HSI

Federal prosecutors have Tweeted a photo of $20 million allegedly found stuffed in a box spring and linked to the massive TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid caper. The cash was found Jan. 4 by the Homeland Security Investigations branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Agents seized […]

3RD UPDATE 2:56 P.M. EDT OCT 25 U.S.A. James Merrill, the president of TelexFree, has pleaded guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy in Massachusetts federal court. Merrill, 55, of Ashland, Mass., is scheduled to be sentenced in February. “The significance of a guilty plea in a case of this magnitude cannot […]

UPDATED 11:53 A.M. EDT U.S.A. Sept. 23, 2016: The claims deadline has been extended until Dec. 31, 2016, at 4:30 p.m. Prevailing Eastern Time. Claims must be filed through TelexFreeClaims.com. Our earlier story is below . . . **____________** TelexFree participants and others who may have a claim against the estate should read this important notice […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >>MOVING: (Updated 3:03 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The United States has opened a criminal investigation involving Obopay and Payza, a Ponzi-forum darling. Details of the probe are unclear. But the office of U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia confirms on its website that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through Homeland […]

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 […]

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 […]

2ND UPDATE 9:18 A.M. ET FEB. 13 U.S.A. On Oct. 16, 2014, Google was served a search warrant in the TelexFree criminal case against accused operators James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, according to joint court filings by federal prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts and Robert […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (10th Update 8:53 p.m. ET U.S.A.) In his first formal report to the Massachusetts bankruptcy court, TelexFree Trustee Stephen B. Darr calls the company a “pyramid scheme” that may have involved 1 million or more participants globally and gathered as much as $1.8 billion through arms in the United States […]

If you’re a student or educator or employee or boss with a traditional M-F schedule, chances are you’ll be hearing about a new Ponzi scheme before the final bell rings or the final whistle blows on Friday. During the first six months of 2014, a Ponzi scheme was discovered every 4.9 days (or every 118 […]

The staff of the Missouri Public Service Commission raised “grave concerns” that permitting TelexFree’s telecom registration to remain intact in the state could “assist in the perpetuation of a fraud on investors,” records show. Missouri approved the registration in March 2014. TelexFree applied for it the previous month, according to records. Those records included a […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are referenced in the story about purported “sovereign citizen” James T. McBride below. ICE/HSI also are involved in the investigation of the alleged TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. Whether TelexFree had any “sovereign citizens” in its ranks is unclear. “Sovereign citizens,” however, […]