HSI

If you’ve been following TelexFree developments, you’ve probably heard about “Operation Orion,” the code name for the investigation that led to raids against TelexFree’s Ympactus arm last week by the Brazilian federal police. The Orion name was chosen, police said, because it fit splendidly within the context of a pyramid-scheme case. How so? The Pyramids […]

(UPDATED 9:24 am EDT MAY 14 U.S.A.) The PP Blog previously has reported on campaigns by members to petition judges to “bail out” TelexFree and consider the purported upside of the “program,” which may be the largest combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme in MLM HYIP history. (Campaigns referenced in this May 10, 2014, PP Blog […]

BULLETIN: (18th Update 8:15 a.m. EDT, May 10, U.S.A.) TelexFree figures James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler have been charged criminally with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Merrill, 53, was arrested in Worcester, Mass. Wanzeler, 45, of Northborough, Mass., has been labeled a “fugitive.” In similar prosecutions, U.S. authorities have notified INTERPOL about the subjects of […]

BULLETIN:  (11th Update 2:35 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The United States’ trustee who serves the region (Nevada) in which TelexFree’s bankruptcy case was filed on April 13 has alleged there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that “criminal conduct” occurred at TelexFree. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis, who works for a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: See story from earlier today on the SEC’s complaint and fraud allegations against the TelexFree “program,” executives and key promoters. ** ______________________________ ** A Bristol County Deputy Sheriff at the scene of a Tuesday raid by the Department of Homeland Security at TelexFree headquarters in Marlborough, Mass., stopped nearly $38 million in cashier’s […]

(UPDATED 9:58 A.M. EDT U.S.A.) Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) have raided the TelexFree office in Marlborough, Mass., the MetroWest Daily News is reporting. And the newspaper has published a photo showing federal agents and police officers inside the TelexFree office. The scene is similar to a scene at AdSurfDaily’s Florida headquarters in August […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The United States and 10 law-enforcement agencies in Europe and Hong Kong have seized 706 domain names in a Cyber Monday fraud crackdown, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said. The photo above is from one of the domains: nfl-go.com, which has been linked to counterfeiting, according to a seizure […]

BULLETIN: Songkram Roy Shachaisere, a sidebar figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme story, has been indicted with several others in what federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York are calling “one of the largest international penny stock frauds in history.” The probe “used wiretaps in the United States and undercover agents in foreign […]

“Investigators from [the Social Security Administration] discovered that hundreds of victims throughout the United States were losing their social security benefits and their life savings either because they believed that they had won ‘The Jamaican Lottery’ or because, as part of another telemarketing scheme, they revealed enough information about themselves that allowed the thieves to […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (15TH UPDATE 2:31 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) Liberty Reserve, its founder and several others have been indicted in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The charges, which include conspiracy to commit money-laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, were […]

Kaboom! In a move that may send shockwaves across the fraudulent HYIP, autosurf, sports-betting and “arbitrage” universes domestically and offshore, Maryland’s top federal prosecutor has released details of a two-year long undercover sting in which federal agents created a “payment processor” to infiltrate illegal gambling operations. Using methods straight out of the scammer’s playbook and […]