A bulletin board accessible only through the back offices of members of the purported “OneX” program includes a message that the program has disabled a “Transfer Funds” option because a “recent investigation” has determined that members “have been depositing funds from stolen credit cards and transferring this tainted money to hundreds of other members of the organization,” a source tells the PP Blog.
The bulletin-board announcement was dated yesterday and attributed to “the administration.” No OneX owner or operator was identified in the announcement, but members of OneX were told there was no choice left “but to disable the ‘Transfer Funds’ option indefinitely,” according to information provided by the source.
AdSurfDaily President and accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin emerged Monday as a OneX pitchman.
There was no corresponding announcement on the site that OneX or its staff had alerted authorities that members were joining with stolen credit cards, the source said.
Who conducted the “investigation” — the company or some other entity — was not made clear in the announcement.
“The Company must take a hard stance against this type of financial fraud in the interest of those hardworking, honest members who are legitimately building their businesses and depend on the survival of this Company for all the great financial opportunities that it represents,” the post on the bulletin board claimed, according to the source.
OneX is a purported 4×4 matrix linked to a purported 3×9 matrix known as QLxchange that purportedly operates from Panama through a server purportedly located on Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
In a webinar Monday, Bowdoin told ASD members that they could earn $99,000 “very quickly” through OneX, a program he intended to use to pay for his criminal defense.
Bowdoin, who has participated in at least three webinars this week in which he sang the praises of the purported opportunity, was charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities last year.
In 2009, an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) reportedly disabled a button that permitted members to transfer money to other members. AVG, which had close ASD ties, purportedly was based in Uruguay.
OneX purportedly has 750,000 members.
On Monday, Bowdoin claimed God had led him to his strategy of using OneX to raise defense funds for his Ponzi battle against the government.
“I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said.
A PP Blog reader (“Tony”) reported at 6:45 p.m. EDT today that a OneX/QLxchange-related “press release” dated Oct. 11 had appeared on PRLog, a news-release distribution site. The release, which also referenced cash-gifting and a “pay it forward” strategy, was attributed Bryce Jackson, a purported “Business Mentor” and “Success Coach.”
“God truly wants you to be a blessing to other people during these bad economic times,” the release read in part.
Links in the press release lead to sites where people who register reportedly are given information about OneX/XLxchange. One of the sites is called “godsmoneyfeeder”; another is called “whatablessing.”
Bowdoin also is promoting a “pay it forward” theme for OneX, according to his webinar remarks.
In essence, “pay it forward” — also known as PIF or “benefactoring” — is a practice by which money theoretically stays in constant motion and flows to schemes because sponsors pay fees for recruits and encourage recruits to to the same for their recruits.
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.
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: 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.”
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.
The continuing outage of a fundraising site for accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily now has exceeded 80 hours — more than three full days. The site first was reported to be offline Thursday at 11:09 p.m. EDT.
What caused the outage and why the site remains offline are unclear. Bowdoin, 76, had been using the site in a bid to gather $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
A post dated today and signed “Andy” on a companion Facebook site says this:
“Hello ASD Members! Just a quick positive note. Our Website has been down for a few days due to some tech issues with our server, but it will be back up shortly. A “Good News Update” email will be sent with some very exciting news for all of you in the next couple of days. Andy”
Bowdoin’s fundraising campaign had lasted more than two months prior to the disappearance of the site, but had fallen 95 percent of the mark, according to the most recent claims.
A website through which accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily hoped to raise $500,000 to pay for his criminal defense has been offline for at least 11 hours. The reason why is unclear.
The site — known as Andy’s Fundraising Army — launched on July 26 after weeks of prelaunch hype and after having missed at least two advertised launch dates. The site’s URL now resolves to a page that beams advertisements.
Bowdoin’s used the website and emails to paint himself the Christian commander of an “Army” that was “fighting mad.” The site used images of David and Goliath and accused the government of “wrong doing” and “suppression.”
In 2008, Bowdoin referred to the Secret Service and federal prosecutors as “Satan,” and compared the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from his 10 bank accounts to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. In a video released July 26, he claimed he was “crucified” and “heavily ridiculed” by two U.S. Attorneys and three Secret Service agents.
Bowdoin’s PR strategy of demonizing the government for seizing the money in August 2008 appears to have backfired. As of last week — after more than two months of fundraising — Bowdoin reportedly was 95 percent short of his $500,000 goal.
Three weeks ago, the government returned $55 million seized in the case to members.
Combined with corporation records and documents such as news releases, this post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum raises questions about whether AdViewGlobal, an autosurf with close ties to AdSurfDaily, was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit that consumed the EWalletPlus payment processor and left AVG members holding the bag.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers of the PP Blog will recall that the purported AdSurfDaily (ASD) spinoff known as AdViewGlobal (AVG) and some of its members engaged in particularly bizarre behavior in May 2009. The absurdities included announcing (and then unannouncing) a puported deal with a new offshore wire facilitator, announcing (and then unannouncing) a new website with purported new services and claiming the upstart company was healthy enough not only to pay out 250 percent matching bonuses to members and 200 percent matching bonuses to recruiters, but also to pay out multilevel downline commissions and purported surfing income of up to 8 percent a day.
Just two months earlier — in March 2009 — AVG suddenly announced its account at an unspecified bank had been suspended and that its chief executive officer had resigned. The firm bizarrely added that CEO Gary Talbert would not leave the company altogether. Rather, Talbert would remain in the accounting department.
Just a month earlier, Talbert, also a former ASD executive, had been introduced in an AVG conference call by Terralynn Hoy, an ASD member and moderator of the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum and an emerging forum for the AVG autosurf. The introduction occurred in February 2009 after weeks of assertions by AVG that there were no ties between itself and ASD. The introduction was preceded by a bizarre announcement in late January of 2009 by AVG that the appearance of its graphics on an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.” The person making that announcement on AVG’s behalf was Chuck Osmin, a former ASD employee.
AVG’s websites ultimately disappeared. Members claimed AVG was owned by George and Judy Harris, and at least one of the AVG websites identified George Harris as an AVG trustee. George Harris, described in court filings as the head of ASD’s purported real-estate division, is the stepson of Andy Bowdoin and the son of Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin.
It later proved to be the case that May 2009 — the same month in which AVG was reimagining itself as one of the world’s leading advertising and communications firms while at once announcing and unannouncing key bits of purported news — was the same month the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin had convened.
The PP Blog is reporting today that records strongly suggest AVG was a cog in a larger fraud — one that somehow married the AVG autosurf to a penny-stock scheme with a purported arm in the “oil” businesses and a branch that owned an Arizona payment processor known as EWalletPlus that later collapsed.
Here, now, our Special Report . . .
Is stock manipulation in multiple venues part of the bigger picture of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme? Out of the clear blue sky in the fall of 2008 — as ASD awaited a critical court ruling in the Ponzi forfeiture case against the assets of President Andy Bowdoin — ASD claimed it expected a $200 million revenue infusion from Praebius Communications, a penny-stock firm that did not disclose audited sales figures.
But the Praebius announcement, which ASD later withdrew without explaining why, may not be the firm’s only tie to a penny-stock company.
A May 2009 post on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum is adding to lingering questions about whether AdViewGlobal — an autosurf with close ties to ASD — was part of an elaborate penny-stock scheme and money-laundering conduit involving multiple companies, domestic and offshore venues and individuals with ties to ASD.
On May 5, 2009, a MoneyMakerGroup poster who used the handle of “IMCanadian” claimed he (or she) had received autosurfing payouts totaling $1,300 from AdViewGlobal (AVG) on unspecified dates. The payments, according to the post, were routed through SolidTrustPay (STP), a Canadian payment processor.
The MoneyMakerGroup post potentially provides a glimpse into how fraudulent securities businesses may layer themselves to confuse both investors and authorities. The post cites two different email addresses as the sources of STP payments from the AVG scheme. Although the email addresses purportedly were used by AVG to cause STP to issue AVG autosurf payouts, neither of the addresses used a domain name owned by AVG. Instead, they used Yahoo and Gmail addresses.
AVG, according to records, could have chosen to use email addresses that corresponded to its own domain names. The firm owned at least two namesake domains before it suspended member cashouts in June 2009: ADVGlobal.com and AdViewGlobal.com.
But relying on free email providers such as Yahoo and Google was not the sole oddity associated with AVG, a firm an early promoter predicted would become a “1 Billion Dollar Company [before the] end of 2009.”
“Most if not all of your leaders are joining,” the promoter flatly counseled on a forum known as FreeLunchRoom on Dec. 23, 2008, two days before Christmas.
The MoneyMakerGroup posts that followed cited not only the Yahoo and Gmail payout addresses, but also two different STP usernames from which AVG payouts to “IMCanadian” purportedly originated. Absent in both usernames was any reference to AVG itself.
Like AVG, ASD also used STP, according to records. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that ASD had wired “several million dollars” to STP just prior to the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the personal bank accounts of ASD President Andy Bowdoin.
A payment of $200 for AdViewGlobal earnings was received through STP from an STP user who used the acronym “avg” as part of a yahoo.com email address, but did not use an AVG domain, according to the MoneyMakerGroup post. The STP username linked to the AVG payout was “karveck,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.
An AVG payment for $1,100, meanwhile, had come from an STP member who used the words “tmscorp” and “usa” — along with the abbreviation “llc” as part of a Gmail address, according to the post. The STP username for the payout was “tmscorp,” not AdViewGlobal or AVG, according to the post.
Ten days after the claims appeared on MoneyMakerGroup, the grand jury that indicted ASD President Andy Bowdoin in the District of Columbia was sworn in, according to records. The swearing in occurred just 11 days after the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore fraud schemes. On the same day Obama himself spoke about the crackdown — May 4, 2009 — AVG announced it had secured a new offshore wire facilitator in the aftermath of the purported suspension of AVG’s bank account in March 2009. Research by the PP Blog suggests that AVG sought to route money to itself by using a Florida shell company that had sought the services of an offshore firm later banned by the National Futures Association.
The seal on the Bowdoin indictment was lifted on Nov. 23, 2010, during a period in which some ASD members were discouraging others from filing remissions claims in the ASD forfeiture case brought by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.
Bowdoin was arrested in Florida on Dec. 1, 2010. He faces an upcoming trial on allegations of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities for his operation of ASD. AVG’s name does not appear in the indictment.
The Operative Word: ‘Murky’
Much remains murky about the degree of connectivity among ASD, AVG, STP, Karveck, TMS Corp and EWalletPlus. It is known that ASD and AVG had members and promoters in common. Both firms used STP to process payments, but it remains far from clear how many STP accounts the companies and their executives or insiders controlled and how much money generated in the ASD scheme remained in offshore accounts that later could be tapped to channel money to AVG.
ASD and AVG are known to have turned to members and moderators of the now-defunct Surf’s Up forum to sanitize the respective schemes. The surf firms, according to AVG, also shared at least two of the same employees: Chuck Osmin and Gary Talbert.
Some ASD members have claimed Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG and fronted the money to acquire EWalletPlus, AVG’s purported in-house payment processor. If the assertion that Bowdoin provided money to buy EWalletPlus is true, it may mean that the deal was heavily layered to shield Bowdoin from being identified as the funding source and that AVG had more than one silent partner.
Karveck and TMS Corp used multiple versions of their names, a potential indicator of money-laundering — i.e., a bid to dupe banks into warehousing fraud-scheme proceeds. Karveck, for example, has been referred to as just plain Karveck, but also Karveck International. Records show that at least three versions of the TMS Corp. name exist: TMS Corp., TMS Association and TMS Corp. USA LLC.
TMS Corp. USA LLC is listed in Nevada and Arizona records as using ASD’s address in Quincy, Fla. Its manager is listed as Talbert, the former executive at both ASD and AVG.
Each of the TMS firms appears to have a tie to EWalletPlus, which once shared the same server in Panama with AVG. Despite serving pages from Panama, AVG purported to be based in Uruguay and to enjoy U.S. Constitutional protections even though it was operating offshore. Making the situation even murkier is that a penny-stock company known as Vana Blue Inc. claimed in 2008 to own TMS Corp., the parent company of the EWalletPlus web portal, and to have have acquired Karveck International in February 2009.
The claims came in the form of news releases — and news releases are common tools in penny-stock frauds.
AVG formally launched in February 2009, a year after VanaBlue claimed ownership in a news release of TMS Corp. and EWalletPlus and months after the seizure of Bowdoin’s assets in August 2008. Prior to the seizure, Bowdoin ventured to Costa Rica and Panama, according to court filings by the Secret Service.
The purpose of the Bowdoin trip, according to the Secret Service, was to to incorporate ASD Cash Generator — a replacement autosurf for a Bowdoin surf that had collapsed in 2007 — and an entity known known as La Sorta Trading outside of U.S. jurisdiction. The agency made the claim on Feb. 26, 2009, less than a month after the formal launch of AVG and during the same period in which AVG reportedly had met with a convicted securities felon and announced the formation of a purported offshore “private association.”
Also in February 2009, Vana Blue declared Karveck International a “newly acquired asset” that had produced $1.8 million in revenue in January 2009. Karveck was described as a company that “specializes in internet advertising and promotion in a search engine and ad clicking type environment.”
Mysteriously, however, VanaBlue disowned Karveck International just six months later — in August 2009. What Vana Blue initially had described in February as a completed acquisition of Karveck International was redescribed in August as deal that had fallen through as a result of “further due diligence.”
“Vana Blue was unable to complete this transaction but is in the final stages of negotiation with an oil company to continue its plans of acquisitions,” Vana Blue claimed on Aug. 17, 2009.
During the month of August 2009, ASD’s Bowdoin announced in court filings that he was “negotiating” with federal prosecutors. The August 2009 negotiations, which collapsed by mid-September of the same year, marked at least the second time that Bowdoin or his legal team claimed that the ASD patriarch was seeking to find a way to settle the ASD forfeiture case.
Bowdoin’s negotiations pleading appeared on the docket of U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer on Aug. 4, 2009. Thirteen days later — on Aug. 17, 2009 — Vana Blue announced on Business Wire that its acquisition of Karveck International — a deal it described in February 2009 as completed — had fallen through.
Vana Blue claimed in the same announcement it was proceeding on a deal for an oil company despite its sudden loss of Karveck International.
Earlier this year, a source told the PP Blog that she provided $5,000 to her sponsor — and that the sponsor converted her money to cashier’s checks made payable to TMS Association, one of the “TMS” companies records suggest was tied to both AVG and EWalletPlus. The woman told the Blog that she believed she was a victim of the ASD scheme.
On Dec. 21 2010, just 20 days after Bowdoin was indicted, an email that appeared to have originated with an AVG member began to circulate among ASD members.
The email accused members of ASD who were participating in the remissions program established by the Justice Department and the Secret Service of signing their “morals and soul away” and supporting “innocent peoples lives being destroyed.”
In a possible bid to intimidate ASD members, the email further claimed that an unspecified “back lash” would occur against any ASD member who participated in the claims program.
Last month ASD members who filed approved claims forms received back 100 percent of the money they had directed at ASD. The remissions payments were funded by money seized by the Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case.
Although its is believed the government also has opened a probe into the affairs of AVG, prosecutors have made only veiled references to AVG in court filings in the ASD case.
James Leonard Craft booking photo: Source: Etowah County Sheriff's Office.
BULLETIN: The cavalcade of senior citizens implicated in alleged securities schemes continues. James Leonard Craft has been taken from a jail cell in Florida and placed in one in Alabama to answer felony charges that he was at the helm of a securities swindle.
Craft, 71, of Milton, Fla., originally was arrested in Florida Sept. 23 on an out-of-state fugitive warrant. He was held at a Santa Rosa County detention facility until yesterday, when he was transported to Etowah County Jail in Alabama to face charges. Bond was set at $30,000, according to records.
In October 2010, the Alabama Securities Commission (ASC) named Craft in a cease-and-desist order. The agency alleged that Craft, beginning in 2008, was selling unregistered securities for a purported lumber business that produced or sold railroad ties.
The securities were offered through LLCs known as Universal Wood Products LLC, Century Lumber and Land LLC and Milton Timber LLC, according to the ASC order.
An Alabama resident told investigators he was introduced to the opportunity by a “business associate and missionary residing in Tennessee,” according to ASC records. Whether ASC suspects affinity fraud was not immediately clear.
NorthEscambia.com is reporting that Craft was part of an October 2010 ribbon-cutting ceremony for an upstart business that the struggling Florida small town of Century expected would create 500 jobs. Those jobs never materialized, the site reported. More than 3,000 applications for employment were received.
ASC records claim that at least two Alabama residents were told that the purported lumber firms could make money because Craft and a business partner bought railroad ties in “South America” and sold them to U.S. railroad companies “suffering from a shortage of the lumber product.”
Alabama investors directed at least $180,000 to a promissory-notes scheme involving Craft, according to ASC.
Precisely how the Craft case had morphed into a criminal prosecution was not immediately clear today. Etowah County Jail records show that Craft is being held for another “agency,” but the name of the agency was not listed.
In Alabama, county-level prosecutors and ASC work together on securities cases.
The emerging Craft case has bizarre coincidences and parallels to the AdSurfDaily case. ASD was operated by Andy Bowdoin, a senior citizen in the small Florida town of Quincy, which is situated in Gadsden County. Craft, himself a senior citizen, also operated from a small town in Florida. By coincidence, the jail in which he’s currently lodged is in Gadsden, Ala.
Andy and Faye Bowdoin at a July 2008 Chamber of Commerce photo op. The small town of Quincy was pleased that ASD had created jobs, but the ASD story took a sour turn when the U.S. Secret Service accused Andy Bowdoin of operating an international Ponzi swindle a month after this photo was taken. Some ASD employees were getting paid in "ad packs," according to court records.
In the case of ASD, the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce announced in 2008 it was pleased that ASD had made its home in Quincy and was creating jobs. The Century Area Chamber of Commerce appears to have felt the same way about the Craft-related firms. The NorthEscambia.com story linked to above shows a Chamber banner at the Craft ribbon-cutting ceremony. Craft appears in the photo alongside people who appear to be genuinely pleased and proud that a jobs-creator had come to the small town.
Like Craft, ASD’s Andy Bowdoin was implicated in an Alabama securities swindle. Bowdoin’s Alabama caper occurred in the 1990s, according to records.
UPDATED TO ADD COMMENT FROM U.S. MARSHALS SERVICE AT 3:21 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia this morning declined to comment on an email received Saturday by some AdSurfDaily members that encouraged them to file documents at the “county” level and “name” federal officials as “thieves.”
Prosecutors also declined to comment on whether the government had beefed up security for judges and prosecutors in response to strange developments in the ASD case. On Saturday, some ASD members received an email that encouraged them to send a “notary certified copy” of theft claims they file in their home counties against federal officials to the home address of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.
“No comment,” the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said.
The U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for the U.S. court system, said this afternoon that “it is the policy of the U.S. Marshals Service not to comment on or confirm ongoing judicial threat investigations.”
The PP Blog reported yesterday that ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a reputed “sovereign citizen” who sometimes goes by the names of “Kenneth Wayne” and “Keny,” filed involuntary bankruptcy petitions in 2009 against the Washington State Bar Association and a Franciscan hospital in Washington state.
Leaming’s combined claims totaled more than $41 billion. He was permanently enjoined “forever from filing a bankruptcy petition or any other pleadings before this court without the advance leave from one of the bankruptcy judges of this court,” according to federal records.
“Keny” has been cited by ASD members as the author of a November 2010 “legal opinion” and as the author of Saturday’s email that provided guidance to ASD members. The ASD case had been marked by strange events since the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme probe in August 2008.
In the profiles, Leaming had been listed as an attorney who advertised a fee structure of up to $250 an hour from Spanaway, Wash.
Leaming was the subject of a letter sent in 2005 by the Practice of Law Board of the State of Washington. The Law Board made a determination in December 2005 that Leaming’s conduct in cases it was investigating “constitutes the unauthorized practice of law.”
In one case, the Law Board said, a notary public accused Leaming of coercing her into “notarizing documents that resulted in the loss of her notary license.”
Leaming became a figure in the ASD case in 2010 after he was denied leave to file documents in the civil portion of the ASD case and later joined with ASD figure Christian Oesch, an unsuccessful pro se litigant in the case, to sue the United States — apparently for the staggering sume of more than $29 trillion.
Civil judgments against money and property seized by the Secret Service in the ASD case were entered in the government’s favor in 2009 and 2010, and the prosecutors returned $55 million to about 8,400 ASD members last week through a process known as remission.
There were repeated efforts by some ASD members to discourage others for filing for remissions.
Bowdoin’s email followed on the heels of an email by an ASD member named “Sara” that claimed to provide “insider information” that a government plot was under way.
Since at least July, Bowdoin has been soliciting ASD members to pay for his criminal defense on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
AdSurfDaily figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, also known as "Kenneth Wayne" and "Keny."
EDITOR’S NOTE: A week after the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia put $55 million from civil judgments back in the pockets of AdSurfDaily members as the criminal prosecution of ASD President Andy Bowdoin continues, a new effort by some ASD members to undermine the credibility of public officials by describing them as thieves who are encouraging ASD members to lie appears to be under way. Whether the government is taking extra security precautions in the ASD case is not known. The U.S. Marshals Service and the office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in the District of Columbia did not respond immediately to the PP Blog’s requests for comment on this story. The Blog was unable today to contact the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court for comment.
UPDATED 8:10 A.M. EDT (OCT. 3, U.S.A.) Is a purported “sovereign citizen” whom records show filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the Washington State Bar Association in 2009 that claimed he was owed an outstanding debt of more than $32 billion now leading an effort to destroy the reputations of public officials involved in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case?
On Saturday, two ASD members confirmed to the PP Blog that they had received copies of an email that encouraged them to identify federal prosecutors and a federal judge in the District of Columbia — as well as a U.S. Secret Service agent — as “DOJ thieves.”
The email accused prosecutors of running a “scam” against Florida-based ASD and encouraged ASD members to file an “affidavit” with their “county recorder” that would name the prosecutors, the judge and the Secret Service agent as criminals. It further encouraged members to send a “notary certified copy” of their claims to the home address of John G. Roberts Jr., the Chief Justice of the United States.
Why members were encouraged to send documents to Roberts at his home address was unclear. Roberts, 56, is the nation’s highest ranking judicial officer and is chief judge of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the email, ASD members were further encouraged to send certified copies of their “DOJ thieves” claims to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the “RUST Group.” Rust Consulting Inc. is the government-approved remissions administrator in the ASD Ponzi case. Federal prosecutors last week released $55 million seized by the Secret Service, and Rust deposited the money into the bank accounts of about 8,400 ASD members who filed approved remissions claims in the case.
ASD members who participated in the remissions program would be “coerced” into lying by prosecutors to put Bowdoin in prison, according to the email.
If they did not “TESTILIE” — a new phrase that marries the words “testify” and “lie” and apparently means misrepresent their testimony at prosecutors’ requests — they will “be put into prison for false claims and fraud,” according to the email.
“MARK MY WORDS,” the email emphasized in all-caps. The word “TESTILIE” also was capitalized in the email, quotes from which were attributed to ASD figure “Keny.”
“Keny” is the nickname of ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a so-called “sovereign citizen.”
Records in Washington state identify Leaming as one of two persons who filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) in 2009 that claimed a debt against the association of “US$32,091,000,000.00.”
The petition against the bar association was filed on Oct. 12, 2009. WSBA moved within days to have the petition dismissed and for sanctions against Leaming. Leaming moved for a continuance and to have the judge removed, according to records. The judge denied both the continuance bid and a motion styled “Notice of Duty to Recuse,” and the case was dismissed on Oct. 23, 2009. A judgment of $2,750 was entered against Leaming, and he was enjoined “forever from filing a bankruptcy petition or any other pleadings before this court without the advance leave from one of the bankruptcy judges of this court.”
Also during the month of October 2009 — while the involuntary petition against WSBA was in the courts — Leaming filed a petition to place Franciscan Health Systems, a community hospital in Washington state, in involuntary bankruptcy. That petition also was dismissed.
Records in Pierce County, Wash., show that Leaming filed a purported lien for $9.24 billion against the hospital, seeking to attach “all tangible and intangible property” of the facility, including its fixtures, furnishings, motor vehicles, bank accounts, passbooks, saving certificates, stock certificates, lines of credit, inventories, promissory notes, office equipment, educational equipment — and even its mineral and water rights.
Leaming and ASD figure Christian Oesch sought last year to file a lawsuit apparently seeking $29 trillion against the United States for the government’s actions in the ASD case. Leaming’s company — American-International Business Law Inc. — is referenced in the April 8, 2011, Congressional Record as the filer of an unspecified claim against the United States.
Some ASD members have been associated with a practice that has been called “paper terrorism.” The practice is designed to chill litigation opponents and create inconvenience for public officials such as judges and prosecutors by making them the targets of vexatious litigation pleadings or other documents designed to nuisance them.
Here are the comments attributed to “Keny” in the email ASD members reported receiving yesterday on the heels of the remissions payouts by the government last week. (Italics added.)
SCAM by DOJ …. By accepting these funds, they claim to be ASD/Andy’s VICTIMS (NOT DOJ victims) who will be required to testify that they were victims of ASD/Andy if they don’t want to be arrested and prosecuted for perjury /false claims. It will totally bury Andy.
As a “victim refund” they will now be coerced into testifying that they were a victim of Andy, not the DOJ, and unless they TESTILIE claiming that Andy scammed them, they will be put into prison for false claims and fraud. MARK MY WORDS.
They MUST (within 72 hrs) acknowledge “receipt of the funds stolen by the DOJ, and specifically (name the ss agent, us attys, and judge as the DOJ thieves), and do so in affidavit form, filing a certified copy into public records (county recorder, etc,) and sending a notary certified copy to Eric Holder, DOJ, and the Chief Justice (Roberts) of the Supreme Court of the United States (at home), and to the RUST Group.
ALSO, maybe close out with “Claimant hereby conditionally waives any punitive and/or exemplary and consequential damages claims in the event the funds taken are returned to me within 30 days of (NAME OF AGENT/OFFICER) receiving this claim.”
“Keny”
Whether the government has taken or will take extra security measures because of the strange nature of the ASD case was not immediately clear. There have been repeated attempts for months by some ASD members to discourage ASD members from filing for remissions from proceeds seized in the Secret Service’s ASD Ponzi probe and to cast prosecutors, investigators and judicial officers as corrupt.
