HYIP schemes

EDITOR’S NOTE: See related story yesterday. Pitching your HYIP fraud scheme on YouTube and deceiving your audience en masse? You might need a good attorney: Two of the three wire-fraud counts against alleged DFRF Enterprises operator Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho pertain to YouTube pitches. One, allegedly uploaded on Oct. 20, 2014, is titled “Primeiro Evento […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (Updated 9:33 p.m. ET U.S.A.) The SEC has charged two Indian nationals with running an HYIP scheme known as “Profits Paradise” that reached into the United States and offered “extraordinary” returns of up to 480 percent in 240 days, plus “compounding.” As is typical in HYIP schemes, the “program” gained […]

A man asserted to be a promoter of at least three fraud schemes, including TelexFree, has been hauled in front of TV cameras in Uganda. The report below is from NTV Uganda. The embarrassing appearance of the suspect may raise the stakes for promoters of online fraud schemes and create even more disastrous PR for […]

Will it be the shot heard ’round the HYIP world — or will serial Ponzi-board and social-media fraudsters continue to pretend it is meaningless? Matthew John Gagnon, a 45-year-old pitchmen for the $72 million Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme and other online fraud schemes, is listed as an inmate at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Sheridan, […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the PP Blog reported on Aug. 6, Legisi HYIP Ponzi-scheme operator Gregory N. McKnight was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison. McKnight is 53. He was ordered taken into custody immediately after sentencing last week and is listed as “in transit” to an unspecified detention facility. Legisi was promoted in part […]

Depictions of Jesus Christ were used in the Profitable Sunrise and the equally bizarre “Cash Tanker” HYIP schemes — and now are being used in promos for TelexFree, an MLM “opportunity” under investigation in Brazil amid pyramid-scheme and securities concerns. It looks as though the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro has […]

UPDATED 10:22 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The purported TelexFree “opportunity” is under investigation by multiple agencies in Brazil, its purported base of operations despite competing claims the company is headquartered in the United States.  The notes below concern TelexFree’s U.S. presence and positioning. They are presented in no particular order of importance. TelexFree says it is […]

UPDATED 11:28 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Scammers have used the names of government agencies and famous businesses in bids to dupe the public. Now, the name of a well-known MLM law firm appears to have been used for the same purpose. Attorney Kevin Thompson published a Blog post today that warns of a bogus Banners Broker/Profit […]

UPDATED 5:08 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) How dangerous and bereft is HYIP Ponzi Land? More than 85 percent of the $72.6 million directed at the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme before its May 2008 collapse flowed through the now-shuttered e-Bullion payment processor operated by convicted murderer James Michael Fayed, according to the court-appointed receiver in the Legisi […]

HYIP apologists dating back (at least) to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008 ($119 million) have bizarrely sought to defend their favorite scams by steering discussions off the track. Why talk about the recidivist securities felon who presided over ASD (Andy Bowdoin), for instance, when the “real menace” is the Bilderberg Group? And, hey, since […]

BULLETIN: On the heels of the apparent shutdown of Costa Rica-based Liberty Reserve as part of an international money-laundering investigation, “PerfectMoney” says it is banning users from the United States. Perfect Money purportedly operates from Panama. (More below.) In an announcement dated today on its website, Perfect Money says that “due to changes in our […]