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  • In Case Reminiscent Of Profitable Sunrise, Alberta Securities Commission Finds That Dale Joseph Edgar St. Jean And Gregory Dennis Tindall Made False Statements And Conducted Ponzi Scheme

    recommendedreading1Two men conducted an offering fraud tied to a purported “bridge lending” business and wiped out investors in a $52 million Ponzi scheme, the Alberta Securities Commission said yesterday.

    Some of the allegations against Dale Joseph Edgar St. Jean and Gregory Dennis Tindall were remarkably similar to allegations in the United States against the Profitable Sunrise “program,” which also had a purported bridge-loan business. While the Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan promised 2.7 percent a day and purportedly was operated by “Roman Novak,” St. Jean and Tindall promised far less: between 15 percent and 22 percent a year.

    St. Jean and Tindall were at the helm of entities known as TransCap Corporation and Strata-Trade Corporation, the ASC said. The agency was among the first to issue a warning against Profitable Sunrise earlier this year.

    “The ASC panel found that payments to TransCap and Strata-Trade investors were funded from their own and their fellow investors’ money, ‘by definition, an unsustainable ‘Ponzi’ scheme,’” ASC said in a statement. “Investors (Albertans among them) having been lured by deceptive or false information into investing in a Ponzi scheme, their pecuniary interests were placed at serious risk.  Indeed, there appears to be no money remaining to pay them any interest owing or repay their principal investments.”

    Another similarity between the St. Jean and Tindall capers and Profitable Sunrise is that investors appear to have dealt mostly with pitchmen regurgitating the company line, not the operators.  (Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) recited by commission-based pitchmen is an element in many Ponzi schemes, including AdSurfDaily in 2008. It’s often the case that the pitchmen aren’t financial professionals and are not licensed to offer securities.)

    It remains unclear whether “Roman Novak,” the purported operator of Profitable Sunrise, actually exists.

    With respect to the St. Jean/Tindall caper, Tindall’s “current whereabouts are unknown,” ASC said in its decision.

    Both men were charged by the SEC in a 2010 case that alleged they were managing members of a $34 million offering fraud based in Florida that led to the collapse of two hedge funds known as Arcanum Equity Fund LLC and Vestium Equity Fund LLC and subsequent bankruptcy filings.

    Bridge-loan scams are not rare — and may feature an offer that sounds plausible on the surface: a company solicits loans from one subset of customers at a lower interest rate to lend out to another subset at a higher interest rate, purportedly profiting from the spread. The “business” brings both securities laws and lending laws into play. (See the California Desist and Refrain Order against Profitable Sunrise.)

    In the HYIP sphere, the “model” quickly can become absurd on its face. Profitable Sunrise, for instance, was positioned as an enterprise that paid MLM-style affiliate commissions on three levels while also paying out preposterous sums of compound interest on a daily basis. (The infamous AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme ($119 million) operated with a similar confluence of payout schemes between 2006 and 2008, although ASD did not purport to be a bridge lender.)

    One of the most infamous bridge-lending scams in U.S. history was the Nicholas Cosmo and Agape World Inc. scam, a Ponzi scheme that gathered more than $400 million and put Cosmo in federal prison for 25 years. Some of his pitchmen also were charged criminally.

    Some HYIP pitchmen may make boiler-room cold calls to fleece marks. Others may line up their so-called “warm market” as investors, perhaps by sponsoring seminars and webinars and encouraging family members, friends and business and social acquaintances to attend.

    Members of one Alberta family alone lost more than $1.6 million to the St. Jean/Tindall scam, ASC said in its decision.

    One investor (“TL”) and his wife plowed $1.22 million into the scam after being advised by a pitchman that TCC was “in the business of offering short-term loans at high interest, that St. Jean was its president, and that an investment in TCC was ‘without . . . risk’ – it was ‘supposed to be solid’, and ‘there was no threat of losing principal or interest.’”

    Profitable Sunrise, meanwhile, told investors that “investments in the program were insured by a leading investment bank,” the SEC said in bringing fraud charges in April 2013.

    Secrecy often is an element of HYIP scams.

    “In response to a Staff demand for documents evidencing contracts for securities purchases, ‘forward committing contracts’ and bridge financing contracts, St. Jean responded that TCC was ‘engaged in these business activities through other entities under private and confidential agreements’ and ‘[t]herefore [did] not have any specific documentation respecting any specific trade transaction,’” ASC said in its decision.

     

  • BULLETIN: SEC Moves To Block Virginia Man From Intervening In Profitable Sunrise Case; Appointment Of Receiver Will Depend On Success Of Efforts To Repatriate Assets To United States

    breakingnews72BULLETIN: The SEC has asked a federal judge not to permit a Virginia man to intervene in the Profitable Sunrise HYIP fraud case, saying that the man’s self-filed pleading “would open the floodgates for other investors to file similar motions.”

    In late April, James Paul Schilling of Mechanicsville effectively asked U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. of the Northern District of Georgia to unfreeze $57,300 sent to Profitable Sunrise via wire in a series of transfers in January and February. In early April, the SEC described Profitable Sunrise as a pyramid scheme that may have collected tens of millions of dollars while operating through a “mail drop” in England and using other companies to gather the funds.

    Money from the scheme was directed at entities in several countries, the SEC said.

    Profitable Sunrise was targeted at U.S. residents, the SEC said in April. One of the claimed “plans” of Profitable Sunrise was bizarrely dubbed the “Long Haul” and purported to pay 2.7 percent a day.

    “In this case, permitting S[c]hilling to intervene and retrieve money commingled with funds deposited by thousands of other investors would open the floodgates for other investors to file similar motions, which would create an unnecessary strain on this Court’s resources thereby delaying the proceedings and, ultimately, any distribution of funds to investors,” the SEC argued.

    The agency said in its opposition to Schilling’s motion that it was contemplating asking the court to appoint a receiver, but any decision to ask for the appointment would depend on whether the SEC’s “efforts to repatriate funds are successful.

    “A Receiver could best administer a process to return funds to defrauded investors pursuant to a plan of distribution approved by the Court,” the SEC said.

    In April, the SEC said that “Hungarian law enforcement authorities” had frozen an account holding $11.3 million connected to the scheme as part of an “investigation of suspected money laundering.”

    Whether that money will be returned to the United States is unclear. Also unclear is whether Profitable Sunrise funds that may be held in other countries ever will be returned. Among other things, the Profitable Sunrise case demonstrates the dangers of doing business with murky enterprises, regardless of where an investor lives. Investors by the thousands could be left holding the bag.

    Profitable Sunrise was promoted on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Although promoters claimed “Roman Novak” was running Profitable Sunrise, it remains unclear whether he actually exists. The scheme spread through an MLM-style network of promoters hoping to glean commissions.

    The SEC is asking Thrash to summarily deny Schilling’s motion or “in the alternative, order that Shilling support the motion with admissible evidence and provide citation to the legal authorities that he claims support his motion.”

    Despite the murkiness of Profitable Sunrise, former pitchman John Schepcoff is telling YouTube viewers that he’s identified another venture that is “1,000 percent better” than Profitable Sunrise and Zeek Rewards. In August, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme, saying it duped people into believing a return of about 1.5 percent a day was legitimate.

    The Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan offered about double the purported returns of Zeek.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.

  • Pitchman Says Hong Kong-Based ‘Program’ Is ‘1,000 Percent Better’ Than Profitable Sunrise And Zeek Rewards

    John Schepcoff says he potentially lost more than $193,000 in Profitable Sunrise but that a new "program" is "1,000 percent" better.
    John Schepcoff says he potentially lost more than $193,000 in Profitable Sunrise but that a new “program” is “1,000 percent” better.

    In a bizarre and disturbing video playing on YouTube, a former Profitable Sunrise pitchman claims a new “program” he joined is operating from Hong Kong and is purveyed by an unidentified  “doctor.”

    The purported opportunity is “1,000 percent better” than Profitable Sunrise or Zeek Rewards, according to the video.

    News of the video first was reported on the RealScam.com antiscam forum.

    Pitchman John Schepcoff did not identify the new “program” in the 14:32 video. But he described it as invitation-only. Zeek made similar claims, according to the SEC’s August 2012 Ponzi- and pyramid action against the North Carolina-based firm and accused operator Paul. R. Burks. The SEC described Zeek as a $600 million fraud scheme.

    In April 2013, the agency described Profitable Sunrise as a pyramid scheme that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars, in part through using financial conduits in the Czech Republic, Australia, Panama and China.

    “There’s a litttle bit of a [learning] curve, like also Zeek Rewards in a way, but he made it 1,000 percent better,” Schepcoff said of the new Hong Kong “program.”

    Earlier in the video, Schepcoff claimed the new program was “1,000 percent better” than Profitable Sunrise.

    Schepcoff put $8,225 into the new program, he claimed in the video. He further claimed he’d potentially lost more than $193,500 in Profitable Sunrise but is holding out hope that “Roman Novak” somehow will resurrect the “program.”

    It is unclear whether “Roman Novak” actually exists, according to court filings.

    Among other things, Schepcoff claims in the video that Profitable Sunrise participants need to accept personal responsibility for their losses in the “program” and should not blame individuals such as himself or Profitable Sunrise pitchwoman Nanci Jo Frazer.

    “Stop blaming people, and say, ‘I am responsible,’” Schepcoff coached. Other people who should not be blamed include “Roman Novak,” he noted.

    And Schepcoff claimed he is “so happy” and “really, really happy” he got into the new program. Smiles, however, are absent from his face throughout the video.

    With respect to Profitable Sunrise, Schepcoff described the “program’s” scheme that purportedly permitted “compound[ing]” at a daily interest rate of between 2.15 percent and 2.7 percent as a “no-brainer” for a coach and mentor in finance such as himself.

    “And I teach people about the . . . way how things are done,” he said.

    When he heard about Profitable Sunrise in December 2012, Schepcoff said, “I basically ran to my bank, and I couldn’t get the money in fast enough.”

    Just four months earlier — in August 2012 — the SEC said Zeek duped people into believing they were receiving a legitimate return of about 1.5 percent a day. The Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan purported almost to double Zeek’s purported daily payout.

    “I kept putting wire transfers after wire [transfer]” into Profitable Sunrise,” Schepcoff said, suggesting he took money out of retirement accounts to do so.

    “Greed” that became like a “cancer” controlled his behavior in Profitable Sunrise, he said. Schepcoff did not explain what was driving his behavior in sending funds to the purported Hong Kong “program” purportedly purveyed by the “doctor.”

    The new program apparently relies on a secret strategy designed to prevent links from being shared publicly and is “amazing” in “what it does,” he said. “There’s people — I can tell you this — that are bringing out only in five months over [$]40,000.”

    One person, according Schepcoff, told him that he’d taken out “over [$]200,000” from the new program in a single day.

    Some HYIP “programs” are pitched by “sovereign citizens” and political extremists who divine a construction by which participants are “free” to spend their money as they see fit and that specific word combinations insulate purveyors from any liability if a “program” collapses or becomes the subject of an action by law enforcement.

    HYIP scams typically are promoted on social-media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, FINRA said in a 2010 warning.

  • ANOTHER ALLEGED SENIOR SCAMMER: Leonard Ansill, 77, Booked At Palm Beach County Jail On Ponzi Charges

    Leonard Ansill. Source: Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
    Leonard Ansill. Source: Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

    Leonard Ansill, a 77-year-old resident of Jupiter Farms, Fla., has become the latest senior citizen accused of swindling investors in a Ponzi scheme — this one of the real-estate variety.

    Ansill’s booking sheet at the jail shows he is being held on seven criminal charges, including multiple counts of grand larceny.

    One of his alleged victims is a 79-year-old widower and part-time Florida resident who entrusted at least part of his late wife’s trust fund to the accused scammer, the Sun Sentinel is reporting.

    The victim described Ansill as a “relatively miserable character,” the paper reported.

    Ansill’s scam allegedly fetched about $1.12 million, the newspaper reported.

  • BULLETIN: Zeek Rewards Claims Portal Scheduled To Open ‘On Or Before’ May 15, Receiver Says

    breakingnews72BULLETIN: The claims portal for the alleged Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme is scheduled to open on or before May 15, the court-appointed receiver has announced.

    “It is with pleasure that I report on May 8, 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina granted our motion seeking Court approval of our Claims Process for ZeekRewards,” receiver Kenneth D. Bell wrote in a May 9 letter to Zeek investors published on the receivership website.

    Bell cautioned claimants not to submit claims before the portal opens. And, he noted, most claims will be handled electronically. Special permission must be received from the receiver in writing to submit a claim in any other form.

    The PP Blog reported yesterday that Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen had approved the claims process.

    “Our proposed Claims Process was designed to provide the greatest possible return to the investors and other potential creditors of the Receivership Defendant by minimizing the percentage of Receivership Assets we have to spend to reconcile and determine claims,” Bell wrote.

     

  • DIABOLICAL: Purported ‘Christian’ Enterprise With Purported Ties To Catholic Church Launches Spam Campaign For Purported ‘Loan’ Program And Bizarrely Tries To Sanitize It By Linking To PP Blog Story On Profitable Sunrise Scam

    The scam/spam pitch from "ALL SAINTS."
    The scam/spam pitch from “ALL SAINTS.”

    Is it channeling Profitable Sunrise as part of an affinity-fraud/identity-theft reload scam? An enterprise that bizarrely is calling itself  “ALL SAINTS CATHOLIC CHURCH LOAN FIRM” purports to have an office in England and appears to be targeting Catholics and Christians in general to be fleeced in a purported “loan” program.

    The spam/scam pitch begins, “I am so disappointed of fake loan companies on the internet . . .”

    The PP Blog received spam from the purported enterprise at 7:53 a.m. and 7:55 a.m. today. The ribald spam campaign includes a link to this March 6, 2013, PP Blog story: URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Alabama Issues Warning On ‘Profitable Sunrise’

    Longtime PP Blog readers are aware that things can be downright diabolical in the fraud sphere, with criminals sometimes using the names of government agencies to create the impression that an enterprise is legitimate or even endorsed by the government or a media company. The aim of the “ALL SAINTS” scammers appears to be to plant the seed that law enforcement has scrubbed the scheme, that the loan program won’t meet the same fate as Profitable Sunrise in Alabama (or elsewhere) and that the PP Blog backs “ALL SAINTS.”

    It’s also possible that the “ALL SAINTS” scammers are seeking to use html links to the PP Blog to improve the search-engine penetration of their scam. Meanwhile, there are other, more nefarious possibilities, including bids to affect the server performance of the PP Blog and to dupe people into believing the “offer” originates at the PP Blog.

    The “offer” appears to originate at an IP of 180.215.23.27 in Bangalore, India. The PP Blog is published in the United States.

    Profitable Sunrise purported to be a “loan” program based in England. In April, the SEC called it a scam that may have collected tens of millions of dollars.

    It was not immediately clear whether “ALL SAINTS” had an accompanying, Profitable Sunrise-like HYIP scheme. What is clear is that the “ALL SAINTS” enterprise is fishing for personal information, something that could be linked to identity theft.

    Here is part of the fractured spam pitch (verbatim/italics added):

    Welcome to ALL SAINTS CATHOLIC CHURCH LOAN FIRM we are international Christian loan firm and Lenders that has offered Loans to various individual and firms in Europe, Asia, Africa and other parts of the world,Are you in need of a loan? Do you want to pay off your bills? Do you want to be financially stable? We offer all types of loan, please email us back with the amount and duration of the loan you require. the bible says” Luke 11:10 Everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Zeek Rewards Claims Process Approved By Federal Judge

    breakingnews72URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: A federal judge has approved the claims process in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case.

    The order approving the process was signed today by Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen, meaning that claims must be submitted within 120 calendar days from today. Zeek Rewards receiver Kenneth D. Bell submitted his plan to the court on March 29.

    Mullen, consistent with Bell’s recommendation, ordered the receivership to publish notice of the claims process on certain MLM sites and also in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Charlotte Observer, the Lexington Dispatch and through certain financial-industry trade groups.

    The information also will be made available on the receivership website. Based on the order, it is expected that the receiver’s web portal for the submission of claims will become available within 14 days and that claims submitted prior to the opening of the portal will be disallowed.

    The process calls for affiliates to provide documentation of their claims. There will be a reconciliation process by which the cash outlay to Zeek will be balanced against the money affiliates may have received from Zeek.

    Claimants will not be compensated for Zeek’s so-called “Retail Profit Points” (RPP). Bell advised Mullen in March that the points “aspect of the multilevel marketing program did nothing more than redistribute funds among Affiliates in Ponzi-scheme fashion.”

    Read Mullen’s order. (Thanks to the ASD Updates Blog.)

  • ‘SOVEREIGN’ UPDATES: Devitoe Farmer Pleads Guilty In Tennessee ‘Quit Claims’ Caper; Kenneth Wayne Leaming Sends Bill To Federal Judge That Demands Payment In ‘Fine Silver’

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated at 9:37 a.m. EDT on May 13 and again on May 17 at 2:24 p.m. to reflect that Kenneth Wayne Leaming is demanding payment from a federal judge in ounces of silver, not dollars . . .

    Devitoe Farmer, the purported Tennessee “sovereign citizen” indicted last year on charges of stealing government property in a “quit-claims” caper, has pleaded guilty to three counts of theft.

    Meanwhile, Kenneth Wayne Leaming — the AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” in Washington state jailed after convictions for possessing firearms illegally and filing bogus claims against government officials involved in the prosecution of the ASD Ponzi scheme — now has sent a bill to the federal judge who presided over his criminal trial.

    The bill demands payment of 208,000 ounces of “99.9% fine silver” from the judge.

    First, the Farmer story . . .

    “In the Mid-South, we have witnessed first-hand the potential threat posed by those claiming to be sovereign citizens,” said U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III of the Western District of Tennessee.

    Farmer, 46, apparently decided he wanted to own homes — and apparently came up with a paperwork confection in which he transferred three properties owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to himself.

    From a statement by prosecutors (italics added):

    According to an indictment filed on March 21, 2012, and facts of the case revealed during the plea hearing, Farmer took possession of three HUD-owned properties in the city of Memphis during February and April of 2011. His scheme was discovered when employees with a property management firm contracted by HUD to care for the properties discovered that Farmer had filed quit claim deeds to himself with the Shelby County Register of Deeds Office on the properties and placed tenants in them. HUD-contracted real estate agents also noticed that “for sale” signs had been removed from the properties and that locks had been changed.

    One of the properties was rented to an individual, who supplied investigators with copies of the lease agreement made with Farmer. Another property was occupied by a relative of Farmer. When asked by Memphis Police Department officers for proof of his ownership of the properties, Farmer presented documents declaring that he was a sovereign citizen.

    There have been some very strange events in the Memphis region, including the bizarre case of Tabitha Gentry. Gentry is accused of licensing herself to occupy an East Memphis mansion she did not own.

    NewsOne.com has a report on Tabitha Gentry. The site reports that Gentry calls herself Abka Re Bey and claims to have taken over the mansion “in the name of Allah, the most high.”

    Also see KSLA report on Gentry, a purported “Moorish American” who allegedly mouthed off to a judge after the eviction from the property and claimed lawyers are “Communists.”

    KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather

    Leaming Update

    Leaming, 57, was found guilty in the Western District of Washington earlier this year of possessing firearms as a convicted felon and filing bogus liens for billions of dollars against public officials involved in the prosecution of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme. One of the targets was a U.S. Secret Service agent.

    Both before and after his conviction, Leaming filed blizzards of paperwork. Among his most recent filings is a claim that U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton owes him 208,000 ounces of fine silver. Leighton presided over Leaming’s criminal trial.

    AdSurfSaily figure and purported "sovereign citizen" Kenneth Wayne Leaming now claims a federal judge owes him $208,000. Source: Federal court files.
    AdSurfSaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming now claims a federal judge owes him 208,000 ounces of fine silver. Source: Federal court files.

  • UPDATE: Sentencing For Legisi HYIP’s Gregory McKnight Delayed Again; Sentencing For Pitchman Matthew J. Gagnon Also Moved

    Gregory N. McKnight
    Gregory N. McKnight

    Sentencing for Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme purveyor Gregory N. McKnight has been delayed again — this time until Aug. 6 at 1:30 p.m. McKnight had been scheduled to be sentenced today in the Eastern District of Michigan. The postponement marks at least the fifth in the case.

    Legisi, which had a presence on infamous Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup and became the subject of both civil (SEC) and criminal (U.S. Secret Service) probes prior to its 2008 collapse, was a fraud that gathered about $72 million. McKnight pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February 2012. Prosecutors have asked for a sentence of 15 years, describing McKnight’s wordplay when trying to sanitize his HYIP scheme as “semantic obfuscation.”

    Meanwhile, sentencing for Legisi pitchman Matthew John Gagnon has been moved from today until May 21 at 1:30 p.m. Gagnon pleaded guilty to not disclosing he’d been paid more than $1 million by Legisi and McKnight to tout the “program” online. Gagnon pushed the “program” on Mazu.com.

    The name of MoneyMakerGroup appears in an evidence exhibit in the Legisi case. Also included in the exhibit is Legisi’s bizarre Terms of Service, which required investors to avow they were not an “informant” for government agencies such as the CIA, FBI, SEC, “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain and the Serious Fraud Office, among others.

    Other recent Ponzi-board “programs” that became the subjects of major investigations include Pathway To Prosperity, Imperia Invest IBC, AdSurfDaily, Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise. All of the “programs” claimed absurd rates of return.

    The SEC said last month that Profitable Sunrise was operating from a “mail drop” in England and that pitchmen may not even have known for whom they were working when touting the “opportunity,” which may have gathered tens of millions of dollars.

    ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme. Zeek, according to the SEC, was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud. Imperia targeted thousands of deaf investors and consumed more than $7 million. Pathway to Prosperity gathered about $70 million, according to court filings.

    ASD’s Andy Bowdoin — now serving a prison term of 78 months — also engaged in semantic obfuscation, prosecutors said. ASD, a massive Ponzi scheme,  purported to pay 1 percent a day. That’s about a third of the purported payout of the Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan, which promoters said paid 2.7 percent a day.

    Like Legisi, Profitable Sunrise claimed to be in the “loan” business.

     

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Buford Rogers Arrested In Alleged Localized Terror Plot In Minnesota, FBI Says

    Buford Braden Rogers: Source: Chippewa County Sheriff's Office.
    Buford Braden Rogers: Source: Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office.

    FBI agents and other members of law enforcement have arrested 24-year-old Buford Rogers in Montevideo, Minn., after executing a search warrant Friday and finding “explosive devices” and “several guns,” the FBI said today.

    “The FBI believes that a terror attack was disrupted by law enforcement personnel and that the lives of several local residents were potentially saved,” the agency said.

    The alleged plot was “discovered and subsequently thwarted through the timely analysis of intelligence and through the cooperation and coordination” among federal, state and local agencies, the FBI said.

    How long the probe had been under way was not immediately clear. Also unclear is whether the alleged plot was targeted at specific individuals or posed a general local threat.

    Montevideo is a small town in Chippewa County, about 140 miles west of Minneapolis. Rogers is being held on a charge of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

    The Star Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul is reporting that agents found “Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and a Romanian AKM assault rifle among the firearms.”

    Agencies participating in the probe include the Montevideo Police Department; the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Minnesota State Highway Patrol; the Bloomington Police Department; the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office (South Dakota); the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; and members of CEE-VI (Cooperative Enforcement Effort), the FBI said.

    Rogers turned 24 in December, according to his booking sheet at the Sheriff’s Office.

  • 12 Law-Enforcement Agents Reportedly Injured In Clash With Pyramid Schemers; Dozens Of People Reportedly Detained By Chinese Authorities

    ponzinews1State-run media in China are reporting that 12 members of law enforcement were injured in a clash with pyramid schemers.

    The Xinhua news agency says that a pyramid-inspired uprising began in China’s Anhui Province and that 34 members of the scheme were detained for assault and five were arrested.

    From the news agency (italics added):

    On Saturday, police in the provincial capital city of Hefei arrested five suspects, who led nearly 300 members of the pyramid selling group to attack the law enforcement officers. The officers were investigating the pyramid scheme at a local residential complex, according to the city’s public security department.

    The pyramid scheme members blocked the gate of the complex and stopped residents from getting in or out.

    The PP Blog cannot independently confirm the report.

    See 2010 editorial cartoon from Chinese media and accompanying story on violence reportedly flowing from a pyramid scheme. (The cartoon is exceptionally memorable. As the PP Blog reported in July 2010 (italics added)):

    A cartoon that accompanies the agency’s story on China’s pyramid plague depicts a man tugging mightily on a rope to help victims scale a cliff to flee from a pyramid schemer holding up a box of worthless products in a valley of pending misery below. A woman is assisting the man, pulling with all her might to help a victim escape the huckster. One woman is clinging to a fellow victim’s shirt as she, too, seeks to flee.

    The cartoon depicts the valley pitchman standing in front of a blackboard. One man enthralled by the pitchman’s virtuoso performance is holding a wad of cash and reaching toward both the pitchman and the sky. Meanwhile, a woman who may be a doubter appears to be trying to keep her purse secure as she processes information and strains to get a closer look at details. In the deep background of the cartoon, one of the pitchfest attendees is shown with a dumbfounded look on his face — as though he is trying to process too much information from conflicting images in the incongruous scene.