PatrickPretty.com

Tag: adpacs

  • INetGlobal, AdPacs Websites Offline; Acesse.com, Associated Search Site, Has Limited Functionality

    UPDATED 2:24 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) If you’re wanting to visit Steve Renner’s INetGlobal.com and AdPacs.com sites, at the moment you’ll land on pages that say “InetGlobal is currently down for maintenance. We’ll to (sic) be back by 12:00pm CST.”

    The message on InetGlobal.com and AdPacs.com has been in place for at least three hours and, despite the fact the INetGlobal and AdPacs sites suggested they would be back up by noon Central Standard Time, that time has passed by more than an hour — and the sites still are down.

    Why the Renner sites are down is unclear.

    UPDATE 2:24 P.M. The message on the site now has been changed to read, “InetGlobal is currently down for maintenance. We’ll to (sic) be back by 12:00am CST on Saturday, March 13th.”

    Another Renner site — Acesse.com, a search engine the U.S. Secret Service said last month was just a link to another search engine — appears to have limited functionality. It is possible to perform a search on the site and glean results, but several links on the site appear to have no functionality.

    The links are titled Images, Videos, Maps, News and Shopping, and appear in the upper-left corner of the Acesse.com site. The links appear to be dead. At the same time, other links that appear on the site — links that point to other Renner sites such as Adpacs.com and INetGlobal.com — are generating the “down for maintenance” message.

    Another link on Acesse.com titled “Top Searches” resolves to a page that says, “Top searches as of Tuesday December 2nd 2008 00:00:00 CST.”

    It was not immediately clear if the dead links at Acesse.com were caused by code that had been

    Part of the maintenance message at INetGlobal and AdPacs.

    removed to disable the links or code that had not been entered.

    The error message at INetGlobal and AdPacs appears under INetGlobal’s logo, and a headline that reads, “Preparing for bigger waves!” Two men are pictured riding a wave on surf boards, and a subhead reads, “Surf Alert.”

    Acesse.com purports to include a “Get Paid To Search The Web” element through the search engine.

    In a court affidavit last month, the U.S. Secret Service said Renner was at the head of an international Ponzi scheme.

  • Secret Service, FBI, IRS Raid Steve Renner’s INetGlobal Operations In Minneapolis; Scene Resembled AdSurfDaily Raid In Florida

    UPDATED 10:40 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) Federal and state agents have raided the Minneapolis offices of Inter-Mark Corp., seeking evidence of a Ponzi scheme, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul is reporting.

    Inter-Mark Corp. is operated by Steve Renner, who also operates a purported “advertising” service known as INetGlobal. In a scene that resembled the August 2008 raid at the headquarters of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, agents in Minnesota were seen carting boxes of documents and computers.

    ASD was implicated in a $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    Renner has been under investigation for at least 17 months and likely longer. He was indicted on charges of tax evasion in September 2008, about a month after the ASD raid. He was convicted in December 2009 of evading more than $332,000 in taxes between 2002 and 2005.

    Renner, 54, “diverted substantial funds from his business, Cash Cards International (CCI), between 2002 and 2005 to pay his personal living expenses as well as to make personal investments in coins, oil wells, art, stamps, and vintage musical instruments,” prosecutors said in December.

    He also used CCI funds to promote his musical band, “Stevie Renner and the Renegades,” prosecutors said.

    “From 2001 to 2006, Renner owned CCI, an Internet-based stored-value card and money
    transmission business, with locations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Hawaii,” prosecutors said. “Although he was legally obligated to file federal income tax returns and pay all federal taxes owed, he failed to file his income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service for tax years 2002 through 2004 until March 5, 2006, the date on which he also filed his 2005 federal income tax return.”

    “Tax evasion is not a victimless crime,” said Julio La Rosa of the IRS, upon Renner’s conviction.

    “Honest, hardworking taxpayers pay the price when others choose to evade their tax obligations,” La Rosa said. “As this verdict shows, those that cheat will get caught.”

    Renner faces up to 20 years in federal prison in the tax case.

    Renner also is associated with a domain known as AdPacs.com, which is throwing a server error. It is believed that AdPacs promoters also promoted the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf, which had close ties to ASD.

    Affiliates of Steve Renner's AdPacs.com pushed AdViewGlobal just prior to its February 2009 launch. This screen shot of search result that appeared online more than a year ago lists the name of Juan Fernandez, the CEO of AdSurfDaily. ASD is implicated in a $100 million Ponzi scheme. AVG launched AFTER the federal seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD case. Like ASD President Andy Bowdoin, Fernandez took the 5th Amendment at an evidentiary hearing in September 2008. Now, Renner's company is the subject of a major federal probe. ASD sold "ad-packs." AVG referred to its version of "ad-packs" as "viewer impressions" after the phrase "ad-packs' became radioactive.

    As was the case with the ASD raid in Florida, local media caught the events at Renner’s office yesterday on video. Minnesota has been plagued by Ponzi schemes. Some ASD members from Minnesota have been among the loudest advocates for ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    The Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force assisted in the raid.

    Earlier this month, the Secret Service announced the formation of an Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF) based in Memphis. The agency also has ECTFs in St. Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans and Europe.

    “One of the top priorities for the Secret Service continues to be combating the computer
    related crimes perpetrated by domestic and international criminals that target the U.S.
    financial infrastructure,” said Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.

    “The Secret Service, in conjunction with its many law enforcement partners across the United States and around the world, continues to successfully combat these crimes by working closely with experts from all affected sectors to constantly refresh and adapt our investigative methodologies.”

    Read the Star-Tribune’s coverage of the Steve Renner raid.