BULLETIN: The U.S. Senate — after a period of considerable partisan rancor and delay — has approved Loretta Lynch to be the next Attorney General of the United States. She will replace Eric Holder.
Today, the Senate finally confirmed Loretta Lynch to be America’s next Attorney General – and America will be better off for it. Loretta has spent her life fighting for the fair and equal justice that is the foundation of our democracy. As head of the Justice Department, she will oversee a vast portfolio of cases, including counterterrorism and voting rights; public corruption and white-collar crime; judicial recommendations and policy reviews – all of which matter to the lives of every American, and shape the story of our country. She will bring to bear her experience as a tough, independent, and well-respected prosecutor on key, bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform. And she will build on our progress in combatting newer threats like cybercrime. Loretta’s confirmation ensures that we are better positioned to keep our communities safe, keep our nation secure, and ensure that every American experiences justice under the law.
The New York Times put the vote at 56-43, reporting that 10 Republicans voted to confirm Lynch. She will become the first African American woman to hold the job.
Obama nominated Lynch in November. Although her qualifications never were in much doubt, some Republicans saw her as too friendly to Obama’s immigration policies, especially those instituted by executive action.
On April 2, a video depicting President Obama as a fan of the MyAdvertisingPays “program” appeared on YouTube. An “Obama voice” was dubbed into the video, which also shows the Presidential Seal. Text below the video reads, “Mr. President speaks about the new advertising revolution.”
Depicting then-President George W. Bush as a fan of the AdSurfDaily MLM HYIP “program” backfired in spectacular fashion in 2008, drawing the attention of the U.S. Secret Service. Federal agents eventually seized more than $80 million in an asset-forfeiture case. ASD President Andy Bowdoin, accused of operating a cross-border Ponzi scheme, was indicted. He later pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
Bush left the White House in January 2009, after Barack Obama was elected President. By August 2010, according to the FTC, “medical discount” hucksters were trading on Obama’s image.
MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was charged with racketeering. Assets were seized. A conviction followed.
In 2013, with Obama now in his second term, he was depicted in a promo as a pitchman for a scheme known as Ultimate Power Profits. That “program” had promoters in common with Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in 2012 as a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars.
Against this backdrop, a YouTube video that appeared online today positioned Obama as a pitchman for MyAdvertisingPays, a Ponzi-board scheme like ASD, MPB Today, Ultimate Power Profits, Zeek and many others.
News about the 0:33 MAPS’ video titled “My Advertising Pays, Obama” first appeared on the RealScam.com antiscam forum.
On April 13, 2013, a 70-year-old common man named Tom Menino had surgery. The procedure entailed the “placement of a plate and screws to repair the spiral fracture of [his] right fibula.” The break had occurred near the ankle.
Two days later, on April 15, Menino was still in the hospital. Sometime shortly after 2:49 p.m. on that date, he checked himself out.
You see, Tom Menino, the common man who sometimes mangled the English language and spent plenty of time with immigrants and others who could do the same, was the mayor of Boston. And an unknown person or persons had just detonated two bombs near the finish line of the world-famous Boston Marathon. Three people enjoying their freedom were killed. An estimated 264 were wounded, some gruesomely. A police officer who later encountered the suspects in Cambridge also would die. Other police officers engaged them in a ferocious gun battle on the streets of Greater Boston. The suspects lobbed Improvised Explosive Devices at the cops.
All Americans of a certain age will remember where they were and what they were doing when terrorists turned Beantown into a war zone on Patriot’s Day. I was researching and reporting on the Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme, when the first bulletins hit the airwaves and the Internet.
Barely familiar with the mayor, I did not know at first that he had been in the hospital and had been experiencing great pain; I remember wondering why he was in a wheelchair. For many Americans, the aftermath of the bombings provided their first introduction to Tom Menino. Prior to today, his name had appeared on the PP Blog only once — through a repeated Tweet. “We got him.”
As the AP, via Fox News, reminded America yesterday: “At an interfaith service three days after the bombings, Menino, in a symbolic act of personal defiance, painfully pulled himself to his feet from his wheelchair to declare that no act of violence could break Boston’s spirit.”
The mayor was the personification of “Boston strong,” a phrase in use again yesterday in the highest of places:
The Red Sox with the President on April 1, 2014. Source: White House video.
The collapse of TelexFree into a pile of alleged Ponzi- and pyramid rubble would come 10 days later, with potentially hundreds of thousands of people who didn’t speak perfect English as the victims. The April 3 editorial recounted how distressed TelexFree affiliates had wedged themselves into the purported “opportunity’s” office in Marborough, Mass., on April 1. On that very day, the Boston Red Sox had been invited to the White House to receive accolades from the President of the United States for winning the 2013 World Series. The Blog published a screen shot of the team from the ceremony’s happiest moment.
But there also were serious moments, such as when President Obama recalled how Boston and the nation felt during the terrible hours of the marathon bombing and all that ensued.
Obviously, all the wins were sweet for Red Sox fans, but I think for the nation as a whole there was something about this particular squad that was special and will go down in history — not just not just because they went from worst to first, but because they symbolized the grit and the resilience of America’s — one of America’s iconic cities during one of its most difficult moments.
Nearly one year ago, hundreds of thousands gathered on a beautiful spring day to run and cheer the historic Boston Marathon. But a senseless act of terror turned celebration into chaos, and joy into anguish. Four young people lost their lives. Hundreds were injured. The city was rocked. But under the guiding hand of somebody who I consider one of the finest public servants that America has known, Mayor Tom Menino of Boston, who is here today, and his lovely wife.
Boston stood resolute and unbowed and unbroken. And as the smoke cleared, we gained inspiration from the injured who gamely tackled their recovery — those who are running and walking again, including the young woman who has returned to professional dancing with a prosthetic leg. And we took heart from the first responders who put their lives at risk and bravely ran toward danger — people like Officer Richard Donahue of the MBTA Transit Police, who was shot and nearly killed that night. After months of rehab, Richard is walking again and keeping up with his 18-month-old son, and we’re so proud to have Richard here today.
Here is another frame from that April 1 video. The baseball executives and players are clapping. What you can’t see in the frame is the recipient of the applause. It is Tom Menino, who, like New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Sept. 11, 2001, suddenly had become America’s mayor.
Red Sox executives and players applaud Mayor Menino at the White House on April 1, 2014. Source: White House video.
A statement yesterday by the President of the United States (italics added):
Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Tom Menino. Bold, big-hearted, and Boston strong, Tom was the embodiment of the city he loved and led for more than two decades. As Boston’s longest-serving mayor, Tom helped make his hometown the vibrant, welcoming, world-class place it is today. His legacy lives on in every neighborhood he helped revitalize, every school he helped turn around, and every community he helped make a safer, better place to live. I had a chance to speak with Tom’s wife, Angela, yesterday, and today our thoughts and prayers are with her, with the entire Menino family, and with the people of Boston who Tom loved so much, and who loved him in return.
A statement yesterday by Joe Biden, the Vice President of the United States (italics added):
Jill and I were saddened to hear of the passing of our good friend, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Tommy was our friend for a long, long time, and he was without a doubt one of the finest Mayors this nation has ever seen. His heart was always as big as the city he loved. And he was, to his core, the very definition of Boston Strong. Unyielding. Absolutely committed.
The poet R. G. Ingersoll could have been describing Tommy when he wrote:
“When the will defies fear;
When duty throws the gauntlet down to fate;
When honor scorns compromise with death – – this is heroism!”
In the days following the Boston Marathon bombing Tommy was heroic. He was calm in the face of uncertainty, and resolute as the whole world watched.
Even as he should have been in bed, Tommy stood tall, marching through the streets of Boston with a Louisville Slugger for a walking stick. He was determined to protect the people of his city, whether from high profile tragedies like the bombing or the everyday tragedies of gun violence as a leading member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
It was an honor to work with Tommy on the investments that improved Boston’s neighborhoods, schools, housing and infrastructure. The “Menino Way” is evident in every park, every school, and every corner of Boston that emerged safer, cleaner, and stronger than before.
His legacy will live on in the city he loved, and in the example he set for public servants everywhere.
Boston’s first Italian-American Mayor earned what my mother always said was the highest compliment we Irish can give: He was a good man.
All of America is proud of you, Mr. Mayor, a common man of uncommon qualities, the Boston Strong-est of them all.
From a Blog leading dubious cheers for the TelexFree MLM “program.”
UPDATED 12:07 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) You can’t blame legitimate MLMers if they’re feeling a little jittery. Herbalife, one of the industry’s stalwarts, is under investigation by the FTC, which has many duties, including enforcing laws against false advertising and pyramid schemes. Precisely why the FTC is investigating Herbalife is unknown. Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman says Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that plumbs and churns vulnerable population groups. (See Nov. 13, 2013, PP Blog editorial: “Herbalife And Polarization In The Latino Community.”)
A public company, Herbalife itself announced the probe on March 12, saying it had received a “Civil Investigative Demand” (CID) and will “cooperate fully” with the agency.
But even as Herbalife wore a confident face and shared the FTC news, others within the MLM realm were making the trade look ridiculous on a global scale. MLM already is known for train wrecks (see example) and spectacular PR gaffes (see example). The sorry circus taking place outside of Herbalife’s immediate sphere of influence (see below) couldn’t come at a worse time for the firm.
To Herbalife’s credit, there was no attempt to demonize the FTC or pretend the CID was unimportant. So, score an early point for the supplement-maker in the category of PR awareness.
The unfortunate reality for Herbalife, however, is that it is ensconced in an industry that serves up one outrageous scam after another. And because some quirky or downright bizarre MLM “programs” have shown an almost unbelievable ability to raise tremendous sums of money quickly, the issue is not simply about a PR deficit. It’s also about national and cross-border security.
That’s why Herbalife’s conduct while it is under investigation by the FTC matters to the entire trade.
Attempts by Stepfordian MLMers to paint law enforcement as the enemy and dismiss the importance of a CID sent by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” in July 2012 made MLM look silly. Claims from Zeek’s Stepfordian wing that the receipt of a CID was “exciting” news made it look beyond clueless.
Whether the trade likes it or not, all of this Stepfordian behavior gets pinned on “MLM.” And MLM therefore looked particularly ridiculous when the SEC, a month after the North Carolina CID, described Zeek as a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars in less than two years and had ripped off hundreds of thousands of people by planting the seed it paid an interest rate of 1.5 percent a day and that earnings could be “compounded.”
So, if you’re a legitimate MLMer and need a comforting thought, here’s one for you: Unlike Zeek, Herbalife isn’t trying to sell the “exciting” angle to its legions of members during a government probe. And here’s a tip for legitimate MLMers and individuals considering signing up for an MLM: When someone tells you a government investigation is exciting news, get the hell off the list or stop reading the Blog. Recognize that you’re being splashed with sugary vomit and programmed by an MLM Stepfordian.
The PP Blog’s analysis of Zeek is that it was a criminal enterprise from the start that was designed in part to reel in participants dissatisfied with traditional MLM companies such as Herbalife that sell the dream but have low distributor success rates and high burn rates. Refugees from Herbalife and other traditional MLMs were perfect marks for Zeek’s MLM, a collection of predatory vultures unlike the MLM world had ever seen.
We’re bringing this up because MLM so often ventures into Stepfordland. So, odd as it sounds, Herbalife did itself (and the industry) a favor by avoiding the word “exciting” when describing a CID. For perfectly understandable reasons, it allowed only that it “welcomes the inquiry given the tremendous amount of misinformation in the marketplace” and that it is “confident that Herbalife is in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Even though Herbalife did not fumble the ball when announcing the probe, the company still needs to work on its messaging. Last year, when the firm was confronting Ackman’s pyramid allegations and companion assertions that it was plumbing and churning Latinos/Hispanics to sustain growth, Herbalife described former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona — a new appointee to its board — as “[b]orn to a poor Hispanic family in New York City.”
In highlighting Carmona’s circumstances as a newborn delivered into poverty in the Big Apple more than 60 years ago, Herbalife perhaps was projecting some stress. Whether it also was projecting an accidental hint of a Stepfordland within Herbalife remains on open question.
Given the disturbing plumbing-and-churning assertions against the firm, Herbalife would have done better by simply announcing Carmona’s appointment and including only his academic/business/public-service credentials in the announcement. It doesn’t matter that other enterprises with which he is involved have used the same line about hailing from a “poor Hispanic family” to describe him. They’re not being accused of pillaging vulnerable populations.
In short, Herbalife cannot afford to be seen as a Stepfordland company. Nothing can erode marketplace confidence faster.
Poor or even insidious messaging has harmed MLM for years. It is an industry that, unfortunately, is known for serial disingenuousness, absurd misrepresentations, gross distortions, impossible constructions and outright lies.
How Other Industry Messages Could Hurt Herbalife
On March 11, a day before Herbalife announced the FTC probe, members of the TelexFree MLM were taking to the web and planting the seed that President Obama had TelexFree’s back. The assertions are either a gross misunderstanding of the JOBS Act and the concept of raising startup capital through crowdfunding or a typical MLM lie to provide extra cover for the scheme. (See Google Translation from Portuguese to English here. See original here.)
For starters, TelexFree, which appears to have gathered $1 billion or more in less than two years, wants the public to believe it is not selling securities, despite affiliate claims the “program” delivers “passive” income. Moreover, it is not raising capital under the JOBS Act, which is a work-in-progress. In October 2013, the SEC formally proposed that a “company would be able to raise a maximum aggregate amount of $1 million through crowdfunding offerings in a 12-month period.”
The sum of $1 million is less than the sum TelexFree pitchman and former SEC defendant Sann Rodrigues says he’s earned from TelexFree since Feb. 18, 2012.
Rodrigues started pitching TelexFree before the JOBS Act even became law and before the SEC even promulgated rules. So, strike the JOBS Act claim.
Beyond that, TelexFree is under investigation by the Securities Division in its home state of Massachusetts. There’s also at least one probe in Africa, specifically in Rwanda, where a genocide occurred in the 1990s. Meanwhile, in South America, Brazilian prosecutors have called TelexFree a pyramid scheme. Police in Europe have issued warnings about TelexFree, amid concerns that the “opportunity” is targeting the Madeiran community.
At a minimum, TelexFree is at least as clueless as Zeek, home of the “exciting” CID. As noted above, TelexFree pitchman Sann Rodrigues is a former defendant in an SEC pyramid-scheme and affinity-fraud case. If that weren’t enough, TelexFree executives and reps apparently have access to a “private jet” that recently made a flight between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
If there’s a surefire way to destroy the public’s confidence in the emerging JOBS Act, it’s for a bunch of MLMers to go around planting the seed that the President of the United States has authorized TelexFree as a crowdfunding company — and to water that seed by talking about “private jets” that can be flown by the TelexFree MLM into Haiti to line up struggling Haitians to sell credit repair and financial advice to struggling Americans.
Yes, we know: It’s altogether too much to believe. But the bitter reality for MLM — and therefore for Herbalife — is that it’s actually happening.
TelexFree says it’s in the communications business, and is expanding from VOIP into cell phones and, highly curiously, credit repair and financial advice. This is an MLM quagmire if ever there was one, especially since American MLMers say sums from $289 to $15,125 sent to TelexFree virtually triple or quadruple in a year.
If MLMers ever wonder why the trade has so many critics, they need look no further than TelexFree or Zeek before it.
With Zeek smoldering in the ashes of Ponzi/pyramid history and TelexFree serving up a current symphony of the bizarre, the MLM trade now also is confronting yet-another epic PR disaster — namely, a “program” known as WCM777 that, like TelexFree, is under investigation in multiple countries.
Like TelexFree and Zeek, WCM777 also promoted preposterous returns.
But that might be just the beginning of WCM777’s problems. Among other things, WCM777 has claimed it is “Launching The Way TV to transform nations & Joseph Global institute to train a group of Josephs to bless the world.”
But the “Joseph Global Institute” and a companion enterprise that trades on the name of Harvard appear to be shams. And The Way TV launched long ago through an entity known as Media for Christ, which became the center of an international firestorm over a production known as “Innocence of Muslims.”
Particularly disconcerting now are reports that tens of millions of dollars may have gone missing from the WCM777 coffers. In 2013, the SEC alleged that a “program” known as Profitable Sunrise may have gathered tens of millions of dollars before disappearing.
Don’t kid yourself: There is no doubt that the circumstances surrounding some MLM “programs” are affecting economic security and contributing to concerns about national security.
MLM Minefields
As noted above, precisely why the FTC is investigating Herbalife is unclear. The Zeek case initiated by the SEC, however, could supply a clue or even a specific reason for the U.S. government to be concerned about Herbalife. A look at the list of alleged “winners” by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case suggests that Zeek became popular in immigrant communities, which may signal MLM affinity fraud on top of Ponzi and pyramid fraud.
It also may signal immigrant-on-immigrant crime under the MLM umbrella.
This information is preliminary, meaning a more thorough analysis is needed. But it at least suggests that some MLMers are proceeding from fraud scheme to fraud scheme and either laying waste to immigrant communities in the United States or setting the stage for immigrant populations to become immersed in litigation and MLM scams.
The surname name of “Johnson,” for instance, is one of longstanding in America. So, it can be expected that a major fraud scheme with 1 million or so members such as Zeek would pull in a number of people with that last name. There are about 45 people with that name on the Zeek list.
At the same time, there are about 60 people on the list with the Asian name of “Li.” So, “Li” has significantly more appearances than “Johnson.”
And what about “Smith,” another traditional American name? Well, there are about 52 “Smiths” on the list. Contrast that with the names “Nguyen” (about 146) and “Chen” (about 137).
There also are many Latino/Hispanic names on the Zeek list. Mind you, this is the list of alleged Zeek winners, not losers. The list of losers — perhaps as many as 800,000 — is not publicly available. (Because it is believed that many Zeek members had multiple user IDs, the number of user IDs may exceed the actual number of losers. But even if the 800,000 figure only incorporates user IDs, it remains troubling. The early data on the winners’ names suggest that immigrants could have been targeted as marks by other immigrants and also by long-established American MLMers.)
Latino groups have voiced concerns about Herbalife targeting vulnerable populations. With Zeek data suggesting such targeting occurred within Zeek, the MLM trade have may to confront some tough questions: Is a mature American MLM market being shored up by a disproportionate share of recent or relatively recent immigrants? And are American MLM companies prospecting in new lands creating losing propositions for the native inhabitants of those lands?
TelexFree certainly has targeted Portuguese and Spanish speaking populations — in the United States, Brazil and elsewhere. So has WCM777, which also has targeted Asians and Asian-Americans.
People are free to criticize Bill Ackman’s assertions that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that is targeting vulnerable populations. But if MLMers who criticize Ackman expect to be taken seriously, they’d better be able to explain what appears to have happened at Zeek and what appears to be occurring now with both TelexFree and WCM777.
U.S. MLMers of any stripe — from longstanding citizens and naturalized ones to individuals hoping one day to proudly call themselves Americans — need to say no loudly to “programs” such as Zeek, TelexFree and WCM777.
And at a minimum, Herbalife needs to stop selling a message of “get rich quick” or turning a blind eye to it and stop trying to explain away its burn rate as the byproduct of affiliates who didn’t work hard enough to realize the dream.
Herbalife cannot be blamed for Zeek, but the burn rate may explain how Zeek and similar schemes rise to cherry-pick traditional MLMers and their recruits who have made little or no money with companies such as Herbalife.
No matter what the FTC has on its mind, any assertion by Herbalife that its current program is exemplary will be the strongest evidence of all that it, too, resides in MLM La-La Land. That would be a tragedy, given that Herbalife is viewed in the MLM community as a beacon of freedom.
“As our first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country. I believe she’ll go down as the greatest British peacetime Prime Minister.”
U.S. President Barack Obama described Thatcher as “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty.”
America, he said in a statement, “has lost a true friend.”
“Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history—we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will,” Obama said.
UPDATED 11:08 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) On a day Americans cherish as a great symbol of the continuation of Democracy, images of their President are being used to create the impression he has endorsed a “program” HYIP hucksters sought to popularize in the aftermath of the August 2012 collapse of the Zeek Rewards “program” amid SEC allegations that Zeek was just another massive Internet scam.
“Just join their team and you will receive all the help you need to grow your own business,” an animated Obama tells prospects in a video promoting Ultimate Power Profits. “By doing so, your earnings will increase. There is no hidden agenda. They showed me how their system worked and I was impressed. It is a fully legal and U.S.-patented system they use to make money.”
Obama’s image previously was used in affiliate promos for MPBToday, a purported MLM “grocery” program whose operator was arrested on a racketeering charge in Florida last month. A building that housed MPB Today’s operations is the subject of a federal forfeiture action in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The forfeiture case was filed July 31, 2012.
Less than three weeks later — on Aug. 17, 2012 — the SEC alleged Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme. Zeek and MPBToday are known to have promoters in common, including serial Ponzi scheme pitchman “Ken Russo,” also known as “DRdave.”
On Aug. 18, only a day after the SEC’s Zeek action late on Friday afternoon, the PPBlog began to receive spam about the UltimatePowerProfits “program.” (See Comments thread below this story. The Blog established a Ponzi-forum tie between Zeek and Ultimate Power Profits.)
On Aug. 20, the office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — which also had been investigating Zeek — issued a warning on “reload scams” in the wake of the SEC’s Zeek action.
Ultimate Power Profits is not the first “program” to make a claim about a “U.S. patent.” The JSS/JBP scam, which purported to pay an annualized return of 730 percent and purportedly was operated by former AdSurfDaily Ponzi-scheme pitchman Frederick Mann, also made a claim about a U.S. patent.
It is not uncommon for HYIP scams and MLM frauds to plant the seed that a “program” is endorsed by an agency of the U.S. government or a U.S. politician. ASD’s Andy Bowdoin was accused in 2008 of trading on the name of George W. Bush, then the President of the United States and Obama’s predecessor.
Images of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were used in the massive Mantria “green” Ponzi scheme in 2009.
In 2012, JSS/JBP came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. Some promoters, however, didn’t miss a beat. (Compare the images in the screen shots below. The first is from a promo for an emerging “program” known as RicanAdFunds; the second is from a promo for Zeek; the third is from a promo for JSS/JBP.)
The religious facility that ultimately became St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church has seen a lot of history in its 160 years on Anson Street in Charleston, S.C. Construction predated the Civil War by 11 years. The facility opened in 1850 as the Anson Street Chapel for black Presbyterians, according to records maintained by the Charleston County Public Library.
During this time, the United States was transitioning after the sudden death in office of President Zachary Taylor in 1850. Taylor was the 12th President of the United States. He was succeeded in office by Vice President Millard Fillmore, who never gained election in his own right after filling out Taylor’s term because voters in the North viewed him as willing to appease the South on the issue of slavery.
When the Anson Street Chapel opened in 1850, Abraham Lincoln was a prairie lawyer in Illinois, his ascension to the Presidency still four administrations away and the Great Civil War still more than decade away. The church, renamed St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in 1861, was hit by shells during the Civil War and “badly damaged,” but was rebuilt, according to library records. The facility survived to serve congregants for more than 100 years, before closing in 1965 — two years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and 20 years after the end of World War II.
St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church bought the property and restored it in 1971, during the Vietnam War-era administration of President Richard M. Nixon and about a year before the word “Watergate” became part of the national consciousness. Barack Obama was 10 years old in 1971, 37 years away from his election as the 44th President and 28 administrations removed from Lincoln’s Civil War-era Presidency.
Now the church has seen another sort of history: Its pastor, the Rev. Ronald Satterfield, has been accused by the CFTC of operating a Forex Ponzi scheme from inside the facility. One of the company’s he allegedly formed — Graham Street Forex Group LLC — used the church’s address of 91 Anson Street, according to documents.
Co-defendant Nicholas Bos of Ludington, Mich., used a business card that depicted a “one million dollar bill” and described the scam as an opportunity to earn “24% a year” as a participant in “Special programs,” CFTC alleged.
Also named a defendant was an entity known as Shore-2-Summit Financial LLC.
Satterfield “independently solicited acquaintances, members of his church congregation and their friends and family, and others in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland, for funds to trade forex,” CFTC alleged.
The scam operated “at least” between March 2006 and March 2009, CFTC alleged.
To conceal the fraud, “Satterfield and Bos issued false customer account statements reflecting the promised returns and forex trading profits, when in fact Satterfield’s forex trading resulted in losses almost every month,” CFTC said.
“The false statements also allegedly concealed their misappropriation of customer funds. In total, the complaint charges Satterfield and Bos with misappropriating more than $850,000 of customer funds for personal use,” CFTC said.
More than 70 customers were fleeced in a scheme that gathered about $3.3 million, CFTC said.
This promo for MPB Today claims affiliates become "partners" with Walmart and that business owners are "Granted FREE Groceries" for referring business to the MLM program. The promo appeared last night on a site that is heavily advertising the program — even after Walmart's name had gone missing from the landing page on MPB Today's website.
UPDATED 10:42 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Using the soundtrack from the legendary rock band Heart’s 1985 hit single “What about love,” an affiliate of MPB Today is claiming on YouTube that the company’s members become “partners” with Walmart and that MPB’s multilevel-marketing (MLM) program is “Guaranteed” not to be a scam.
Heart could not be contacted immediately to determine if the MPB affiliate was authorized to use the song, which features the voice of Ann Wilson, in a sales promotion for an MLM program tied to a Florida-based grocery company known as Southeastern Delivery.
Walmart has not responded to a request last week from the PP Blog that asked the company to comment on legal and regulatory issues surrounding the use of its name in promotions for MPB Today. The Blog specifically asked Walmart if it knew that MPB Today was using the company name in sales pitches and that at least one affiliate had claimed that Walmart gift cards distributed by MPB to its purported customers could be converted to Walmart prepaid Visa cards, which can be used the same as cash.
The Blog also asked Walmart if it was affiliated with MPB Today and whether it approved of the use of its brand in the MPB Today MLM program.
On Tuesday, the MPB Today website removed images of a Walmart store and business titans Donald Trump and Warren Buffet. It was unclear if Walmart, Trump and Buffet had forced the removal.
Even after MPB Today removed the images, an affiliate promo appeared online last night that claimed MPB Today members were “partners” with Walmart. Ads for MPB Today have targeted Food Stamp recipients, senior citizens, Ponzi scheme victims, foreclosure subjects, people of faith and members of the public who are unhappy with the administration of President Barack Obama.
One animated ad for MPB Today depicted First Lady Michelle Obama as having experienced a gas attack after sampling “beans” at Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club operates under the Walmart flag.
This animated pitch for MPB Today depicts First Lady Michelle Obama as having an embarrassing gas attack in the Oval Office after sampling "beans" at a Sam's Club. In the promo, Michelle Obama later gets knocked out by a drunken Hillary Clinton, who is portrayed as a Nazi. President Obama gives Clinton a left-handed Nazi salute in the promo.
The ad, which portrayed President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Nazis, potentially could alienate customers regardless of their political views. Why an affiliate would imply in an ad that MPB Today prefers Obama opponents as customers is unclear. Such a caustic ad potentially could injure multiple brands because MPB affiliates have claimed Walmart is affiliated with the firm and the name of Sam’s Club appears in the anti-Obama promo.
MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun has a poor record with the Better Business Bureau for his operation of a previous company, United Pro Media. The company’s predecessor firm, Trim International, was ordered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stop violating federal law in its marketing of a product positioned as a treatment for Lou Gehrig’s Disease, cancer and other severe medical conditions.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said last week that it was conducting a review into claims made about MPB Today. The agency said yesterday that its review was ongoing.
MPB Today is being marketed on social-media sites. It also is being marketed on at least three forums that are infamous for promoting Ponzi schemes.
Last week was an odd one for millions of Americans. President Obama was announced the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and no one really knew what to do.
The Peace Prize is the big one, the Nobel people remember for generations. But Obama has been in office only months, and the Nobel committee more than hinted he’d been named the Peace Prize recipient because of idealistic speeches, not because he’d been able to implement his ideas.
Obama seemed almost embarrassed by the prized accolade. It instantly created a political problem for him. Opponents were quick to seize on the point he had been in office only nine months and has had trouble implementing his domestic plans, let alone his grander vision for the world.
It was easy — and arguably even justified, given the names of recent Peace Prize recipients and the committee’s inclination to politicize the award — to view any world figure who opposed the policies of former President George W. Bush as worthy of the Prize.
Bash Bush. Get a Nobel.
Even people who support Obama were baffled by the selection. The award is too serious, of course, to spark a ticker-tape parade to honor the recipient. But Obama’s allies in the Congress and in the voting pool were not able even to puff out their chests in a convincing way. It was hard to call the award a win for America, no matter how one views the President.
And this brings us to this week’s issue of Time magazine, which features one of the most thought-provoking columns we have ever read. Before we describe what the column is about, perhaps we should take a moment to explain why we’ve spent some time today to write about politics when this Blog normally writes about crime.
It’s because the Time magazine column challenges people to think and to question their views — something we try to do around here. No, we’re not Time. We’re a small Blog in an ocean of Blogs. Even so, we try to provide readers with some brain fodder and always are pleased when they respond with posts that help us shape our thinking, even if their posts don’t help us change our mind about the issues we write about.
The Time column by David Von Drehle poses a question we never before had contemplated:
Should the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded to nuclear weapons?
Von Drehle says yes — and he makes a thought-provoking argument. Noodle it if you have the chance.
The Obama administration said today that it will crack down on international tax cheats and people using tax havens to evade U.S. regulators.
In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Obama will propose new rules to curtail international scheming.
“The budget also seeks to close the ‘tax gap’ by tackling tax shelters and other efforts to abuse our tax laws, including international tax-evasion efforts,” Geithner said. “The budget addresses the use of offshore structures and accounts by U.S. corporations and individuals to avoid and evade U.S. taxes. Over the next several months, the President will propose a series of legislative and enforcement measures to reduce such U.S. tax evasion and avoidance.”
Geithner’s remarks couldn’t have come at a worse time for some AdSurfDaily members. Some members Surf’s Up, a Pro-ASD forum, are engaging in a letter-writing campaign to have the government investigate the prosecutors and federal judge involved in the case.
Members have sent letters to Obama, Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other politicians.
In August, prosecutors alleged that ASD was a wire-fraud and money-laundering operation whose central component was an international, $100 million Ponzi scheme. ASD had more than $1 million on deposit in Antigua, which later became ground zero in the alleged multibillion-dollar Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme.
Robert Garner, an ASD attorney who advertised his international financial services in a magazine in 2003, was named a defendant in a RICO lawsuit in January. His co-defendants include ASD President Andy Bowdoin and Golden Panda Ad Builder President Clarence Busby. Assets tied to Golden Panda were seized in the ASD case.
Promoter say Busby now is involved with another surf — BizAdSplash — which promotes itself as an offshore business.
Bowdoin’s stepson, George Harris, and two former ASD employees, Gary Talbert and Chuck Osmin, are associated with yet another offshore surf — AdViewGlobal.
Three autosurfs with ties to ASD sprouted up in the aftermath of the government’s seizure of ASD funds, all touting the benefits of their “offshore” locations in countries such as Panama and Uruguay. One of the surfs, BizAdSplash, is having trouble with a bank in Panama and a payment processor in Panama. The surf announced the trouble after the SEC charged Stanford with fraud.
Meanwhile, AdGateWorld positioned itself as an attractive option after what happened to ASD. Promoters said AdGateWorld provided protection from the SEC, the IRS and state attorneys general.
For its part, AdViewGlobal now says it is forming a private association.
