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Tag: Eric I. Bustillo

  • BULLETIN: Now, A Multimillion-Dollar ‘Penny-Stock’ Scheme Operating On Facebook, Twitter; SEC Charges Two Canadians In ‘Scalping Scam’

    UPDATED 1:58 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The SEC has obtained an emergency order to freeze the assets of two Montreal residents, alleging they were pushing a penny-stock scheme through their website and on Facebook and Twitter.

    Named defendants in the alleged scheme were Carol McKeown and Daniel F. Ryan, whom the SEC described as a Canadian “couple.” The agency said it worked with the Quebec Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), which also has obtained an emergency freeze, along with a “cease trade order.”

    The stocks were touted through a website known as PennyStockChaser.com, the SEC said. McKeown is 44; Ryan’s age was not immediately known.

    “As alleged in our complaint, McKeown and Ryan used all the modern methods to communicate with investors including the PennyStockChaser website, e-mail, text messages, Facebook, and Twitter yet failed to adequately communicate that their rosy predictions for touted stocks were accompanied by their sales of those very same stocks,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.

    The U.S. complaint is filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

    McKeown and Ryan received millions of shares of touted companies through two corporations — Downshire Capital Inc. and Meadow Vista Financial Corp. — which also were named defendants, the SEC said.

    Both McKeown and Ryan were compensated for pumping the stock, while “PennyStockChaser simultaneously predicted massive price increases for the issuers, a practice known as ‘scalping,’” the SEC charged.

    “McKeown, Ryan and one of their corporations failed to disclose the full amount of the compensation they received for touting stocks on PennyStockChaser,” the SEC charged, saying that the couple and their corporations “have realized at least $2.4 million in sales proceeds from their scalping scheme.”

    The PennyStockChaser website was throwing a server error at the time of this post. Meanwhile, the Twitter site appeared to be locked. The Facebook site appeared to be operational, with a posted dated Sunday that blared, “How many newsletters put their money where their mouth is? PSC will be buying another 500,000 shares on Monday.”

    It was not immediately clear what stock the Facebook site was pumping Sunday because the link led to a page on the PennyStockChaser site that generated a server error.

    It has become somewhat common for scammers to use social-networking sites to hawk investment-fraud schemes and murky businesses. Some fraudsters even have claimed that the so-called autosurf “industry” in which purported “advertisers” get paid for viewing websites is a new form of social networking and that the autosurf sites are building on the success of brands such as Twitter, Facebook and others.

    Read the SEC complaint to see the names of some of the other stocks the agency says the defendants recently have pumped.

  • BULLETIN: Another Florida Ponzi Scheme: SEC Sues Estate Of Dead Man, Saying Kenneth Wayne McLeod And His Companies Ripped Off Members Of ‘Law Enforcement’ And Operated Ponzi Scheme For Decades

    BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to court in Florida to obtain emergency relief against two companies and their late owner, alleging that Kenneth Wayne McLeod targeted government employees and members of law enforcement to invest in a government bond fund that did not exist.

    McLeod, 48, was found dead Tuesday in Jacksonville’s Mandarin Park. Local media outlets are reporting that the death is believed to be a suicide, but the SEC described the death only as “sudden.”

    In a dramatic emergency action, the SEC has sued McLeod’s estate and both of his businesses: Federal Employee Benefits Group Inc. (FEBG), a consulting firm, and F&S Asset Management Group Inc., a registered investment-advisory firm.

    U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno has frozen the assets of McLeod and the companies. The SEC said it was unclear who even was running the firms in the wake of McLeod’s death.

    Among the astonishing allegations was that McLeod had been operating a Ponzi scheme since at least 1988 and that the colossal fraud gathered “at least” $34 million from 260 investors across the country.

    “McLeod victimized law enforcement agents and other government employees who dedicated their lives to the service of this country,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office. “The victims gave years of public service and McLeod stole their futures.”

    McLeod conducted investment seminars “at government agencies nationwide” to lure clients, the SEC said. The agencies paid “up to” $15,000 each for these seminars,” and FEBG held itself out as “dedicated to the complex issues surrounding special group employees, including Law Enforcement Officers, Firefighters and Air Traffic Controllers,”the SEC charged in the complaint.

    At least one investor was told the purported bond program was a special fund for family and friends, and families of “fallen agents,” the SEC charged.

    If the allegations are true, it means that McLeod was selling a Ponzi scheme dressed up as a secure retirement plan backed by government bonds right inside government offices — while earning a fee to make the pitch and plucking heartstrings by referring to people who had lost their lives in the line of duty.

  • BULLETIN: Another Ponzi Scheme In South Florida; SEC Alleges $28 Million Fraud Against Trade-LLC

    A Florida company — Trade-LLC — and its operators have been accused of running a $28 million Ponzi scheme that fleeced members of three investment clubs.

    Named defendants by the SEC were Trade-LLC and its managing members, Philip W. Milton and William Center. The scam operated in the Palm Beach Gardens area, and affected more than 800 members of the investment clubs, the SEC said.

    Investors were persuaded to “entrust Trade-LLC with money so that it could trade securities on the clubs’ behalf using its purported proprietary software trading program,” the SEC said.

    “With claims of a sophisticated trading program and extraordinary returns, Milton and Center persuaded the clubs and their members to increasingly invest millions with Trade-LLC,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office. “They then blatantly lied to the clubs about the returns that were being achieved and hid the clubs’ losses by running a Ponzi scheme.”

    U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech in the Palm Beach area in January, warning fraudsters that they were writing their own tickets to jail. Florida has been pounded by both Ponzi schemes and cases of real-estate and mortgage fraud.

    Milton already has agreed to settle the SEC charges against him, the SEC said.

    Trade-LLC will be placed in receivership and also “has also consented to pay a civil money penalty to be determined by the court,” the SEC said. Milton has been ordered to return $2.3 million and pay a civil penalty of $130,000.

    “Milton and Center used the clubs’ funds to pay themselves salaries of more than $2 million and $1 million, respectively, and to cover more than $1.3 million in business and other unrelated expenses,” the SEC said. “Milton and Center also transferred, without any legitimate basis, over $4.8 million of the clubs’ funds to three Florida companies they controlled.”

    The case against Center remains unresolved.

    Named relief defendants in the case were the three companies controlled by Milton and Center. They were identified by the agency as BD LLC, TWTT-LLC and CMJ Capital LLC. All of the companies have been placed in receivership and have agreed to a settlement and to disgorge ill-gotten gains, according to the SEC.

    Assisting in the probe were the CFTC and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.

  • BULLETIN: Another Spectacular Florida Ponzi Case Emerging; Nevin K. Shapiro Charged Criminally, Civilly In Alleged $900 Million Fraud

    BULLETIN: Nevin K. Shapiro, the founder and president of Capitol Investments USA Inc., surrendered to authorities this morning after being charged both criminally and civilly in an alleged $900 million Ponzi and fraud scheme in south Florida and elsewhere, the SEC said.

    Shapiro, 41, is a prominent Miami Beach businessman and philanthropist in the wholesale grocery business. He is expected to make a court appearance in New Jersey today.

    Most of Shapiro’s investors live in Florida or Indiana, according to the SEC complaint. Some diverted funds from their IRA’s to earn profits by investing with the grocery company, but Shapiro conducted virtually no meaningful business after 2004 and simply propped up his grocery business with a shell game that raised $880 million from investors between 2005 and 2009 before the scheme collapsed, the SEC charged.

    “Capitol’s sales were less than $300,000 in 2005 and 2006, and it had no sales from 2007 through 2009,” the SEC charged.

    “Shapiro lured investors by falsely touting Capitol’s securities as a risk-free investment with extraordinarily high returns,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office. “He used his prominence and prestige to gain investors’ trust in funding Capitol’s grocery diverting business, but behind their backs he diverted their money to enrich himself.”

    Grocery-diverters buy merchandise in one market and sell it in another at a higher price. Shapiro’s company, however, began operating a Ponzi scheme in 2005 after operating at a loss in 2004, the SEC charged.

    The SEC said Shapiro diverted $38 million “to enrich himself and finance outside business activities unrelated to the grocery business, including a sport representation business and real estate ventures.

    “His lavish lifestyle includes a $5 million home in Miami Beach, a $1 million boat, luxury cars, expensive clothes, high-stakes gambling, and season tickets to premium sporting events,” the SEC said. “Shapiro additionally tapped approximately $13 million of investor funds to pay large undisclosed commissions to individuals who attracted other investors.”

    A girlfriend received goods totaling $116,000 that were charged to Capitol’s American Express Black Card, and Shapiro himself made personal purchases of about $524,000 on the card, the SEC charged.

    All in all, the SEC said, the scheme was “a $900 million offering fraud and Ponzi scheme.” Investors were offered returns of 26 percent annually, backed by bogus claims that “Capitol’s purchase contracts and accounts receivable secured their investments.”

    Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said south Florida was “ground zero” for Ponzi schemes, noting that many of Bernard Madoff’s victims lived in the region. The government still is in the process of unwinding Madoff’s $65 billion fraud and Scott Rothstein’s $1.2 billion fraud.

    Smaller — though still massive Ponzi frauds — recently have occurred in the state, and Shapiro’s alleged $900 million fraud now is included among them.

    “To those who see the victimization of others as an avenue to wealth, take notice,” Holder warned in a January speech in Florida. “If you fabricate a financial statement, if you propagate an investment scheme, if you are complicit in an act of financial fraud, you are writing your ticket to jail.”

    The FBI and IRS also are involved in the Shapiro probe, the SEC said.

    “By late 2004, Capitol was operating at a loss,” the SEC charged. “From 2005 though late 2009, Capitol had almost no business operations. To hide this from investors, Shapiro merely repaid earlier investors with approximately $769 million collected from new investors in typical Ponzi scheme fashion.”

    The agency said “Capitol has never registered an offering or class of securities under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act,” and Shapiro was charged with securities fraud.

    In the past 48 hours, law enforcement and regulators have filed complaints in cases in Florida and New York that allege frauds totaling about $1 billion.