Tag: Fred Joseph

  • RODNEY’S FOLLY: ‘We Want Achieve To Work So Badly,’ But Sign Up For ‘Trinity Lines’ While You’re Waiting

    “They want so badly to believe in the tooth fairy.”Fred Joseph, then-Colorado Securities Commissioner, February 2013. (As told to the Durango Herald in “For a Ponzi payout, call the tooth fairy.”)

    Achieve Community promoter Rodney Blackburn laments developments with that "program," and now is encouraging prospectss to sifn up for "Trinity Lines," another Ponzi-boad "opportunity." Like other Achievers, Rodney also is promoting "Unison Wealth" yet another Ponzi-board "program.
    Achieve Community promoter Rodney Blackburn laments developments with that “program,” and now is encouraging prospects to sign up for “Trinity Lines,” another Ponzi-board “opportunity.” Like other Achievers, Rodney also is promoting “Unison Wealth,” yet another Ponzi-board “program.”

    UPDATED 1:27 P.M. ET U.S.A. Fred Joseph announced his retirement in December 2013, after 30 years in public service. He’d seen it all during the course of his career, including the case of Frederick H.K. Baker, infamous as an instance in which an HYIP scammer tried to “scam the scammers.”

    Now comes word that “Achieve Community,” a Ponzi-board “program” that appears to be operating out of Colorado and Michigan, is in an even deeper crisis than the one it confronted after reportedly losing its ability to do business with Payoneer in late October or early November.

    This is because Global Cash Card, which Achieve apparently envisioned as a substitute “payout” processor after the Payoneer debacle, reportedly is unwilling to work with Achieve — this after Achieve sold the asserted GCC arrangement as a done deal on Dec. 18.

    Achieve promoter Rodney Blackburn, in our view, is a classic example of a person who wants badly to believe in the tooth fairy.

    “Quite honestly, there’s a lot of upset people out there, and rightfully so,” Rodney says of the GCC development, attributing the news to Colorado-based Achieve co-founder Kristi Johnson. “I can understand where everybody is upset. There was a lot of rumors going on out there. There has not been a lot of transparency, as far as the details . . .”

    “Kristi has brought out information that’s in the forum [pertaining to the GCC development]; I can’t dispute that.  But as far as what’s been going on with Global Cash Card — that has been declined, for whatever reason we don’t know.”

    Rodney says Achieve owes him $90,000.

    “We all just have to wait it out,” he says, adding that he “trust[s] Kristi enough to where she is going to make this wrong right, that she is going to give everything that she’s got to get Achieve up and running. She had a vision from the beginning. The vision has never, you know, swayed. But definitely something going on in the background, and it would be nice if she was a little bit more open about what’s going on. I know she likes to kinda hold everything to the vest close to her. But . . . it’s tough because there are so many of us out there that are really needing the money. That’s why we get into this industry. We want Achieve to work so badly . . .

    “The best thing I can tell everybody as of right now is to look into other options.”

    Rodney’s remarks are contained within a 11:59 YouTube video published Jan. 4 and titled “LIST – Achieve Community Update 1/ 4 /2015.” LIST stands for Legendary Income Solutions Team, a group that pushes “programs.” Just seconds after Rodney laments the situation at Achieve, it becomes clear that he won’t be just sitting around. No, Rodney is now pushing “Trinity Lines,” another Ponzi-board “program.”

    As noted earlier, Rodney also is pushing Unison Wealth. It, too, is a Ponzi-board “program.”

    Because Ponzi-board “programs” often have promoters in common, this sets the stage for fraudulent proceeds to circulate between and among scams.

    Little wonder GCC appears not to be keen on Achieve. Its promoters may be polluting the money stream at multiple points of contact by pushing other scams, even as Achieve appears to be boxed in.

  • Colorado Securities Commissioner Tells Durango Herald: ‘They Want So Badly To Believe In The Tooth Fairy’

    recommendedreading1Joe Hanel, the Denver correspondent for the Durango Herald, has written a series of reports that delves into the symphony of the bizarre surrounding Ponzi schemer Frederick H.K. Baker, who once was immersed in the HYIP world but now is in prison.

    If you’ve been wondering about the psychology of Ponzi schemes — perhaps particularly in the HYIP sphere, where victims may condemn the government for moving against obvious frauds — you’ll find value in the Herald series.

    The first installment is titled, “A man, a plan, a scam.” Part II is titled, “Scammers often earn victims’ trust through shared hopes, dreams, beliefs.” Hanel then delivers Part III, “After the scheme collapses, scammers recede into shadows.” Part IV perhaps has the most memorable title of all, “For a Ponzi payout, call the tooth fairy.”

    Part IV gets its title from a comment by Fred Joseph, Colorado’s securities commissioner. “They want so badly to believe in the tooth fairy,” Joseph told the paper.

    What sparked the comment was a recollection by Joseph that he once had to work hard to convince a resident of the state “not to send $50,000 to Belgium for the promise of getting millions in return,” according to the Herald.

    Here’s hoping the Herald series gets high readership.

    A snippet from Part I of the series (italics added):

    A few million dollars spent the winter in sunny Los Angeles with a company whose president now is on death row. When the law closed in, Baker moved the money to Portugal, placing it in the trust of a company registered in New Zealand, with an address in Panama and directors in the United Kingdom.

    That’s when it disappeared.

     

  • UNBELIEVABLE: Now, A Scam Known As ‘Her Majesty’s Credit Union’ That Duped Investors By Falsely Claiming To Be Insured By Lloyd’s Of London And Backed By The Government, SEC Says

    The SEC’s complaint against “Her Majesty’s Credit Union” lists the URL for the purported CD business. This screen shot by the PP Blog was taken at the URL.

    A scammer known by three names who’d earlier presided over an “insolvent” credit union in Georgia before being forced out of business in eight months went on to start a bogus credit union in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the SEC said.

    The Virgins Islands enterprise was known as “Her Majesty’s Credit Union” (HMCU) and sold bogus CDs, duping investors by trading on the names of Lloyd’s of London and government entities to sanitize the fraud, the SEC said.

    Charged in the alleged $532,000 caper was Stanley B. McDuffie of Denver. McDuffie formerly was known as Stanley Roberson and Stanley Battle, the SEC said.

    “McDuffie and HMCU held out HMCU as a secure, legitimate, regulated credit union, promised to pay above-market interest rates, and assured investors that their deposits were insured by Lloyd’s of London or the U.S. Virgin Islands’ government,” the SEC said. “In reality, HMCU was an unregulated, illegitimate credit union that never held share insurance covering investor deposits, and McDuffie and HMCU misappropriated investors’ funds.”

    The Better Business Bureau record for HMCU notes a 2010 action by the Colorado Division of Securities against “Stanley B. Roberson.”

    Roberson “was sentenced to one year in jail after being found in contempt of a court order,” the BBB reported, citing Colorado authorities. “Mr. Roberson is the chief executive officer of Her Majesty’s Credit Union, a U.S. Virgin Island company with a servicing office in Denver.”

    In 2010, Fred Joseph, the commissioner of Colorado’s Division of Securities, put it this way (italics added):

    Mr. Roberson failed to produce documents pursuant to a lawful subpoena issued to him as part of our investigation of Her Majesty’s Credit Union. The Division of Securities then filed contempt proceedings in Denver District Court to compel production. Since its accounts are not federally insured, we are attempting to determine if Her Majesty’s Credit Union is offering only uninsured deposits or is engaging in the offer and sale of unregistered securities.

    The SEC today charged McDuffie with selling unregistered securities, saying in its complaint that McDuffie “misappropriated the funds for personal and business expenses, causing investors to lose most of their principal, and rendering it impossible for HMCU to make required interest payments.”

    McDuffie also allegedly clammed up to the SEC, the agency said. From the SEC complaint (italics added):

    After a subpoena enforcement action resulted in McDuffie being ordered by the Court to comply with the SEC’s subpoenas, McDuffie refused to testify in the SEC’s investigation, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to all substantive questions.

    Named a defendant in the SEC’s action against McDuffie was Jilapuhn Inc., the apparent operator through McDuffie of “Her Majesty’s Credit Union.”

    The defunct Georgia credit union was known as the “Jilapuhn Employees Federal Credit Union,” the SEC said.

    “In August 2005, after JEFCU had operated for only eight months, the [National Credit Union Administration] determined that JEFCU was insolvent, and therefore it issued a Notice of Involuntary Liquidation and Revocation of Charter,” the SEC said.

  • BULLETIN: Sean Mueller Charged With Racketeering In Colorado Ponzi Probe; Secret Service, State Securities Division Assisted Denver DA In Unraveling Alleged $71 Million Scheme

    BULLETIN: In yet-another alleged case of massive Ponzi fraud, Sean Mueller has been charged with violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (racketeering).

    Mueller, 42, also has been charged with securities fraud and theft. The prosecution was brought by the office of Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, who credited the U.S. Secret Service and the Colorado Division of Securities for assisting in the Ponzi probe.

    “This is an important example of how agencies can work together to protect investors in Colorado,” said Fred Joseph, commissioner of the Colorado Division of Securities.

    Mueller, who is believed to be cooperating with authorities, is expected to surrender by Friday. Bond has been set at $2 million cash.

    Among the victims of the $71 million Ponzi scheme was John Elway, the former quarterback of the Denver Broncos and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors at both the state and federal levels have used racketeering statutes to bring down Ponzi schemers in recent months, according to court filings.

    Mueller was operating a bogus hedge fund, prosecutors said. At least 65 victims entrusted Mueller with their money, which he spent to live a luxurious lifestyle and to buy tony homes, expensive cars and country-club memberships.

    It was a “classic” Ponzi scheme in which Mueller was upside down on his obligations to investors by a factor of nearly five-to-one, owing about $45 million but having less than $9.5 million to cover redemption requests, prosecutors said.

    The scheme was exposed in April, when Mueller threatened to jump off a parking garage in Greenwood Village, Colo., according to court filings.