bharara thanked the government of Colombia for its cooperation.
Murcia faces a prison term of 20 years in the United States, if convicted. He’ll serve any sentence that emerges in the United States, and then will be sent back to Colombia to serve his 30-year sentence there.
A Massachusetts man has been arrested in Mississippi and charged with orchestrating a $29 million Ponzi scheme by tricking people into believing they were investing in a company that provided uniforms for the Winter Olympics, the Pan American games and the government.
Ironically, Richard Elkinson told investors he provided prison uniforms — and also uniforms for police officers, federal prosecutors said.
It was not immediately clear how much of Elkinson’s purported uniform business was legitimate. Investigators say the Ponzi scheme might have been operating for 20 years before flaming out in December.
The FBI was working the case on Christmas Eve, according to the criminal complaint. After securing purchase orders claiming the states of Connecticut and Georgia were among Elkinson’s customers, an agent called the phone numbers on the purported purchase orders.
“In each instance, I encountered ‘disconnected’ messages,” the agent said.
The investigation also revealed that Elkinson had an affinity for Las Vegas and claimed to have credit lines of $25,000 each at the Venetian, MGM Grand and Caesars Palace casinos.
Elkinson, 76, of Framingham, was charged with mail fraud. The SEC and the Securities Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State are assisting in the probe.
Records in Las Vegas casinos show that Elkinson had “conducted a total of more than $3.7 million in currency transactions over $10,000” since 1998, prosecutors said. The Ponzi scheme began to collapse last year, and Elkinson missed a meeting with investors in December, and stopped answering his phone.
Records suggest he was at the Wynn casino in Las Vegas Dec. 22, and canceled a reservation at the Venitian Dec. 23.
The Alleged Scheme
One of the elements, according to the complaint, was that the purported Japanese garment manufacturer, which purportedly had an office in Chatsworth, Calif., would do business with only Elkinson “personally,” a possible signal that agents believe Elkinson was attempting to keep investors from asking too many questions or performing thorough due diligence.
In 2003 or 2004, according to the FBI, Elkinson showed investors a 1998 letter purportedly written by “Alan Shimuka” on the California office’s letterhead that said, “My Honorable Father, once again, requires me to state that we do business with Mr. Richard Elkinson of Northeast Sales.”
“Elkinson allegedly represented that his business involved entering into contracts directly with large purchasers (such as government entities), in which Elkinson had to pay 50 percent of the contract amount as a down payment to the manufacturer in order to initiate the manufacturing process,” prosecutors said.
“[U]pon completion and delivery of the uniforms, Elkinson reported that he would receive payment from the purchasing entity,” prosecutors continued. “[He] claimed that banks were unwilling to lend funds to his business based upon unexecuted contracts, so he needed to borrow a portion of the funds required to pay the 50 percent down payments.”
As has been common in recent Ponzi schemes, Elkinson lulled investors with promissory notes, prosecutors said. In his specific case, Elkinson’s notes “generally required repayment within a term of 330-360 days, and with interest rates that ranged from 9 percent to 13 percent.
“Upon maturity of the notes, investor/lenders were given an option to take a return of their principal and interest, to take interest only, or to roll the principal and interest over into a new note,” prosecutors said.
In April or May of 2009, Elkinson began to default on the notes, providing investors “a variety of excuses,” prosecutors said.
Among the excuses was that Elkinson’s wife was ill and he had to accompany her to Houston for treatment. Elkinson also told investors that government budgetary problems at the state level were delaying payments.
The wheels fell off in December, when Elkinson missed a meeting with two investors and stopped answering his cell phone.
In the early stages of the probe, investigators have identified about 130 investors and calculated that Elkinson owes them $29 million.
U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said that prosecutors will post information on a website to update victims. Here is the website:
BULLETIN: Scott Rothstein, the Fort Lauderdale attorney charged with racketeering last month and disbarred amid allegations he orchestrated a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme involving bogus legal settlements, is expected to change his plea to guilty.
Police in Redondo Beach, Calif., say they were investigating Mariana Montes for a separate crime and seeking her arrest on a warrant, but discovered during their probe that she had wiped out investors by running a Ponzi scheme targeting Latin immigrants.
Montes, 41, now is jailed on the original warrant, and the Ponzi investigation is proceeding as a separate matter.
Police said the Ponzi was operated through a bogus company known as “Fast Results Investments.†Montes met with individual investors beginning in 2007, and promised clients who invested a minimum of $5,000 returns of 25 percent within 30 to 90 days.
At least 55 victims have been identified in the opening days of the probe, police said today.
Some of the victims “invested their entire life savings or complete retirement account balances,” police said.
“Montes used the investors’ money to purchase designer clothing, a new vehicle and to fund her daily activities,” police said.
Police said their preliminary estimate of $500,000 in losses likely would rise, perhaps significantly.
“It is believed that there are many more victims of Montes’ Ponzi scheme that have not yet been identified,” police said, noting that they already have evidence that Montes was conducting business in Arizona.
Investigators at the Redondo Beach Police Department have established a special telephone line for possible victims. The phone line has information in both English and Spanish.
The Police Department is urging any possible victims of this Ponzi scheme to call 310- 379-2477 Ext. 2332.
Montes is being held in the Los Angeles County jail, on a warrant for “another financial crime” unrelated to the Ponzi scheme, police said. Jail records show the crime was a felony, but the specific crime was not defined.
Just how far will people go to avoid getting caught or convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme or to reclaim funds lost in a Ponzi scheme — or to send a message that designed to rattle nerves?
There have been several recent Ponzi or financial-fraud cases with more than just a hint of violent intent.
Implicated in a massive Ponzi scheme, disbarred Florida attorney surrounded himself with body guards prior to getting charged with racketeering, authorities said. Guns were pulled on multiple occasions, according to media accounts.
Last month, fleeced Texas investor Christine Cayton was arrested in Texas on charges that she brought a gun to the headquarters of Triton Financial LLC — implicated in an investment-fraud scheme by the SEC — and demanded a refund from Triton principal Kurt B. Barton
Now comes word that bullets were fired in Canada at the home of family members of Tzvi Erez, accused of operating a “printing” Ponzi scheme that gathered $27 million. A school that youngsters in the Erez family attend added security after it received a threatening letter.
J.V. Huffman Jr. Source: Catawba Country Sheriff's Office
It’s not as though alleged fraudster J.V. Huffman Jr. did not have the expensive cars and real estate often associated with Ponzi schemes or financial frauds.
Huffman, jailed awaiting trial in North Carolina on Ponzi and weapons charges, had plenty of those, according to William Walt Pettit, the court-appointed receiver. He had an Aston Martin ($100,000+), three Mercedes (nearly $180,000 combined), and a Prevost motor home (insured against loss for $825,000) , for example. And Huffman had at least 14 parcels or properties, including a $765,000 property in North Carolina and multiple interests in time-shares at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
But Huffman also had jet skis, which oddly seem to have become a signature purchase among operators of alleged Ponzi schemes or financial frauds. Disbarred Florida attorney Scott Rothstein, implicated in an alleged $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, had jet skis.
Affiliate Strategies Inc., a Kansas company under whose umbrella the shuttered Noobing autosurf fell, had a jet ski. ASI is among a number of companies sued by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of four states for operating a grant-writing scheme.
Florida-based AdSurfDaily, whose president is implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in a $100 million Ponzi scheme, also had jet skis — two of them. Andy Bowdoin told his members that the jet skis (and a lakefront home) were for their benefit, but the statement was met with anger, the jet skis and Bowdoin’s other marine equipment dismissed derisively as “water toys.”
Huffman’s next court appearance in North Carolina has been delayed until Jan. 25. He also faces a civil prosecution by the SEC, which said his Ponzi scheme began in 1991 and operated for 17 years before collapsing.
The weapons charge was added when guards found a razor blade hidden in Huffman’s Bible in his jail cell. Prosecutors said the alleged financial scheme largely was targeted at Lutherans.
SEC investigators said Huffman and his company — Biltmore Financial Group — gathered as much as $25 million from 500 investors. At first, Huffman told investors he operated a mutual fund.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing volatility in financial markets, Huffman changed his story, telling investors that he pooled funds to purchase and sell safe mortgages that had strong equity positions and were insured, the SEC said.
“Contrary to his representations, Huffman and Biltmore did not invest the funds as represented,” the SEC said. “Instead, Huffman spent investor funds to subsidize his lavish lifestyle. Returns to investors were paid from money invested by new investors. The purported insurance protecting the investments did not exist and much of the principal has been dissipated or used to purchase real estate for Huffman and/or his wife, expensive automobiles or other luxuries.”
In another claim reminiscent of the AdSurfDaily case, the SEC said Huffman dropped famous acronyms such as “FDIC” to get people to invest with him.
North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall is spearheading the criminal prosecution.
“People who are knowledgeable in the investment industry came to us saying that the
promises being made sounded ‘too good to be true,’†she said, after agents arrested Huffman in November 2008. “In most cases, when an investment sounds too good to be true, it usually is.â€
BULLETIN: Convicted Ponzi swindler Jeffrey Gordon Butler has been sentenced to 90 years and eight months in a California state prison.
Butler, 51, of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., was convicted in June 2009 of 693 felony counts, including making untrue statements of material fact in the offer and sale of securities, the offer and sale of unqualified securities, theft from elderly persons, using a scheme to defraud in the sale of a security and filing false tax returns.
Butler’s wife, Peggy Warmath Butler, 49, was convicted of four felony counts of filing false tax returns. She was sentenced today to one year in jail, followed by seven years’ formal probation.
Orange County prosecutors objected to her sentence, saying it was too light.
So many Ponzi victims testified in the sentencing phase of the trial that the process took four days to complete and was interrupted by the holidays. Because so many victims were nearing the end of their life spans, prosecutors recorded their statements on videotape prior to the trial and played them at the sentencing.
At least six victims died during the course of the trial, and 52 victims died prior to the case being brought before the jury.
“Many of Jeffrey Butler’s victims had trouble believing that he was capable of stealing their life’s savings,” said Tony Rackauckas, Orange County District Attorney. “He stole more than money from the people who trusted him. Jeffrey Butler also stole his victims’ dignity, independence, and dreams
“By sentencing him to 90 years in prison it means that Jeffrey Butler will spend the rest of his life in prison unable to victimize another person,†Rackauckas said.
Noobing promoter Jim Beach pitched the program using sign language on YouTube.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Carolyn,” the subject of this story, is deaf. She uses a videophone and a human interpreter. The interpreter served as Carolyn’s voice for the interview, translating the Blog’s questions for Carolyn and her responses.
Here, now, the story . . .
A 64-year-old California woman — “Carolyn” — said she lost $5,300 in the Noobing autosurf. Carolyn is deaf. She described herself as a person of limited means financially, saying her experience with Noobing is keeping her awake at night and that the company simply pretended she did not exist when she repeatedly sought answers.
Carolyn, who lives in the Mojave Valley community of Needles in San Bernardino County, said she was introduced to Noobing, part of the Affiliate Strategies Inc. (ASI) umbrella of companies, in January 2009. The introduction was made by another deaf person who had 18 members in her downline.
Carolyn’s sponsor was in the downline of Noobing promoter Jim Beach, Carolyn said. The sponsor lost more than $6,000 in Noobing, Carolyn said.
ASI was named a defendant in a fraud lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission in July 2009. Neither Noobing nor Beach is a defendant in the FTC action, but Noobing is mentioned in court documents filed by Larry Cook, the court-appointed receiver.
In a preliminary report, Cook said Noobing generated more than $590,000 in revenue in 2008 and and more than $541,000 in 2009 before going offline. He estimated that Noobing was in the hole nearly $550,000 since 2008, and noted that the ASI network of companies “were high revenue/low margin operations which required significant cash in-flows from new victims to meet current trade creditor and consumer refund obligations.â€
Beach used sign language and promoted the autosurf on YouTube, according to web records. Carolyn, who described herself as “fairly new” to the Internet, said she became increasingly worried about the money she had entrusted to Noobing.
On a website deemed “The Official Web Blog” of Noobing, the program was described as a “hit” among deaf people. Noobing, according to the Blog, was promoted at Deaf Expos in Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey and Texas in 2008 “to connect with the often overlooked hearing impaired business community.”
Deaf people “waited in long lines just for a chance to check out Noobing,” according to the Blog.
Beach, whom the Blog described as “Noobing Sales Manager” and a CODA — the child of a deaf adult — traveled extensively to recruit deaf members, according to the Blog.
Carolyn communicated with Beach at least three times in her early days with Noobing in 2009, but he told her he “left the management of Noobing in April 2009,” Carolyn said. He then asked her if she wanted to join a program involving the sale of vitamins. Carolyn declined to join the vitamin program.
Noobing was no help when she called to get answers, Carolyn said.
“Whenever I called Noobing, they would just hang up on me,” Carolyn said, adding that her sponsor also has ceased communicating with her.
She added that she “had to go to a debt counselor.”
“It’s a frustrating road to hoe,” Carolyn said. “It has been very frustrating.”
“It was on my [credit] card,” she said. “I just racked up my debt unbelievably.”
Carolyn provided this URL as an example of a site at which hearing-impaired members discussed and promoted Noobing:
Noobing was popular among members of AdSurfDaily, a Florida company implicated in an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme. Carolyn said she was not a member of ASD, adding that she has contacted the Internet Crime Complaint Center operated by the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance to complain about Noobing.
She also contacted the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and will meet with an investigator tomorrow, Carolyn said.
“I feel depressed,” she said. “I feel I’ve been really victimized. It’s hard to make ends meet. I can’t sleep at night; I’m constantly worried over my finances.”
Read an Aug. 3, 2008, story about the litigation against ASI and other defendants. The case largely centers around an alleged grant-writing scheme.
A gunman opened fire in the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas this morning. Early reports are sketchy, but a court officer is reported to have been killed and a U.S. Marshal wounded.
The gunman is reported dead. People in the building are being evacuated, and federal agents are said to be conducting a floor-by-floor sweep. It is believed initially that the gunman acted alone. What motivated the shooting, which occurred just after 8 a.m., is unclear.
“A Deputy U.S. Marshal and Court Security Officer were shot at the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas this morning,” the U.S. Marshal’s Service said. “The gunman was shot by Marshals Service personnel and has been pronounced dead. The Deputy U.S. Marshal is in stable condition at a local hospital. Unfortunately, the Court Security Officer succumbed to his wounds and passed away. We are not releasing any names until next-of-kin notifications are complete. The courthouse is still being secured. We do not know the motive for the shooting at this time and the investigation into the shooting is still underway.”
Two U.S. Senators — Harry Reid and John Ensign — have offices in the building.
“My thoughts are with the victims of today’s shooting and their families,” said Reid. “The law enforcement personnel who protect the courthouse put their lives at risk every day to keep the people who are inside safe and I greatly appreciate their service.â€
Shotgun casings reportedly were found in the lobby of the courthouse.
View on-scene YouTube video in which the shots at the Las Vegas federal courthouse can be heard:
UPDATED 12:04 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) BizAdSplash (BAS) now says it may be offline until Jan. 11. “due to the challenges of the transfer of our servers.”
A message website visitors see is confusing because it does not state plainly when the autosurf will return. Rather, it says BAS will come back online “on or before January 11th.”
The message is unsigned. BAS, which suspended member cashouts and declared a “crisis” in July because it had overpaid members, later returned. The site appears to have gone offline again Dec. 23, but initially reported that it would return today.
BAS lists its “chief consultant” as Clarence Busby, the former president of Georgia-based Golden Panda Ad Builder, the so-called “Chinese” option for AdSurfDaily members. The U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in a civil-forfeiture case against ASD and Golden Panda assets in August 2008.
After reconciliations, about $14 million was attributed to Golden Panda. More than $65 million was attributed to ASD.
All three of the so-called AdSurfDaily clone surfs that promoted “offshore” locations after the seizure of ASD and Golden Panda’s assets — BAS, AdViewGlobal and AdGateWorld — now have either have gone offline or are existing in unclear forms.
All three of the surfs tried to implement reconfigurations. None appears to have been able to sustain itself in a new form. BAS repeatedly has cited server problems as a reason for its absence.
