Carlos Wanzeler

It’s easy enough to forget that TelexFree and its principals have epic legal problems outside the United States, where the company has been found a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme and alleged operators James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler are under criminal indictment. History shows, however, that the problems began in the Brazilian state of Acre in […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a follow-up to our Feb. 4 article that reported TelexFree figure James Merrill potentially could be forced to take the Fifth Amendment in front of a large audience at a music hall in Worcester, Mass., on Feb. 10. **____________________________** Forcing him to take the Fifth Amendment tomorrow at Mechanics Hall in […]

BULLETIN: TelexFree Trustee Stephen B. Darr today asked Judge Melvin S. Hoffman for an order that would compel TelexFree executive James Merrill to appear at a meeting of creditors at 11 a.m. on Feb. 10 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Mass. Darr also wants Hoffman to designate Merrill as TelexFree’s corporate representative, setting the stage for him […]

In October 2014, federal prosecutors alleged that the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” shut down by the SEC two years earlier was in part a scam that caused “victim-investors to file inaccurate tax returns for phantom income they never actually received.” Now, a year later, a member of the TelexFree MLM scheme shut down by the […]

UPDATED 12:55 P.M. EDT JUNE 24 U.S.A. Once alleged by a class-action plaintiff to be part of an international racketeering enterprise, TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues, on May 3, 2015, allegedly told U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Boston’s Logan International Airport that he was about to travel to Israel. Rodrigues, charged civilly by […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Certain reports by the PP Blog that are available to any person with an Internet connection are referenced in a consolidated, amended prospective class-action complaint that makes claims against various defendants with an alleged association with TelexFree. Information from other publicly available sites, including BehindMLM.com, RealScam.com and others, also is referenced. The purpose […]

The website of IFreeX.com is offline. The PP Blog could not immediately determine why. Visitors are seeing a GoDaddy.com page. A PP Blog reader reported the outage at 6:49 p.m. EDT today. The outage occurred one week to the day after TelexFree and IFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues was arrested at a New Jersey airport on […]

BULLETIN: (Updated 9:27 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) TelexFree and iFreeX figure Sann Rodrigues has been arrested in New Jersey, according to the Blog of Joaldro Dalla “Billy” Costa, citing a report on radio station WSRO 650 AM in Framingham, Mass. Billy’s story is in Portuguese. Here is the English translation by Google Translate. Rodrigues — listed […]

Billing records in the TelexFree bankruptcy case show that advisers to court-appointed Trustee Stephen B. Darr held an hour-long teleconference with McGuireWoods, counsel to Zeek Rewards’ receiver Kenneth D. Bell. This appears to mark the first time that Zeek’s name has surfaced in TelexFree-related court matters. The two cross-border MLM/network-marketing fraud schemes allegedly gathered a […]

UPDATED 7:10 A.M. EDT APRIL 18 U.S.A. A year has passed since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the prosecution of TelexFree. Here’s the lede from the PP Blog’s story on April 17, 2014: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against the alleged TelexFree pyramid scheme and a federal judge […]

“Because that’s where the money is.” — Classic rejoinder attributed to Brooklyn-born criminal Willie Sutton, reportedly after he was asked why he robbed banks. The often-quoted line may or may not be apocryphal. (Also see “Sutton’s Law” on the need to consider the obvious and “When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras.”) UPDATED […]