PatrickPretty.com

Tag: AdSurfDaily

  • HAVE THE ‘GAMES’ BEGUN? AdSurfDaily Members Todd Disner, Dwight Owen Schweitzer File Lawsuit Against Government That Claims Undercover Agents Violated Firm’s Terms Of Service; Federal Prosecutors Say Money Was Seized Properly With Valid Warrants

    UPDATED 11:27 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) In May, an email attributed to AdSurfDaily member Todd Disner declared, “Let the games begin!” The remark was in the context of a lawsuit Disner and fellow ASD member Dwight Owen Schweitzer intended to file against the United States once ASD members chipped in enough money to fund the complaint.

    Those games apparently have begun with the filing today of a pro se “complaint for declaratory relief” by Disner and Schweitzer in the Southern District of Florida against the United States and Rust Consulting Inc., the government-approved claims administrator in the civil-forfeiture portion of the ASD Ponzi case.

    The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Florida to find that the seizure of assets and business records belonging to Disner and Schweitzer was “illegal and void” and demands their return. It also asks the judge to order Rust to “disclose all information in its possession or available to it pertaining to” Disner and Schweitzer.

    Among the claims in the lawsuit are that undercover agents from a U.S. Secret Service/IRS Task Force who joined ASD prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin violated ASD’s Terms of Service and had a duty to report their alleged TOS violations, including the insertion of an agent’s undercover “MySpace” page in ASD’s advertising rotator, to the company.

    Rust is headquartered in Minnesota. Although the complaint named the United States a defendant alongside Rust, the address listed for the United States by Disner and Schweitzer was the address of the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia.

    Disner, an unsuccessful pro se litigant in the ASD civil case brought by the government, is a co-founder of the Quiznos sandwich franchise. He lives in Miami. Schweitzer, a former attorney, also lives in Miami. The government’s case against ASD-related assets was filed in the District of Columbia in August 2008. Disner was denied standing in the District of Columbia on Aug. 31, 2009, more than two years ago.

    Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer claim their private records as contained in ASD’s database were confiscated illegally by the government. They also claimed  an affidavit filed in the forfeiture case by the U.S. Secret Service was flawed and that the government hired Rust to implement a remissions program “designed to collect evidence and coerced admissions from the plaintiffs to be used by the government” at the criminal trial of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia — the venue in which both the criminal and the civil cases against Bowdoin and ASD-connected assets were filed — had a different take.

    “The funds in this case were seized under properly issued judicial warrants,” Machen’s office said today. “Beyond that, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has no comment on the matter at this time. ”

    Puzzlingly, the complaint filed by Disner and Schweitzer and recorded on the docket of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga today makes the assertion that “To date the plaintiffs are unaware of any remission payments having been made and specifically the plaintiffs were unable to get the information required for their submissions, all of which are still in the possession of the government.”

    On Sept. 22 — more than six weeks ago — the PP Blog reported that thousands of ASD members who filed approved remissions claims would receive back 100 cents on the dollar. Members reported that the money was deposited electronically into their bank accounts beginning on Sept. 23. On Sept. 26, the government announced that $55 million was being returned, with the Secret Service describing ASD as a “criminal enterprise” and the Department of Justice describing the ASD scheme as “insidious.”

    In a Sept. 28 email, even Bowdoin acknowledged that he was aware the government had returned money to members through the remissions process. Among other things, the ASD patriarch claimed the government had forced members to lie to receive compensation.

    Disner and Schweitzer not only claim in their complaint that they are “unaware” of any money being returned, they also claim the remissions program was designed to “prevent, hamper and forestall the return” of funds.

    Meanwhile, Disner and Schweitzer claim that ASD was a profitable venture, in stark contrast to assertions by the government that ASD was insolvent because it created a liability of $1.25 for each dollar it took in through the sale of purported “advertising.”

    Disner and Schweitzer also took issue with government agents joining ASD and allegedly violating the ASD membership agreement, including an undercover agent who placed his undercover “MySpace” page in ASD’s advertising rotator. In August 2008, the government alleged that “ASD did not require, or even verify that the agent “had any product or service to sell.”

    Had the agents “lived up to the obligations they took on by becoming members of ASD they should have reported their own violations of the ASD terms of service with the result that the sites they foisted upon ASD would have been removed and the benefits to them as advertisers’ would be forfeited as the ASD rules mandated,” Disner and Schweitzer argued.

  • UPDATE: Accused Thief, Bail-Jumper, Passport Fraudster And Ponzi Fugitive Brian Kim Arrested In Hong Kong And Returned To The United States

    Captured In Hong Kong: Former TV analyst and accused Ponzi schemer Brian Kim.

    UPDATE: On the lam for 10 months, accused Ponzi-scheme fugitive Brian Kim was arrested last month and returned to the United States from Kong Kong, authorities said yesterday.

    Kim, 36, is a former analyst who appeared as a CNBC commentator on issues such as the Dubai debt crisis and so-called “dark pools.” Investigators said he was involved in at least two fraud schemes while holding forth on TV.  Kim high-tailed it out of the United States before he could be tried in early January on state charges of stealing $430,000 from Christadora House, the New York condominium complex at which he resided, authorities said.

    Even as the theft matter was being investigated and prosecuted, Kim was at the helm of a separate, $6 million Ponzi scheme, said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. The CFTC also charged Kim in the alleged Ponzi caper, which operated through a firm known as Liquid Capital Management LLC.

    Vance next brought a state grand-jury indictment against Kim for bail-jumping, and federal prosecutors charged him with passport fraud.

    Authorities did not say when Kim was caught in Hong Kong. Vance said the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong and Chinese officials cooperated in bringing Kim back to the United States to face justice.

    In April, a federal judge ordered Kim to pay restitution and civil penalties of more than $12.5 million in the case brought by the CFTC.

    Like accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily, Kim will face a civil judgment while battling criminal Ponzi charges.

  • A BRIEF STUDY IN CASH-GIFTING CONTRASTS: The Attorney General, The BBB — And Hank Needham (Before The Club Asteria Brainstorm And CONSOB Probe)

    In this June 2008 video, Hank Needham — later to emerge as a Club Asteria principal — counts out a stack of £20 British notes delivered in a cash-gifting scheme. Using the pronoun "we" without defining who "we" was, Needham told viewers that "we" intended to open a cash-gifting "school." About three years later, Club Asteria positioned itself as an online "education" leader. In a March 2008 cash-gifting video, Needham was featured counting out a small stack of U.S. $100 bills. What was needed, Needham coached, was "training" on how to post cash-gifting videos on the Internet. Prosecutors say cash-gifting is illegal. The BBB calls it a pyramid scheme. In May 2011, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, blocked promos for Club Asteria in Italy. Needham has called himself a Club Asteria owner, and Club Asteria had described him as the director of sales and marketing “responsible for establishing Country, Regional and Network Team Leaders."

    In this post, we included a March 2008 Dailymotion video of Hank Needham — later to emerge as one of Club Asteria’s purported owners — hawking a cash gifting scheme in which five $100 bills (U.S.) spilled out of an envelope tucked inside an envelope delivered by overnight courier DHL. (Please note that March 2008 video also appears on a separate site. The date notation on that site is May 2008.)

    Another cash-gifting video from Needham — this one  dated June 2008 — has surfaced. In the June 2008 video, Needham is holding an envelope from FedEx, another overnight courier. “Now, we have another [envelope] — I won’t really go through the courier — I don’t think we’re supposed to use this courier anymore,” Needham tells viewers, after making sure they notice what he describes as a “little pile of cash that’s accumulating” to his left.

    As the June 2008 video proceeds, Needham removes cash that has been packed snugly in the FedEx envelope. It’s British pounds as opposed to U.S. currency this time — and this time the money has come from “Robin” (or Robyn?) in the “British Isles.” Unlike the March (and May) 2008 video in which “George,” presumably an American, is reported by Needham to have sent five large U.S. bills, “Robin,” presumably a Brit, has chosen to send 25 twenty-pound notes. Needham counts out all 25 bills, creating five rows with five bills in each row. Why Needham was reluctant the mention the name of FedEx was not made clear in the video. What was clear was the Needham wanted viewers to know that “we’re opening up a website called CashGiftingSchool.com.”

    He did not define “we.” The “school” website, which appears to have been registered in April 2008 while Needham was pushing the AdSurfDaily scheme in addition to cash-gifting, now resolves to a page that beams ads. (It’s worth noting that Needham, in 2008, was wearing casual attire while hawking the cash-gifting “school,” apparently from his home. Flash forward three years to 2011: Club Asteria is positioning itself as an “education” leader and featuring Needham on video. He is wearing a crisp, black suit in the 2011 video — and the backdrop is a board room. A button promoting the 2011 Club Asteria video in which Needham is showcased in the black suit is labeled “ABOUT COURAGE.” The button appears in Club Asteria’s October 2011 recruitment house organ.)

    Various Club Asteria-related entities have been trading on the names of various charities, including the American Red Cross. The Red Cross sent the purported Asteria Philanthropic Foundation a cease-and-desist letter 11 days ago, and the relief agency said yesterday that the foundation agreed to stop using the Red Cross  logo and other materials. How long it will take the Asteria-themed enterprises to comply is unclear.

    Needham’s image also appeared in 2008 promos for AdSurfDaily, an autosurf the U.S. Secret Service called an international Ponzi scheme.

    The Attorney General

    Before you take a look at the June 2008 Needham video — which appears to have been placed on Dailymotion just two months before the spectacular seizure by the U.S. Secret Service of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case — we’d like you to take a look at what the attorney general of Michigan says about cash gifting. Bill Schuette notes that purveyors can be charged with felonies. Mike Cox, Schuette’s predecessor as attorney general, said the same thing.

    Needham does not mention the law in either of his videos; he’s too busy counting bills. He appears to be less than pleased that “Robin,” unlike “George” in the other video, packed the bills tightly. It is unclear in either video whether DHL or FedEx left the envelopes in a secure place before Needham retrieved them. In other words, had the envelopes been left on Needham’s doorstep, they could have been stolen, an outcome sure to have created an unpleasant situation for both the senders and Needham.

    The BBB

    Now — to accent this brief study in contrast before you view Needham’s June 2008 cash-gifting video — take a look at this brief video on cash-gifting fraud by the Better Business Bureau:

    Hank Needham


    The CASH PROOF by hankneedham

  • EDITORIAL: Another Dark Day For ‘Asteria Foundation’ And Related Entities As American Red Cross Issues Statement Suggesting It Was Duped: ‘We Have No Record Of Receiving A Donation From This Organization And Have Not Partnered With Them’ On Japan Earthquake Relief ‘Or Any Other Projects’

    UPDATED 9:36 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The American Red Cross is a national treasure whose powerful and noble name never should be diluted or trifled with. But it is now apparent that various Club Asteria-related entities have done exactly that by not revealing certain critical information to the Red Cross while at once shamelessly seeking to build the Asteria brand across multiple platforms by tying it to the Red Cross — beginning in the spring during a period in which the agency was responding to a crisis in Japan.

    To describe what the Asteria entities have done as spectacularly parasitic with equally disgusting measures of greed and ham-handedness thrown in would be a gross  understatement. In any event, the Asteria entities have created a deplorable situation that sparked the Red Cross to issue a statement today. (You’ll see the full statement beginning four paragraphs below.) The statement was issued this afternoon from Washington, D.C., and emailed by the Red Cross to the PP Blog. The statement concerns the purported Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, which is linked to the purported Club Asteria business “opportunity” and other Asteria-themed enterprises. The Asteria enterprises are using the Red Cross name and logo in promos across multiple websites — while calling the Red Cross a partner. No partnership exists, the Red Cross made clear today.

    Members of Club Asteria — participants in any of the Asteria-themed enterprises — need to know that at least one of Club Asteria’s purported owners, Hank Needham, has been linked to promotions for online Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. (You’ll see a cash-gifting video starring Needham below.) The stench lives on three years after the taping, and it cannot be dissipated by leeching off the name of the Red Cross.

    This is a story that only is getting uglier. Ten days ago — after becoming concerned that its name and logo were being misused — the Red Cross sent the purported Asteria Foundation a cease-and-desist letter. It later developed that Needham had appeared in a May 2008 video that advertised a cash-gifting scheme. Needham, whose face also appeared in a 2008 promo for the alleged $110 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, is seen in the video opening an envelope from a courier service. A smaller envelope was packaged in the courier envelope — and five $100 bills spilled out of the smaller envelope. Needham fanned them for the camera. Cash-gifting schemes are prosecutable under pyramid-scheme statutes, despite what prospects are led to believe. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called cash-gifters “parasites” when he was attorney general of Connecticut.

    The PP Blog has added the italics to today’s statement by the Red Cross:

    The Asteria Foundation contacted the American Red Cross in April and said it wanted to make a donation to aid relief efforts in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. At the time, the organization requested information on how the donation might be put to use and we directed their representative to published information on Red Cross recovery efforts. The organization also requested the ability to mention its donation to us in its own press materials, which we felt was appropriate.

    However, we have no record of receiving a donation from this organization and have not partnered with them on that or any other projects. We have requested that the organization remove our logo and other materials from its web site, and they have agreed to do so.

    In September, Club Asteria removed an image and purported “interview” with famed actor Will Smith from its recruitment emagazine amid questions about whether the purported “opportunity” was trying to plant the seed that Smith had endorsed the company.

    Scores of promos for Club Asteria, which trades on the name of the World Bank, have appeared online this year. The promos described Club Asteria as a “passive” investment opportunity that generated a weekly return of up to 10 percent. Club Asteria suspended member cashouts in June, after acknowledging its PayPal account had been suspended — and after claims about Club Asteria came under investigation in Italy.

    Club Asteria was widely promoted on Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Members said payouts were routed through a Hong Kong entity known as Asteria Holdings Limited. When things turned sour at Club Asteria, the Ponzi-forum promoters turned their attentions to other HYIP “programs” that offered absurd returns that translated into purported yearly gains in the hundreds of percent.

    The Asteria Foundation also has used a Hong Kong address — tying it to a fax number in Virginia. Asteria Corp., Club Asteria’s apparent parent company and also the apparent driving force behind the purported Asteria Foundation, is based in Virginia.

    State authorities said last month that neither Club Asteria nor Asteria Corp. was registered to sell securities. Club Asteria has blamed its members for promotional blunders and for PayPal’s decision to suspend its account. That explanation, however, strains credulity — given Needham’s history of pushing multiple fraud schemes. It is inconceivable that Club Asteria did not know that its growth was being fueled by serial hucksters on Ponzi forums and by thousands of promos on the independent websites of Club Asteria affiliates, many of whom preemptively denied Club Asteria was conducting a Ponzi scheme. They could not possibly know whether Club Asteria was on the up-and-up without seeing the books and records from banks and as many as four separate payment processors.

    How much money Club Asteria gained as a result of promos that positioned the company as a cash cow is unclear. Scores of members claimed that paying Club Asteria $19.95 a month would produce a yearly income of more than $20,000. Club Asteria is believed to have gained considerable traction in the Third World. Club Asteria pitchman “Ken Russo,” who also is known as “DRdave” and is believed to operate from the United States, claimed on Ponzi boards to have received thousands of dollars in recruitment commissions via wire from Hong Kong.

    Club Asteria, which has described itself as a revenue-sharing program, does not publish verifiable financial information. The firm now appears to be branching out into social networking, positioning itself as an education leader and “cause” marketing company.

    Ponzi forum promoters, whom some critics describe derisively as “pimps” and “referral whores,” shilled for Club Asteria for months before the company suspended cashouts.

    2008 Hank Needham Video On Cash-Gifting

    Please note that the URL advertised in the Dailymotion video below — ptigift.com — no longer resolves to a server.


    What is all the fuss about Cash Gifting? by hankneedham

  • EDITORIAL: Bogdan Fiedur Of AdLandPro’s Deplorable Bid To Chill RealScam.com In The Age Of International Mass-Marketing Fraud

    A few weeks prior to the Aug. 1, 2008, seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the personal bank accounts of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, Bowdoin apparently believed it prudent to plant the seed that the ASD autosurf had amassed a giant pot of cash and would use it to “hammer” critics. His willfully blind followers helped spread the word on forums that ASD detractors soon would feel the sting of being sued back to the Stone Age.

    Here, according to federal court filings, is what Bowdoin told ASD members at a company rally in Miami on July 12, 2008:

    “These people that are making these slanderous remarks, they are going to continue these slanderous remarks in a court of law defending about a 30 to 40 million dollar slander lawsuit. Now, we’re ready to do battle with anybody. We have a legal fund set up. Right now we have about $750,000 in that legal fund. So we’re ready to get everything started and get the ball rolling.” (Emphasis added.)

    Bowdoin thuggishly suggested that ASD had hired a law firm and that the firm was experienced at “bringing the hammer down on people that need it.” It is worth noting that federal prosecutors included the remarks attributed to Bowdoin in a document labeled “Government Exhibit 5.”

    Meanwhile, it’s also worth noting that “Government Exhibit 1” consisted of the 2006 SEC complaint against 12DailyPro that accused the firm of operating an autosurf Ponzi scheme. It was the government’s way of showing that autosurfs such as ASD rely on willfully blind promoters to proliferate. “Government Exhibit 2,” meanwhile, was the SEC’s 2007 complaint against the PhoenixSurf autosurf. The inclusion of this exhibit was another way to show willful blindness.

    One of the interesting things about the PhoenixSurf complaint was that it referenced Virtual Money Inc., which federal prosecutors in Connecticut later linked to alleged money-laundering by a narcotics cartel in Medellin, Colombia.

    Robert Hodgins, the operator of Virtual Money, is an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. ASD also used Virtual Money, according to promos for the firm. In December 2010, federal prosecutors said ASD also had a tie to E-Bullion, a shuttered California payment processor whose operator was accused (and convicted) of arranging the brutal slashing murder of his wife in a Greater Los Angeles parking garage. ASD also had a link to E-Gold, a processor convicted in a money-laundering conspiracy case. So did PhoenixSurf.

    “Government Exhibit 4” in the August 2008 ASD Ponzi case consists of surveillance photos taken in ASD’s hometown of Quincy, Fla. The date upon which the photos were taken is unclear, but it is known that the U.S. Secret Service began to investigate ASD on July 3, 2008, a little more than a week before the Miami rally.

    The entry of the Secret Service in the ASD case fundamentally sent two signals: The U.S. government believed its financial infrastructure might be under attack by an organization — ASD — that was trading on the name of the President of the United States. The SEC has said nothing about the ASD case — at least not in public. Bowdoin was indicted on criminal charges in December 2010. If he is convicted on all counts, the man who once claimed to have a giant pot from which he could draw to “hammer” critics could face up to 125 years in federal prison, fines in the millions of dollars and forfeiture orders totaling at last $110 million.

    In the earliest days of the ASD probe, at least three media outlets — including a local newspaper, a Blog and a regional publication — were threatened with lawsuits. Bowdoin ended up suing no one. In fact, within months he was consumed by litigation directed at him from virtually all fronts. Multiple civil-forfeiture complaints were filed, as was a racketeering lawsuit. These things occurred as a criminal investigation was unfolding slowly.

    For all these reasons and more, Bogdan Fiedur — and members of the AdLandPro online “community” — should perform a sober assessment of Fiedur’s recent threat to sue RealScam.com, an antifraud forum.

    Threats to sue journalists, media outlets, forums, Blogs and other websites that publish information about online schemes are bids to chill speech. These bids are occurring as an epidemic of white-collar crime and securities fraud is sweeping the globe during a period in which government budgets are strained and literally thousands of fraud investigations are under way that reach into all corners of the world.

    It is clear that online fraud is responsible for billions of dollars in global losses. These worlds are exceptionally murky. No one knows for certain where the money goes when fraud schemes disappear — as they so often do. It is equally clear that criminal puppeteers behind the schemes are taunting investigative agencies. From the standpoint of the U.S. government, the government and financial institutions are facing attacks of thousands of tiny cuts.

    Lanny Breuer, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, testified on Capitol Hill yesterday that the “convergence of threats” posed by transnational organized crime is “significant and growing. ”

    “Transnational organized crime is increasing its subversion of legitimate financial and commercial markets, threatening U.S. economic interests and raising the risk of significant damage to the world financial system,” Breuer told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.

    Despite worldwide headlines of one massive fraud scheme after another — and despite the fact that the financial lives of real human beings in all corners of the world are being reduced to rubble by serial Ponzi schemers and scammers — Bogdan Fiedur is threatening to sue RealScam.com.

    At a minimum, it is a PR blunder of the highest magnitude. Bowdoin made the same mistake. So did Data Network Affiliates (DNA), a purported business “opportunity” associated with serial huckster Phil Piccolo, who once planted the seed that, if lawsuits didn’t work, he knew the type of people willing to break legs to silence critics. One apologist for Piccolo and DNA planted the seed that a former federal prosecutor, federal judge and director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was a suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

    It doesn’t get much more bizarre than that — unless one is willing to consider that Bowdoin now is trying to raise funds for his criminal defense on Facebook and claiming that God established a program known as OneX to help him do just that.

    OneX is among the “programs” promoted by members of the AdLandPro “community” — as were ASD and Finanzas Forex (and many others) before it.

    And yet Fiedur apparently believes he can chill RealScam.com into stop doing what it does by registering a domain titled “RealScamClassActionSuit.com.”

    Inverting reality, the purported class-action site ventures that “RealScam encourages cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking by allowing the creation of anonymous accounts and by allowing the users to present of (sic) unproven accusations towards individuals of their targeted organization. The RealScam.com turns out to be just a harassment and bashing site with no verification of facts and indiscriminate attacks at anyone who looks like an easy target.”

    It’s easy to imagine Andy Bowdoin or Phil Piccolo saying the same thing — while doling out accolades to the AdLandPro “community” for its excellent judgment about the types of “programs” the world’s masses should be joining.

    “The wealth generated by today’s drug cartels and other international criminal networks enables some of the worst criminal elements to operate with impunity while wreaking havoc on individuals and institutions around the world,” Breuer of the Justice Department observed yesterday. “Generating proceeds often is only the first step — criminals then launder their proceeds, often using our financial system to move or hide their assets and often with the help of third parties located in the United States. Indeed, international criminal organizations increasingly rely on these third parties and on the use of domestic shell corporations to mask crimes and launder proceeds under the guise of a seemingly legitimate corporate structure.”

    And then Breuer asked the Senate panel to enact legislation that would strengthen money-laundering and asset-forfeiture laws and broaden the federal RICO statute.

    Whether the Senate — and the Congress as a whole — will listen is unclear. What is clear is that, at least in the context of online fraud schemes, victims are piling up in numbers that America’s largest sports stadiums cannot accommodate. Losses are in the billions. Vast sums of wealth have been taken from rightful owners and placed in the hands of criminals.

    It is simply beyond the pale that Fiedur asserts that RealScam.com is a menace, when it is one of the few sites in the world that tasks itself with exposing the menace of international mass-marketing fraud that occurs over the Internet.

    One final thing worth mentioning: A few weeks before Breuer ventured to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate panel, he carried out another important public duty.

    On Sept. 26, Lanny Breuer joined U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in announcing that ASD victims who filed successful remissions claims in the civil Ponzi case were getting $55 million back.

    “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to bring justice to the citizens defrauded by these insidious schemes,” Breuer said.

    Get a clue, Mr. Fiedur.

    Visit RealScam.com.

  • Arrest Warrant Issued For Jacob Franz Dyck; Purported Florida ‘Sovereign Citizen,’ 72, Wanted For ‘Committing Criminal Acts Through Simulated Use Of The Legal Process,’ Polk County Sheriff’s Office Says

    Jacob Franz Dyck: Source: Polk County Sheriff's Office

    Jacob Franz Dyck, a purported Florida “sovereign citizen,” is wanted on a felony arrest warrant for “Criminal Act Under Color Of Law Or Committing Criminal Acts Through Simulated Use Of The Legal Process,” the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

    Dyck, 72, has been the subject of considerable reporting by the St. Petersburg Times. See story about Dyck’s alleged filing of “wild deeds” to cloud property titles here. See story here about a missing pickup truck that led to the issuance of the arrest warrant.

    Three of Dyck’s associates, including a notary public, have landed in jail, the Times reports.

    See August 2011 PP Blog story on an FBI report that asserts there is a “continued effort by Sovereign Citizen domestic extremists throughout the United States to perpetrate and train others in the use of debt elimination schemes.”

    See July 2011 PP Blog report on a 25-year prison sentence handed down to Jeff McGrue, a Washington state man who targeted people “at the end of their rope” in a foreclosure-rescue scam.

    See August 2011 PP Blog report about disciplinary actions against notaries public associated with AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming.

    Leaming is a purported sovereign citizen whom records show once filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the Washington State Bar Association and a community hospital in Washington state.

  • UPDATE: AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin Has Participated In At Least 3 Webinars For ‘OneX’ This Week; Calls Murky Business A ‘Financial Bailout Program For The Average Person’; Accused Ponzi Schemer Implies ASD Was ‘Tremendous’ Success And That People Who Listen To Him Are In ‘Top 10 Percent’

    Andy Bowdoin

    UPDATE: Awaiting his Ponzi scheme trial on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin has participated this week in at least three webinars for a mysterious program known as “OneX.”

    OneX is a program pushed on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. It appears to be an MLM-style 4×4 matrix feeder program for a purported Panamanian entity known as QLxchange, which may be operating a gold- and silver-themed investment program and 3×9 matrix from Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

    “Tonight we’ll be talking about a financial bailout program for the average person,” Bowdoin said last night, in preliminary remarks about OneX.

    In presentations that appear to have been heavily scripted, the accused Ponzi schemer sang the praises of OneX in at least two webinars Monday, touting it as a way for ASD members to make $99,000 “very quickly” by joining what effectively would be an ASD downline group in OneX through which incoming recruits could benefit through leverage delivered by Bowdoin and former members of the defunct autosurf.

    Bowdoin or his handlers, however, appear to have altered the script after a listener raised a concern in Monday’s first webinar that purported “leads” for incoming OneX recruits would come from ASD’s database and be awarded to new enrollees in violation of members’ ASD agreements.

    On Monday, Bowdoin said he intended to use proceeds that flowed from OneX to pay for his criminal defense. Last week, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer set the ASD patriarch’s trial date for Sept. 24, 2012.

    In yesterday’s webinar, Bowdoin told listeners who perhaps were members of OneX prior to the creation of an ASD downline group that they could create a second OneX account that would be placed in the ASD group. The accused Ponzi schemer suggested that it was possible to create even more OneX accounts.

    “You can create a new [OneX] account in your spouse’s name, family-member name or friends,” Bowdoin coached, noting that the accounts would require the use of different email addresses and usernames.

    “You can work both at the same time,” Bowdoin said.

    Earlier in the Thursday pitch, he offered his congratulations to webinar attendees who’d purportedly exercised the prudence to listen to him and become “more successful in life.”

    “This puts you in the top 10 percent, because most people never look outside the box to improve their financial situation,” he assured listeners.

    Bowdoin faces up to 125 years in federal prison if convicted of the Ponzi charges announced by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia in December 2010. Bowdoin previously was implicated in an Alabama securities swindle, according to court records. One of his business partners was implicated in three prime-bank swindles.

    Despite the serious criminal charges against him and civil judgments totaling tens of millions of dollars against ASD-related assets, Bowdoin suggested yesterday that he and ASD had a “tremendous” success record for marketing on the Internet.

    In yesterday’s webinar, Bowdoin introduced Rayda Roundy, whom he identified Monday as a former ASD trainer.

    Roundy thanked Bowdoin for the introduction.

    “I appreciate being here with you,” Roundy said of Bowdoin.

    Whether OneX is thrilled to have Bowdoin, an accused Ponzi schemer who has been formally indicted for wire fraud and securities-related crimes, driving traffic to its scheme is unclear.

    See earlier story.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: American Red Cross Sends ‘Cease-And-Desist’ Letter To Asteria Foundation

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The American Red Cross, which opened a probe last week into the potential misuse of its name and logo by the Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, has sent the foundation a letter to cease and desist.

    Anne Marie Borrego, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington, D.C., said this morning that the letter went out yesterday. The Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, also known as the Asteria Foundation, uses a Hong Kong street address and has issued at least one undated “press release” that uses a dateline of Reston, Va.

    The foundation is linked to Club Asteria, a purported earnings “program” that traded on the name of the World Bank and became a darling of the Ponzi boards earlier this year before suspending cashouts.

    The Red Cross logo and name appeared in Club Asteria’s October 2011 house organ, which the firm uses for recruiting. The Red Cross name and logo also appears on the Asteria foundation’s .org domain.

    Claims about Club Asteria caught the attention of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, in May. Officials in Virginia last week said that neither Club Asteria nor Asteria Corp. was registered to sell securities in the state. Asteria Corp. is Club Asteria’s apparent parent company.

    Virginia officials declined to say whether a state-level probe into the activities of Club Asteria was under way.

    A 2008 promo for AdSurfDaily features an image of Hank Needham, a purported Club Asteria principal. ASD later was implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in an alleged Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.

    Club Asteria was widely promoted on Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Promoters later turned their attention to “programs” such as Centurion Wealth Circle and JustBeenPaid, which is trading on the names and images of Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin and “Mr. Spock” of the Star Trek movie and televison series.

    Last month, Club Asteria removed an image of actor Will Smith from its house organ. This month, the company is trading on a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, the slain champion of freedom in India. A “JOIN OUR MISSION” button was placed inside a quote from Gandhi, whose name was misspelled in the publication.

    See earlier story.

  • DEVELOPING STORY: Awaiting Trial, Accused AdSurfDaily Schemer Andy Bowdoin Resurfaces As Pitchman For OneX, ‘Opportunity’ Flogged On Ponzi Forums; ‘I Believe That God Has Brought Us OneX To Provide The Necessary Funds To Win This Case,’ Indicted ASD Patriarch Claims; ‘This Program Can Provide You With Earnings Beyond Your Wildest Imagination . . .’

    AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin told members yesterday that they could "earn $99,000 very quickly" in a program known as OneX. The Florida-based ASD patriarch claimed to hope he could fund his defense to U.S. securities-related charges through OneX, which appears to be tied to a Panamanian firm that uses a domain name with a Montenegro extension and may operate from Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog may have more on this developing story in the coming days.

    In a bizarre development, accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily told webinar listeners yesterday that he intended to fund his criminal defense to charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities through a purported business opportunity known as OneX, the PP Blog has learned.

    OneX, which uses a domain extension assigned to the European country of Montenegro and a webserver apparently positioned in the Irish Sea nation of Isle of Man, is described in MLM-style web promos as a 4X4 matrix feeder program for a Panamanian investment firm and commodities enterprise known as QLxchange.

    Whether OneX or QLxchange have any securities or commodities registrations in the United States or other countries was not immediately clear.

    Serving as the webinar host, ASD figure Tari Steward, who is helping Bowdoin raise funds for Bowdoin’s criminal defense and is listed in Bowdoin court filings as a potential ASD witness, described OneX as a winner while introducing Bowdoin.

    OneX has “already proven to be hugely successful here in the U.S.A. and all around the world,” Steward said.

    Mixing commentary on his Ponzi case with his OneX sales pitch, Bowdoin, 76, managed to work in a dig against the federal judge presiding over the criminal case against him. Bowdoin also chided federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia.

    Saying he was pleased that his trial date had been set nearly a year from now in September 2012 and describing it as an act of divine providence made possible after prayerful introspection, Bowdoin suggested the judge and prosecutors were disappointed that Collyer’s busy scheduled did not permit an earlier trial date.

    Both “Judge Collyer and the prosecution was wanting the closest time possible because they didn’t want to give us much time to prepare,” Bowdoin claimed, shortly after greeting webinar listeners with a “Hi, Folks.”

    Isle of Man highlighted in red: Source: Wikipedia.

    And Bowdoin, who did not identify the operators of OneX or speak to whether the purported program was required to be registered to market securities and commodities to U.S. inhabitants, sang the praises of the firm.

    “This program can provide you with earnings beyond your wildest imagination . . .” he claimed.

    Bowdoin further ventured that OneX “will produce the legal fees we need and make each one of you a ton of money.”

    “Now, when you finish this webinar,” he continued, “you’ll be so excited that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”

    ASD members will “wake up in the morning thinking about [OneX],” Bowdoin claimed. “For the next three days, you’ll be thinking about it constantly.”

    At a May 2008 ASD “rally” in Las Vegas prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from his personal bank accounts, Bowdoin — describing himself as a Christian “money magnet” — urged members to imagine payments from ASD flowing to them “constantly.”

    Federal prosecutions referenced Bowdoin’s Las Vegas remarks in the Ponzi indictment announced against him in December 2010. He has been free awaiting trial since his arrest.

    Bowdoin went on to claim in yesterday’s OneX pitch that “you’ll soon see how you can earn $99,000 very quickly.”

    As part of his OneX pitch, Bowdoin described the firm as “one of the greatest financial vehicles on the Internet today” and asked a series of questions:

    • “Do you want to get out of debt?”
    • Do you need to catch up on some house payments?”
    • “Do you want to pay cash in the next 90 days for a new automobile . . .”

    Bowdoin’s pitch also mixed in quotations from scripture.

    Based on its research, the PP Blog is reporting today that members of the purported Club Asteria business opportunity and the purported JustBeenPaid opportunity also have promoted OneX. An image of Club Asteria principal Hank Needham appeared in an ad for ASD in 2008. Meanwhile, web records show that Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JustBeenPaid, also was an ASD pitchman.

    Among the Club Asteria pitchmen who turned their attentions to OneX are “strosdegoz.” Club Asteria-related claims came under fire from CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, in May.

    Also participating in Bowdoin’s webinar was Rayda Roundy, whom Bowdoin described as a former ASD “trainer.”

    Roundy told listeners that a “pay it forward” strategy with OneX will help participants make money and help Bowdoin raise defense funds.

    OneX participants could create their own “bailout” program, Roundy claimed.

    After Bowdoin took back the webinar helm from Roundy, the ASD patriarch reminded members to send questions about OneX to a Gmail email address.

    And then Bowdoin said this:

    “Now, from time to time, people ask me, ‘Andy, how do you remain so peaceful?’ My answer is God.”

    He went on to claim that God had led him to his strategy of using OneX to raise defense funds.

    “I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said.

     

  • BULLETIN: Andy Bowdoin Trial Date Set For Late September Of 2012; Both Sides In Case Have Nearly A Year To Prepare Before Jury Will Hear Ponzi Testimony

    BULLETIN: The Ponzi scheme trial of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin is scheduled to begin on Sept. 24, 2012, 11 months from today, the PP Blog has learned.

    A status hearing on the case was held in the District of Columbia Friday. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer presided.

    Bowdoin is charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He was arrested in December 2010 and freed on bail.

    Collyer laid out the following schedule, the Blog has learned:

    Pretrial motions are due by Aug. 1, 2012. Responses are due two weeks later, on Aug. 15, 2012. A pretrial conference is scheduled a week after that, on Aug. 22, 2012. The actual trial is slated to begin a little more than a month later, on Sept. 24, 2012.

    How many days or weeks the trial is expected to last was not immediately clear. Bowdoin, 76, claimed in court filings to have more than 100 witnesses. How many witnesses he’ll actually call is unclear.

    Prosecutors have claimed to be in possession of hundreds of thousands of pages of evidentiary material.

    Depending on when the trial ends next year, Bowdoin may be 78 before he hears a jury verdict.

    In August 2008 — in the earliest days of the ASD case — some analysts predicted that the litigation could consume three or more years. The trial date, as it stands, reflects that the ASD-related litigation will have entered its fifth year when a jury is impaneled. The seizures of ASD-related assets began on Aug. 1, 2008, a date parts of the Northern Hemisphere were experiencing a total eclipse of the sun.

    By coincidence, the date for pretrial motions — Aug. 1, 2012 — is the fourth anniversary of the seizures. When that date passes, the litigation will enter its fifth year.

    Some ASD members claimed in August 2008 that ASD would be cleared and that matters would be settled by the Wednesday following the Friday seizures. Just days after the quick-settlement claims were made, Bowdoin described federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service as “Satan.”

    The ASD case has featured many bizarre claims.

  • UPDATE ON DECEMBER 2009 SPECIAL REPORT: 3 Figures In Philip R. Lochmiller Sr. Ponzi Case Will Go To Federal Prison; ‘Elderly Victims Were Financially Devastated,’ FBI Agent Says; Case Involving Recidivist Fraudster Drew Comparison To AdSurfDaily

    In a case that drew comparisons to AdSurfDaily because of recidivism, undisclosed bankruptcies and ties to Utah, the three principal figures of the Philip R. Lochmiller Sr. real-estate Ponzi scheme in Colorado will be going to federal prison.

    Lochmiller Sr., 63, was found guilty in July after a 10-day trial in which the jurors returned the verdicts in three hours. He will be sentenced after a final computation of losses is completed. The case involved a company known as Valley Mortgage Inc. The case involved about $30 million.

    Lochmiller Sr. was found guilty of conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, money laundering and mail fraud.

    His stepson, Philip R. Lochmiller Jr., 38 when charged, has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit securities and mail fraud and money laundering. Business associate Shawnee N. Carver, 33 when charged, has been sentenced to two years for conspiracy to commit securities and mail fraud.

    Prosecutors announced the sentences imposed on Lochmiller Jr. and Carver yesterday.

    “Philip Lochmiller Jr. helped orchestrate an investment scheme which defrauded over 400 victims out of more than $30 million,” said James Yacone, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office. “Several elderly victims were financially devastated.  [The] sentencing sent a strong message that white collar criminals will not be tolerated.  The FBI will continue to aggressively investigate and seek prosecution against the groups and individuals who defraud unwitting victims out of their earnings.”

    Lochmiller Sr. was sentenced to three years in a California state prison in the 1980s after he was charged with 60 counts of securities fraud and pleaded guilty to about half of them. Investors in his new scheme at Valley Mortgage were not told of his history as a securities swindler, federal prosecutors in Colorado said.

    Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia said the same thing about ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who was charged with felonies in Alabama in a securities scheme in the 1990s.

    Meanwhile, Lochmiller Sr.’s investors also were not told that both Lochmiller Sr. and Jr. had bankruptcies on their records. Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia alleged in August 2008 that ASD members and members of a companion autosurf known as Golden Panda Ad Builder were not told about the bankruptcy of Golden Panda President Clarence Busby.

    Nor were they immediately told that Busby had a run-in with the SEC in the 1990s and was accused of purveying three prime-bank swindles, according to records.

    The Lochmiller case also has a tie to Vernal, Utah, a community to which ASD also has a tie. The Lochmiller case was in part about real estate in Vernal. Vernal is the community in which the so-called “Arby’s Indians” got their start.

    ASD mainstay Curtis Richmond was a member of the bogus “tribe” based in Vernal. The tribe, which used the address of a Vernal doughnut shop as the address of its purported “Supreme Court” and was ruled a “complete sham” by a federal judge, got its derisive name because it once held a meeting at an Arby’s restaurant in Provo.

    Richmond went on to become a pro se litigant in the ASD Ponzi case, accusing the judge overseeing the case in the District of Columbia of “TREASON” and operating a kangaroo court. Richmond claimed the judge overseeing an unrelated case in Utah owed him $30 million. Other ASD figures later claimed government officials owed them sums ranging from the millions of dollars to the trillions.

    Another parallel between the ASD case and the Lochmiller case is the presence of the IRS. ASD’s early deceptions were uncovered by a U.S. Secret Service/IRS Task Force operating in Florida, according to court filings.

    “Investment fraud is like a ‘house of cards’; the underlying structure can fall apart at any time leaving many investors in financial ruin,” said Sean Sowards, a top IRS agent working the Lochmiller case.

    Sowards is the special agent in charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation unit in Denver.

    “These sentences should remind us that defrauding investors is a serious offense and those who do will be held accountable,” Sowards said.

    Both Lochmiller Jr. and Carver testified at the Lochmiller Sr. trial, prosecutors said.