BULLETIN: UPDATED 7:37 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.): The ASAMonitor Ponzi and criminals’ forum — the forum from which the purported MPB Today “grocery” program was being promoted and countless other fraud schemes were being promoted — suddenly has announced that the forum is closing.
The announcement, which appeared today in red type, was made by “Wanrou,” whose ID says he is “ASA Administrator.” Content from the forum appears to have been deleted or hidden en masse.
“ASA forum has been a place where members can get information, discuss, share, debate, to educate and be educate about possibilities and risks of online money making programs for the last few years,” the Wanrou post said.
“Sadly we can no longer keep it online as a free discussion forum because of time consuming and financial reasons,” the post continued.
“Thanks you all for your long time support and best wishes to your present and future online endeavors.”
The forum’s sudden closure coincided with reports in recent months that U.S.-based law-enforcement agencies were conducting undercover stings both online and offline and using informants to bring both criminal and civil charges against financial fraudsters.
It was not immediately clear if ASAMonitor would seek to reopen as a so-called “private” forum. Court records show that undercover operations also have infiltrated “private” forums and that members of the forums who had been scammed have provided helpful information to investigators.
The sudden closure of ASAMonitor also coincided with yet-another flap in the MPB Today thread. An antiscam poster was specifically warned by a moderator yesterday to refrain from his efforts to inform ASA members about developments in the MPB Today story and his reading of events at MPB Today.
Specific claims about MPB Today are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program has been pitched to Food Stamp recipients, people of faith, Ponzi scheme victims, people of color, senior citizens, college students and opponents of President Obama, among others.
Obama created an entity known as the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force in November 2009 to do battle with fraudsters. In January, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder warned in Florida that the U.S. government was serious about putting scammers in prison.
ASAMonitor previously closed the MPB Today thread after warning an antiscam poster to back off from challenging “Ken Russo,” a poster promoting the MPB Today program. The thread later was opened after what a Mod described as a “cooling off period” had passed. In an earlier closure of the thread, links to the PP Blog’s coverage of the MPB Today story were deleted from the forum and later restored.