ClubAsteria

Felmina Alliance, another in a long line of HYIP “programs” pushed on the Ponzi boards by serial huckster “Ken Russo,” appears to be DOA. “Ken Russo” also is known as “DRdave.” His record in promoting scams, pooh-poohing or ignoring regulatory actions and engaging in willful blindness may be unparalleled. Regulators in the United States and […]

The website of “NewGNI” has not resolved to a server for days. The “program” is believed to have been a knockoff of a predecessor scam known as “GNI” or GoldNuggetInvest, which collapsed in early 2010 after being promoted by members of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme. The collapse of the original GNI was about as bizarre […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: It is true that far too many of the world’s children live in poverty. It also is true that children may become the objects of criminals who engage in human trafficking and that children are exploited in the sex trades. It is equally true that legitimate charities exist to combat these horrific situations […]

UPDATE: The website of TheBizVideos.com has gone missing, taking with it sales promos for JSS Tripler and other purported “opportunities” in the wake of an action by the Italian securities regulator CONSOB. The site, which appears to use nameservers in New York, is returning a “Server not found” error in Firefox. When pinged, it returns […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIP critics long have pointed out that many Internet-based schemes have members in common and that the interconnectivity of certain schemes creates a condition in which fraud proceeds circulate from scheme to scheme to scheme. Such fraud schemes can mushroom to involve tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of […]

“strosdegoz,” the serial Ponzi-board pitchman who claims to have a presence on at least 35 forums or websites that promote “programs” that advertise preposterous returns, has killed a MoneyMakerGroup post he created that showed JSS Tripler 2 (T2) is accessible via wire in the United States. The original post, which appears to have been created […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Your time soon may be up if you’re flogging the absurd HYIP known as JSS Tripler. CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the activities of multiple promoters amid concerns the purported “program” is being offered to Italian citizens unlawfully as a security. JSS Tripler is an […]

Veteran Ponzi-board huckster “strosdegoz,” also known as “manolo,” now is flogging a new “program” known as “Huge Yield.” There already is an unconfirmed report that HugeYield has suffered a DDoS attack. “strosdegoz” emerged last year as a regular shill for Club Asteria, the purported Virginia-based program that became a Ponzi-forum darling and later announced its […]

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

We’ve mentioned it before — and we’ll mention it again. In July 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) described the HYIP sphere as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.” It was as good a description as any, and here is yet another case in point: The MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum said today that it “temporarily” […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The American Red Cross, which opened a probe last week into the potential misuse of its name and logo by the Asteria Philanthropic Foundation, has sent the foundation a letter to cease and desist. Anne Marie Borrego, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Washington, D.C., said this morning that […]