EDITOR’S NOTE: For the purposes of this column, the PP Blog is reporting on only a small number of references to JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid in the past 24 hours, as compiled by Google’s “Past 24 hours” feature. Google also has a “Past hour” feature. At the time of this post, Google is reporting “About 3,970” indexed “results” for jss tripler during the 24-hour time period, yesterday to today. A good number of the returns are in languages other than English. (Editor’s note continues below screen shot.)
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is an exceptionally murky “program” that purports to pay a return of 2 percent a day. That’s an absurd 60 percent a month — or, on an annualized basis, 730 percent, an ROI that would make Bernard Madoff gag. The “program,” which purports to be “indefinitely sustainable” and makes members affirm they are not government spies or media lackeys, has a strong presence on forums listed in U.S. federal court files as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a website linked to Frederick Mann, the purported operator of the “program,” is publishing two videos and links to nine more that highlight Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” implicated in an alleged murder plot against public officials in Alaska.
“Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. They have been implicated in numerous fraud schemes and may engage in what has become known as “paper terrorism” — i.e., the filing of false liens against members of law enforcement, false libel lawsuits against publishers and other bids to chill and nuisance the law-enforcement community or members of the media.
Mann declined to tell conference-call listeners on Feb. 23 even where the enterprise was operating from.
Despite these disturbing events, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has achieved Internet virality and may be recruiting thousands of new affiliates daily. The bullet-point brief below condenses some of the affiliate claims in just the past 24 hours.
Despite repeated promotional references to the sum of $10, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid members do not have to limit their “purchase” to only one $10 position. The scheme could be raking in tremendous sums during an era of securities hucksterism that sometimes involves massive — if not epic — sums of money. It is not unusual for large sums to go missing, leaving defrauded investors holding the bag for tremendous losses. At a minimum, those losses contribute to the undermining of economies on a local level, perhaps particularly if groups of individuals from the same area become investors.
Source: Blog titled “Easy Online Money” with a kicker of “Change a life today!” Among the claims: “You are guaranteed to earn a daily 2% on the positions you purchase, thereby making a decent amount of passive income online working from home.”
Source: Blog at URL that is a subdomain of blogspot.com, a free Blogger platform hosted by Google. Among the claims: “You can fund your account with as little as $10, and earn 2% per day with no work.”
Source: Blog at another blogspot subdomain. Among the claims: “JSS-Tripler now has 294,651 members — having grown by just over 6,000 new members during the past 24 hours. Thank you to our many promoters for doing such a great job!”
Source: Text accompanying video on Google-owned YouTube. Among the text claims: “Once you are in JSS tripler . . . Click on ‘Financial’ tab . . . Scroll down you will have $10 in your jss tripler account . . . Click on ‘Buy Jss Tripler Position’ . . . Purchase 1 free position with the $10 you receive in your account . . . You will be getting 2% earnings on $10 [sic] i.e. $0.20 every day without doing anything . . . After the 75 days you make $15 dollars [sic] without any more investments or referrals. Then you invest back in $10 or whatever you like and you make more and more each day. Simple system really [sic] More position [sic] you purchase or get from referrals the more you make. Very simple process.”
Source: Blog titled “Money Making Tips.” Among the claims: “The level of support is better than any other program i have seen, the Daily Web Conferences with Carl Pearson are terrific. You can usually get your questions acknowledged instantly, you are kept up to date with what’s going on with this company, they provide training including tutorials and videos. You can access the conference area 24/7 [sic] a moderator is there to answer all your questions. JBP had just hired a new marketing leader, Louis Paquette[,] to help educate members in any areas where they need help.” [Note by PP Blog: Louis Paquette is referenced in this Feb. 4 PP Blog story, which reported that a JSS Tripler-related domain hosted in Utah mysteriously began to redirect to the Netherlands after a JSS Tripler-related action by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.]
Source: Blog at empowernetwork.com URL. Among the claims: “JSS Tripler Gives You the first $10 for FREE: My Total ‘2%’ Earnings Thus Far $4757.00.”
Source: Blog with a kicker of “Social Media Marketing Consultant.” Blog has accompanying YouTube video: Among the Blog claims: “I would like to help JBP grow, in any way I can contribute . . . It is my goal to add 60 active referrals over the next 6 months or less.” Among the video claims: “Makes It So Easy to Make Money Online that a Baby can Almost do it!” The text accompanying the video engages in considerable keyword stuffing with the phrase of “Make Money At Home” and similar phrases.
Source: Entry on apsense.com. Among the claims: “I just want to pay it forward and help others . . . get ‘$10 free money’ in your accounts . . . Buy a JSS-Tripler position and start earning 2% per day! . . . Inbite [sic] new members. There is an endless supply of people online looking for money making opportunities.”
Source: Blog styled “Success Instantly.” Blog has accompanying YouTube video. Among the video claims: “Compound your Earnings To INCREASE Your Daily Payout.”
“The Government has provided over 2742 pages of discovery consisting of: liens, police reports, [Bureau of Prisons] records, pictures, surveillance photos, internet search records, audio subpoenas and over 1000 pages of documents seized.” — From March 5 court order in false-liens case involving accused AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming and former Leaming business associate David Carroll Stephenson
Kenneth Wayne Leaming
If the scheduling holds, accused AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming will go on trial in the Western District of Washington on Sept. 17 with his former business colleague David Carroll Stephenson, one week before ASD President Andy Bowdoin is set to go on trial in the District of Columbia in a Ponzi scheme case involving at least $110 million.
Leaming, 56, of Spanaway, Wash., is accused of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service. In addition, he is charged with being a participant with 56-year-old Stephenson, a federal inmate in a fraud case, in a scheme to file false liens against at least two federal prison officials.
At the same time, Leaming is charged with concealing two federal fugitives involved in an Arkansas-based, home-business fraud scheme involving millions of dollars, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a false “Bonded Promissory Note” with a purported face value of $1 million.
The docket of U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the Western District of Washington now shows a trial date of Sept. 17 for both Leaming and Stephenson.
Leaming, who has a 2005 felony conviction for piloting an aircraft without a valid pilot’s certificate, originally was scheduled to go on trial March 20. That trial date was rescheduled for April 2 after a superseding indictment was returned against Leaming after his initial arrest on a criminal complaint in November 2011 — and now has been moved to September to give Leaming and Stephenson more time to prepare, according to court filings.
Bowdoin, 77, was indicted in 2010 on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. In August 2008, the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from 10 of his personal bank accounts, amid allegations that Bowdoin was presiding over an international Ponzi scheme operating over the Internet.
Both of the Arkansas fugitives allegedly found with Leaming in Washingston state also are purported “sovereign citizens.” They were identified as Timothy Shawn Donavan, 64, and Sharon Jeannette Henningsen, 67. Donavan currently is detained in Oklahoma, and Henningsen is detained in Texas, according to records.
Leaming and Stephenson both are detained near Seattle.
As was the case with the original court filings in the 2008 civil action that led to the criminal prosecution of Bowdoin, investigators have produced surveillance photos pertaining to the Leaming and Stephenson prosecutions.
Records suggest that Leaming came under surveillance in Washington state by an FBI Terrorism Task Force by at least August 2011.
In addition to the surveillance photos, the government also has produced, liens, police records, unspecified “pictures,” prison records, Internet search records, “audio subpoenas” and “over 1000 pages of documents seized,” according to court filings.
All in all, according to the filings, the government has produced at least 2,742 pages of discovery in the Leaming and Stephenson cases.
Leaming has asserted he is proceeding to trial under “duress.”
In March 2009 — while the ASD Ponzi case was still a civil matter — Bowdoin claimed a January 2009 decision he made to submit to the forfeiture and stop pressing claims for the money seized from his bank accounts was made under “severe duress.”
He made the claim while acting as his own attorney, and further claimed that his decision to relitigate the case after earlier abandoning his claims was “legally accomplished as a matter of law” simply because he had filed papers saying so.
A month later — in April 2009 — federal prosecutors made a bombshell announcement in court that, prior to submitting to the forfeiture and dropping his claims to the seized cash, Bowdoin had signed a proffer letter and acknowledged the government’s material allegations were all true.
In September 2009, prosecutors said Bowdoin was telling ASD members one story — while telling a federal judge another.
Final orders of forfeiture were entered in the ASD civil case in January 2010. Bowdoin appealed, but lost in March 2011.
In the earliest days and weeks after the August 2008 seizure, some ASD members — ignoring the lessons of history — began to promote other schemes that advertised preposterous payouts, claiming they were safe because they were “offshore.”
One current HYIP scheme is JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, whose advertised daily payout rate is 2 percent — twice that of ASD. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, identified himself as an ASD pitchman in 2008 web promos three months before the Secret Service raid on ASD headquarters in Quincy, Fla.
In a Feb. 23, 2012, conference call, Mann declined to say precisely where JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was operating from. On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a site linked to Mann featured videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” implicated in an alleged murder plot against public officials in Alaska.
On Feb. 29, the PP Blog received threatening communications from an individual describing himself as “MoneyMakingBrain.” Among other things, “MoneyMakingBrain” claimed he’d defend Mann “so help me God.”
On March 12, the PP Blog reported that “MoneyMakingBrain” had asserted the Blog would “go down in flames.”
On Feb. 18 — at RealScam.com, a forum that educates the public about mass-marketing fraud — “MoneyMakingBrain” published a link to the Mann-associated site that beams the Cox videos. It is unclear if “MoneyMakingBrain” understood that Cox was under arrest on serious criminal charges and is identified with the “sovereign citizen movement.”
NOTE: The PP Blog believes it is ill-advised to click on any link left by “MoneyMakingBrain” at RealScam.com.
One of the surveillance photos in the ASD Ponzi case: Source: Court files.
“In law enforcement, we look into the IP address and whether is real or not (proxy). Then your service provider gives the account information with the customer’s name and address, then a warrant is made, then a police task force is dispatched with agents to raid your home or office, arrests you and seizes all your computers. That’s if you are a terrorist.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 11, 2012, post on RealScam.com
“And Patrick, the day your host is subpoenaed by court determination to provide all the RealScam.com web logs, it will be the beginning of end of your credibility and your PatrickPretty.com blog. I am sorry, but you did to yourself, and you will go down in flames.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 11, 2012, post on RealScam.com
Amid new suggestions he is in “law enforcement” — and while planting the seed he can cause subpoenas for log files to be served or motivate others to serve them or otherwise nuisance the PP Blog and cause it to “go down in flames” — “MoneyMakingBrain” again has used RealScam.com as a platform to hatch new and deeper conspiracy theories concerning the PP Blog and others.
The latest disturbing developments unfolded within hours of “MoneyMakingBrain’s” arrival Saturday at the PP Blog from a website linked to other harassment bids targeted at the PP Blog and some of its posters. “MoneyMakingBrain” appears to be in search of information — however disingenuous and laden with vulgarity and sexual innuendo — to confirm his own biases.
On Saturday, “MoneyMakingBrain” arrived at the PP Blog from the WorldLawDirect forum — specifically from a page set up by the notorious cyberstalker “unclefesta26” weeks ago in a bid to discredit RealScam.com. “unclefesta26” once videotaped a cartoon representation of himself hectoring the PP Blog by typing the compressed phrase “kissmyarse” into the Blog’s contact form and posting a video of his harassment on YouTube. (See screen shot from “unclefesta26” YouTube video below.)
The notorious cyberstalker "unclefesta26" uses his free platform at YouTube to attack various people, including individuals who post on the PP Blog. "MoneyMakingBrain" also is using a free Google platform — Blogger — to harass the PP Blog and some of its posters.
Known mostly by his principal handle, “unclefesta26″ once posted a video on YouTube that, in cartoon form, depicted Lynn Edgington,” a male reader of the PP Blog and the chairman of a California nonprofit entity that educates the public about scams, as a diaper-wearing pole dancer squeezing his own breasts.
In 2009, “unclefesta26” — posting at the PP Blog as “Pistol” and coming off an unsuccessful bid to register as “Hugh Jorgan” (read: Huge Organ) at a site that once carried news and commentary about the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme — was banned from the PP Blog for chronic harassment and creating maintenance problems.
“unclefesta26” retaliated by adding the PP Blog to his list of hectoring targets at his YouTube site, at one time trying to tie the Blog to the word “anal.” In October 2011, “unclefesta26” sought to overcome his PP Blog ban and post with a different user identity — under the proposed user ID of “lurch” and in a thread in which the Blog reported that Edgington had been quoted by a St. Louis newspaper in a story about steering clear of online fraud schemes.
The October 2011 posting bid appeared to feature a bogus email address entered into the Blog’s Comments form.
“MoneyMakingBrain” now has been attacking Edgington for days. And like “unclefesta26,” MoneyMakingBrain also is carrying out his sordid campaign from a free platform owned by Google.
Edgington has “no escape” from MoneyMakingBrain’s Google-hosted site, MoneyMakingBrain has asserted on RealScam, while suggesting other hectoring campaigns may be under way and the force of it all will destroy Edgington’s marriage.
“I feel sorry for you and your wife actually, who must be putting up with so much crap from anonymous callers, and who knows what else,” MoneyMakingBrain asserted on RealScam.com on March 7. “If you don’t stop being a deceptive person, though, she is gonna divorce you.”
On March 8 on RealScam, “MoneyMakingBrain” appears to have tipped his hand that one of his research sources for purported information on Edgington was “unclefesta26’s” YouTube hectoring site.
“You are not even a funny cartoon of a man to watch, as some people have depicted you,” he ventured.
Among the latest MoneyMakingBrain claims on RealScam are that the PP Blog is “soapboxmom,” one of the administrators of RealScam, and that the PP Blog runs RealScam.
Both claims are false.
“MoneyMakingBrain” also claims the PP Blog posted as scam critic “Lil Ol’ Radical Me” (LORM) on its own Blog on March 10 — and then answered its own post with the PP Blog identity.
Those claims are false.
Meanwhile, “MoneyMakingBrain” claims that the PP Blog also posts as “LORM” and “nomaxim” on RealScam — all while suggesting the PP Blog also posts as “ProfHenryHiggins” and Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates.
Each of those claims is false, as are the claims that the PP Blog posts with a proxy at RealScam and then changes proxies.
The PP Blog does not post with proxies at RealScam — or at any other site. One of the reasons the Blog does not use proxies is that it operates in an environment in which threats are directed at it on a somewhat regular basis, and the Blog needs to be able to demonstrate the threats were targeted at the Blog’s actual Internet Service Provider (ISP) account or hosting connection site (the website IP of the PP Blog).
The Blog uses its ISP account to access the Internet, and its IP account to publish the Blog. Veiled threats against the PP Blog’s ISP account date back to 2009. The Blog’s hosting IP was crippled by waves of DDoS attacks in October and November of 2010. The Blog then had to arrange new hosting, which drove up its monthly publishing costs substantially.
Even under its upgraded hosting and security architecture , the Blog occasionally has been targeted by traffic floods that briefly have collapsed its server. In April 2011, the Blog received a claim of responsibility for the attacks from the HYIP sphere.
Although “MoneyMakingBrain’s” most recent conspiracy theories are getting harder to follow as they conflate one artificial reality after another, he also appears to be suggesting that the PP Blog also posts on RealScam as “Whip” and “laidback.”
Those claims are false. The PP Blogs user ID at RealScam is PPBlog. It is the only name under which the Blog posts at RealScam. The Blog, which is an ordinary member of RealScam — i.e., it has no administrative credentials and no access to RealScam logs — has a total of 23 posts at the RealScam forum.
The PP Blog and RealScam do have posters in common, and the PP Blog is concerned about various bids to chill RealScam.com in the age of white-collar crime and international mass-marketing fraud.
After “MoneyMakingBrain” planted the seed yesterday that he was in law enforcement and could cause subpoenas to be served, some RealScam skeptics questioned his credentials. “MoneyMakingBrain” initially then backed away from the law-enforcement claim.
“And, I never said I was a police agent, you moron,” MoneyMakingBrain claimed to RealScam poster (ProfHenryHiggins) yesterday, while falsely asserting the poster was the PP Blog. “I don’t have to be in law enforcement to detect [a] scumbag like you, Patrick. It doesn’t matter under what user you post: Radical, Whip, Professor, whoever, I know exactly how many users are at anytime in this thread.
“So, go to the hell Patrick, you and this ‘real scam’ forum of yours. There are people who are dying to know who is behind this crackpot forum. Now they know what to do with those web logs from your host.”
“MoneyMakingBrain” did not identify the people purportedly “dying to know who is behind this crackpot forum.” Nor did he explain whether he coached people to “know what to do with web logs” or say precisely how he purportedly had obtained RealScam logs or whether he was distributing logs to the people purportedly “dying” for the information.
In any event, the PP Blog does not own, operate or run RealScam.com. Nor does the Blog share hosting with RealScam. Nor is the Blog acquainted with RealScam’s hosting arrangement.
CAUTION WARRANTED: As the PP Blog previously noted, it may be unwise to click on any link that “MoneyMakingBrain” posts on RealScam. A phishing bid of some sort may be under way.
Although “MoneyMakingBrain” yesterday backed away from his “law enforcement” claim, he asserted it again today, planting the seed that he might be able to put people “behind bars” or dispense fines.
“Maybe I am that guy trying to make a few bucks online with money making programs, or may (sic) I am the developer of IP DETECTOR, maybe I am going to put you behind bars or make you pay a big fine for cyber bullying, or simply expose you to prove the product works, or, maybe I am in law enforcement and you are being monitored, keep guessing,” he posted on RealScam.
“MoneyMakingBrain” started out as a “defender” of Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” that purports to pay a return of 2 percent a day.
Using a proxy to send an email threat to the PP Blog on Feb. 29, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he’d defend Mann “so help me God.” He further suggested he might seek to interfere in an Eagle Research Associates banking relationship, all while asserting that Edgington was the operator of RealScam.
After the Feb. 29 email threats to the PP Blog, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted on RealScam (March 9) that “the MMB is no longer interested in defending Fred Mann, but accusing Lynn Edgington . . .”
Yesterday, though, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he had “cleared” Edgington from an earlier MoneyMakingBrain allegation that Edgington was “LittleRoundMan,” another RealScam.com administrator.
Visit RealScam.com. (Please take heed that clicking on any link MoneyMakingBrain posts may be unwise.)
Here is an imponderable: Is there any ceiling to the absurdities in the HYIP sphere and the destructive force it exercises around the web?
On Wednesday, the PP Blog received repeated spams from U.S.-based IPs. The spammer used the handle “invest liberty reserve” and targeted two threads, including this one about JSS Tripler 2, a purported “program” that purportedly based its name on JSS Tripler. JSS Tripler is a purported element of JustBeenPaid, an “opportunity” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that claims it pays a return of 60 percent a month.
Liberty Reserve is an “offshore” payment processor favored by HYIP schemes, including JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. Wednesday’s spam bids used purported email addresses at AOL and Hotmail.
One of the Wednesday spams featured a graphic swiped from PonziNews, once a sister site to the PP Blog. The spammer attempted to use the stolen graphic in his posting bid on the PP Blog.
It was not the first time the Blog’s graphics had been used in a nefarious way online. On Dec. 12, 2010 — in commemoration of its 1,000th post — the PP Blog recounted a July 2010 story that its Breaking News graphic had been swiped and placed inside a promotion for Data Network Affiliates.
DNA was a scam associated with huckster Phil Piccolo. The “opportunity” traded on the names of Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump and advertised a nonexistent cell-phone plan of unlimited talk and text for $10 a month, an offshore “resorts” scheme and a “mortgage-reduction” scheme — all while tying itself to Christianity, the U.S. AMBER Alert system of locating abducted children and a purported bid to end world poverty.
It’s worth noting that some JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters also traded on Winfrey’s name.
In the same December 2010 commemoration post, the Blog reported that Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, had been called names that would peel paint when DHS announced that Walmart had joined the “If you see something, say something” terrorism-awareness campaign. Meanwhile, the Blog reported that some online-fraud schemes had evolved to victimize participants by the tens of thousands — numbers America’s largest sports stadiums could not accommodate.
The PP Blog no longer owns the PonziNews domain. The Blog suspended publication of the site in 2010, after thieves who used international IPs stole the domain’s content verbatim and posted it on other sites they controlled that had a higher Page Rank than Ponzi News.
In short, the net effect of the theft was that the PP Blog was being used to create “free” content for thieves who intercepted the traffic of PonziNews. Such piracy schemes are hurting the publishing industry.
In a separate spam bid on Wednesday, a would-be poster suggesting he represented an HYIP ranking site targeted this PP Blog thread on strange claims associated with “MoneyMakingBrain” in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
The would-be poster purporting to represent the HYIP ranking site complained that the Blog had used the term “HYIP” in the linked story above “21 times” without explaining the meaning of the term.
“Nice writing job!” the would-be poster jabbed. He provided no comment on the substance of the story.
On RealScam.com yesterday, “MoneyMakingBrain” — who’d emailed threats repeatedly to the PP Blog on Feb. 29 — described the Blog as a “BIG idiot,” a “chicken,” a “deceptive unethical lowlife,” the user of “NONFACTUAL” sources and other names.
Because of the emailed threats and “MoneyMakingBrain’s” subsequent ban from the PP Blog, the Blog will not engage with MoneyMakingBrain on RealScam.com, an antiscam forum that concerns itself with mass-marketing fraud and occasionally has been subjected itself to threats and menacing communications.
“MoneyMakingBrain” has advanced various conspiracy theories about RealScam.com, the PP Blog and and some of their common posters.
What he has not done is explain what his purported “due diligence” into the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” entailed or how purported operator Frederick Mann could pay an annualized return between 48 and 73 times higher than the purported “returns” of Bernard Madoff.
Yesterday on RealScam, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted that he has “recently read [about the PP Blog] on some scams forum, that he is a very deceptive reporter, well, that doesn’t surprise the MMB at all.”
It is possible that “MoneyMakingBrain” is referring to this September 2009 thread on Scam.com. The thread was started by a PP Blog poster known as “little joe” who’d been banned for harassment. The poster, who later was banned from Scam.com, claimed the PP Blog would be “scrambling to put out fires” from multiple IPs.
The threats and intimidation campaign from “little joe” began after the summer 2009 collapses of AdViewGlobal (AVG) and Ad-Ventures4U (ADV4U), both of which claimed an ability to provide preposterous returns in the wake of the government seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case.
Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, has described himself as a promoter for both ASD and ADV4U.
On Aug. 18, 2009, antiscam commentators on the PP Blog were called “idiots” and the PP Blog itself was asked by an ADV4U promoter whether the author was a “fag.” After launching his ad hominem attacks against the PP Blog and its posters, the ADv4U pitchman asserted he was a longtime businessman and that criticism about ADV4U on the PP Blog was about “as unprofessional as it gets people.”
“I’m out of here.You bunch of idiots make me sick!!!” the poster railed.
Less than a year later — in May 2010 — Professor James Byrne, an expert hired by the U.S. government to assess the alleged HYIP Ponzi scheme of Nicholas Smirnow of Pathway To Prosperity — observed that HYIPs were not “noted for their internal consistency.”
One of the inconsistencies that became part of the ADV4U story was the assertion by the “defender” that he was a longtime, professional businessman — while the same “defender” asked the PP Blog if he was a “fag” and declared ADV4U critics who questioned a purported payout rate of 1 percent a day “idiots.”
Both assertions occurred a year after the U.S. Secret Service brought Ponzi allegations against ASD, whose payout scheme was similar to ADV4U’s.
UPDATED 7:43 A.M. ET (MARCH 9, U.S.A.) If ever there has been a cautionary tale for HYIP pitchmen, it is Jeffrey Lane Mowen’s Utah Ponzi scheme.
Mowen and at least six promoters ended up inspiring litigation on multiple fronts, with Mowen charged criminally. At issue was Mowen’s Forex Ponzi scheme, which allegedly was funded in part through an alleged high-yield “promissory notes” offering fraud.
Tonight, Mowen, 49, is listed as “in transit” to an unspecified federal prison. He has been jailed in the United States since he was extradited from Panama in 2009. He pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of wire fraud last year and was sentenced to 10 years.
Mowen received a merciful plea agreement in which other serious criminal charges were dropped, including solicitation to commit a crime of violence, witness tampering and retaliating against a witness.
The sidebars in the Mowen story have been every bit as compelling as the story-in-chief. Indeed, Mowen sought to shield himself in Panama when his scheme collapsed.
It didn’t work. Panamanian authorities and the FBI got him quickly.
Jeffrey Lane Mowen
After his return to the United States, Mowen allegedly solicited the murder of four witnesses “with the intent of preventing their attendance and testimony at his federal fraud trial” in the Ponzi scheme case.
That didn’t work. The cellmate through whom he allegedly solicited the murders was a snitch.
But the cautionary tale doesn’t end there. Jeffrey Lane Mowen was a felon and a recidivist securities huckster. Thomas Fry, an unregistered promoter, used at least five other unregistered promoters to raise funds for “opportunities” that purported to pay a return of between 2 percent and 3 percent a month, according to the SEC.
Fry and the pitchmen were sued by the SEC in 2009. All six also now face administration sanctions from the SEC — this after the agency targeted their ill-gotten gains in the earlier lawsuit.
Failure to conduct due diligence and engaging in willful blindness were elements in the SEC’s lawsuit 2009 against the promoters, according to court filings.
“Because the Promoters not only conducted virtually no due diligence in connection with Fry’s purported investment opportunities, but transferred investor money to Fry without any documentation or limitation on his use of the funds, the Promoters were reckless in failing to discover Fry’s association with Mowen and that their funds were being placed into a Ponzi scheme or used for other undisclosed purposes,” the SEC charged at the time.
All of the pitchman now have been barred from the securities business under the terms of the administrative action. In a settlement, none of the pitchmen acknowledged wrongdoing. But the various Ponzi- and fraud-related actions were front-and-center in their lives for the better part of three years.
This common paragraph appears in each of the administrative actions against the five Fry pitchmen (italics added):
“The Commission’s complaint alleged that, from at least January 2007 through July 2008, [Pitchman’s Name] offered and sold purported high-yield promissory notes to investors that he claimed would pay 2% to 3% interest monthly. The funds raised by [Pitchman’s Name] were given to Thomas R. Fry who funneled those funds into a Ponzi scheme run by Jeffrey L. Mowen, a convicted felon and securities law recidivist. The Commission alleged that [Pitchman’s Name] distributed private placement memoranda to investors that falsely stated that all the investors’ funds were being used to make collateralized domestic real estate loans and domestic small business loans and that misrepresented the level of his due diligence as to the investment scheme. The Commission alleged that [Pitchman’s Name] conducted virtually no due diligence in connection with the purported investment opportunities and transferred investor money without any documentation or limitation on the use of the funds.”
Fry knew Mowen was a scammer, but still continued to solicit funds, the SEC said. All in all, he and the other five pitchmen raised more than $18 million for Mowen.
But the FBI said Mowen wasn’t operating a legitimate investment opportunity. What he was doing was buying exotic cars, taking personal vacations, supporting a luxurious lifestyle and making Ponzi payouts that ultimately defrauded more than 200 investors out of between $9 million and $10 million.
The purported monthly returns offered by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid — an “opportunity” now making its way around the web — are roughly TWENTY times higher than the scheme pitched by Fry and his promoters, according to records.
As noted above, the alleged offering fraud involving Fry and the other pitchmen was promoted on the purported basis of returns of 2 percent to 3 percent a month. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid advertises 60 percent a month.
Also on a monthly basis, the purported payout of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is roughly between TWO and SEVEN times higher than the payout of the Ponzi scheme that put Mowen in prison for 10 years, according to records.
Mowen’s Forex Ponzi scheme scheme offered between 8 percent and 33 percent a month, federal prosecutors said last year.
It is somewhat common for HYIP purveyors who populate Ponzi boards such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup to assert they have conducted “due diligence” on an “opportunity” or to assert that a “program’s” operator and/or management “team” have done so and that prospects don’t have to concern themselves with doing any legwork.
It often proves to be the case that the “due diligence” consists of GIGO — garbage in, garbage out. The promoters simply repeat the company line, rather than doing any sort of critical assessment such as questioning how an HYIP “program” operator could provide returns that may dwarf the returns of Bernard Madoff and other Ponzi schemers such as Mowen.
“There is a line between First Amendment Rights vs. Libel here. So, when does your right to form an opinion begins (sic) and when does it constitute a defamation of character? The answer is, law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs, so get your head straight and feet firm on the ground.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 4, 2012, post on RealScam.com
As previously reported on the PP Blog, a JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “defender” known as “MoneyMakingBrain” (MMB) has emailed threats to the PP Blog, hatched bizarre conspiracy theories here and at RealScam.com and planted the seed that he was someone to fear.
The email threats were received after MMB claimed Feb. 18 on RealScam he had performed “due diligence” on JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. On a website known as “ReviewOPedia,” a poster with the same handle offered this on Feb. 14, in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid:
“They are for real! ”
Within the same Feb. 14 ReviewOPedia post, MoneyMakingBrain ventured this (italics added):
“BTW, everybody should check out the JBP live support chatroom which has over 160 people at any given time and is live 24/7. You can ask all the questions you can come up with and there is always moderator. Who does that? I’m sold already. So, if someone here claims that they ‘didn’t get paid’, either they still don’t understand how the matrix works or they’re just internet trolls.”
Whether the “MoneyMakingBrain” on the PP Blog and the “MoneyMakingBrain” on ReviewOPedia are one and the same is unknown to the PP Blog.
Precisely why the MMB known to the PP Blog and RealScam.com has been trying to chill specific individuals and antiscam forums is unclear. What is known is that what he’s doing is hardly unique.
Lessons Of HYIP History Ignored
While asserting that he knows the PP Blog’s IP address and posting location, MMB now is making a claim on RealScam, a forum that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud, that “law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs.”
That claim is contrary to the public record, which shows that any number of agencies, self-regulatory bodies and private attorneys have been noting for years that HYIP schemes are proliferating on the Internet and being spread by posters on forums and social-networking sites. It also ignores the reality — also a matter of public record — that law-enforcement has a history of filing court documents that reproduce HYIP forum posts and of infiltrating HYIP schemes.
Prominent FINRA Warning On HYIPs
In July 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued this highly public alert. FINRA noted that “HYIPs use an array of websites and social media — including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook — to lure investors.”
HYIPs fabricate a “buzz” and create “the illusion of social consensus,” FINRA said, describing the sinister approach as a “common persuasion tactic fraudsters use to suggest that “everyone is investing in HYIPs, so they must be legitimate.”
Forum Posts Become Evidence In HYIP Cases
In the SEC’s May 2008 prosecution of the Legisi HYIP scheme, the agency included page after page of forum posts as part of a 267-page evidence exhibit in support of an asset freeze. A federal judge approved the freeze. (The screenshot below is from one of the forum pages.)
Legisi operator Gregory McKnight pleaded guilty to criminal charges of wire fraud last month. He also faces millions of dollars in civil judgments. The SEC Legisi filings also include a reference to the MoneyMakerGroup forum, which is listed in other federal court filings as a place from which HYIP Ponzi schemes are promoted.
This section of the Legisi Terms of Service purports that members must avow they are not an "informant, nor associated with any informant" of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others. The others included "Her Majesty's Police," the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office, Interpol and others.
Included within the SEC filings is a reproduction of Legisi’s bizarre Terms. (See graphic at right. It is taken from court filings.) Among other things, the Terms made members avow they were not an “informant” for various government entities.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has similar Terms. The Terms read like an invitation to join an international financial conspiracy. (The next two paragraphs are verbatim from the JSS Tripler/Just BeenPaid member agreement. Italics added.)
6. I affirm that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.
7. I affirm that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.”
When the U.S. Postal Inspection Service filed criminal charges against Nicholas Smirnow in May 2010 for his alleged operation of the Pathway To Prosperity HYIP Ponzi scheme, MoneyMakerGroup, TalkGold and ASAMonitor were specifically referenced in the service’s case filings. Smirnow now has his face on an INTERPOL “Wanted” poster.
MMB took great exception to the PP Blog’s Smirnow post, apparently believing it had no relevance in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. MMB also apparently believes the PP Blog and RealScam are treating Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, unfairly.
Among other things, MMB asserted on the PP Blog that “no one is invisible to the MoneyMakingBrain and you need to stop doing what you’re doing against this man immediately. Because if you don’t, I am going to make a formal complain (sic) to the very authorities you purport are coming after scam sites and send all the evidence I’ve gathered so far from posting on your site and the realscam site. I don’t like witch hunts and I am sure Fred Mann can whip your ass in court for your highly suggestive, provocative, highly contentious and flat-out defamatory commentaries against his character on your sites.”
MMB further suggested that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid critics may be “needing to look for another ISP because you won’t have internet access at home or your office, wherever.”
About three months after the SEC brought the $72 million Legisi/McKnight HYIP Ponzi case, the U.S. Secret Service — in August 2008 — filed evidence exhibits in support of an order to freeze tens of millions of dollars in AdSurfDaily-related bank accounts. The complaint in support of the seizure specifically references an ASD-related “Breaking News” Blog, and an evidence exhibit labeled “Government Exhibit 5” consists entirely of an ASD-related post on a different Blog that took up 15 printed pages.
The 15-page post featured alleged comments from ASD President Andy Bowdoin in which he threatened to sue critics.
“These people that are making these slanderous remarks, they are going to continue these slanderous remarks in a court of law defending about a 30 to 40 million dollar slander lawsuit,” the post quoted Bowdoin as saying. (The screen shot below is from Government Exhibit 5. It has been a matter of public record approaching four years.)
Both the ASD and Legisi investigations used government agents in undercover capacities, according to court filings.
Meanwhile, in June 2009, attorneys suing Bowdoin on behalf of ASD members in a civil RICO (racketeering) case referred to the PP Blog’s reporting on the ASD Ponzi case, specifically its reporting on a spinoff surf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG). (See court document. See June 30, 2009, related story. See PP Blog story the attorneys referenced in their filings.)
During its short run, AVG bizarrely asserted that it operated as a “private association” that enjoyed U.S. Constitutional protections in Uruguay. AVG used U.S.-based Gmail addresses to conduct business, something JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is doing. The defunct surf further claimed that it had appointed a person who held the title of “Protector.”
Such claims have been linked to the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement. On Feb. 27, 2012, the PP Blog reported that a site linked to Mann published videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” indicted in Alaska in an alleged murder plot against public officials. The site features a drop-in ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that encourages prospects to register with a Gmail address.
Whether MMB is aware of all of these these historical incidents while issuing threats and planting the seed he has the power to divorce JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid critics from their Internet connections is not known. MMB’s posting privileges were revoked by the PP Blog last week after he emailed threats and menacing communications. RealScam has continued to permit MMB to post on its forum.
The PP Blog believes it is unwise to click on any link MMB has posted on RealScam. He appears to be attempting to bait members of the antiscam community into clicking on links as part of a bid to gather IP addresses and other data from posters — all while asserting he has the power to use the information to harm individuals and entities such as Eagle Research Associates, a California based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about scams.
Piling On The HYIP Absurdity
In what would become one of the most visited threads in the history of the PP Blog, a poster known as “CORRECTION” repeatedly demanded that the Blog retract this June 3, 2009, headline about the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf and a strategy advanced by a promoter by which AVG upline sponsors could gather money from individual prospects and funnel it through the sponsors’ local banks before passing it to offshore payment processors — instead of letting AVG gather the money.
“Get it right before you lead with this inaccurate, bias (sic) and unfair reporting!!!!!!!!!!!” CORRECTION demanded.
The PP Blog did not submit to the demand to retract the headline.
It was revealed later in court filings that the grand jury that indicted Bowdoin on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities began to meet in May 2009, about a month prior to ASD- and AVG-related threats and demands made against the PP Blog.
“The focus of this sweep was fraud committed against individual investors, including Ponzi schemes, high-yield investment fraud, and market manipulation cases,” said Shawn Henry, the FBI’s executive assistant director. “Operation Broken Trust highlights the pervasiveness of the threat we face, and its impact on individuals from all walks of life.
“The perpetrators of these crimes are those who YOU might trust . . . friends and colleagues — people from your workplace, your child’s soccer team, even your church,” Henry said.
Read this March 1, 2012, story that reports a top U.S. Justice Department official speaking in Mexico referenced bogus libel lawsuits filed to protect criminal enterprises. Read this Justice Department news release last week on a meeting in Ottawa between top U.S. officials and top Canadian officials to discuss cross-border fraud.
More HYIP Nonsense: No ‘Unfriendly Political Jurisdictions’
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return of twice that offered by Bowdoin and ASD — and eight times that of Legisi. The JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid returns are somewhat on par with the returns offered by Pathway To Prosperity.
At the same time, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid says this on its website (italics added):
“Our business operations are geographically decentralized. We don’t have any central office. We’re not located in any ‘unfriendly political jurisdictions.’”
It is difficult to conceive how JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid could send any brighter signals of a scam in progress, given its absurd advertised rate of return and a public proclamation that it is not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”
In 2008, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, identified himself as an ASD pitchman. On Jan. 23, 2012 — six weeks ago today — the Italian securities regulator CONSOB announced it had opened a JSS Tripler-related probe and issued a 90-day suspension order.
During a March 1 conference call for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a caller informed Mann that a member of his second-level downline had informed him that the member’s bid to advertise the “opportunity” had been blocked in Holland amid concerns of legality.
“Tell him not to advertise in any particular country,” Mann replied.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A top U.S. official — speaking today in Mexico City at the High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime hosted by the Mexican government under the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS) — addressed the challenges the world law-enforcement community is confronting in the Internet Age.
In remarks apt to cause unease within the HYIP and organized-crime spheres, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole noted that the government was wise to efforts by criminals to chill efforts to expose crimes by filing libel lawsuits. (A link to Cole’s full prepared remarks appears at the bottom of this story.)
Some recent Ponzi cases in the United States involving incredible sums of money — and the corresponding behavior of some of the participants — help prove the point . . .
AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, named a defendant in a 2009 civil case that alleged racketeering, issued “slander” lawsuit threats prior to the August 2008 intervention by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD scheme. The threats were issued not long after Bowdoin had returned from a trip arranged by a lawyer in which the ASD patriarch had ventured to Panama and Costa Rica, according to court filings.
Bowdoin later was indicted, amid allegations he was presiding over an international Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Robert Hodgins, who was referenced in 2007 ads for ASD, is an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. The United States accused Hodgins of laundering proceeds for narcotics traffickers in Colombia.
In advance of today’s High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza noted that such crime “is the principal continental source of activities such as drug trafficking, the illicit trafficking of firearms and immigrants, human trafficking, money laundering, corruption, kidnapping, and cybercrimes.”
Befitting its importance, the hemispheric meeting was hosted by Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico.
Among others things, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole said this at the meeting:
“The advance of globalization and the internet, while hugely beneficial to people everywhere, has also created unparalleled opportunities for criminals to expand their operations and use the facilities of global communication and commerce to carry out their criminal activities across national borders.”
Although Cole did not use the term “HYIP” in his remarks, it is clear that the U.S. government is well aware of the dangers online fraud schemes pose as they reach across borders to accumulate tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars — sometimes through a single fraud scheme.
As the PP Blog read the text of Cole’s remarks, another thing leaped off the page. Indeed, Cole said this (emphasis added):
“Because of the sophistication of the world economy, organized crime groups have developed an ability to exploit legitimate actors and their skills in order to further the criminal enterprises. For example, transnational organized criminal groups often rely on lawyers to facilitate illicit transactions. These lawyers create shell companies, open offshore bank accounts in the names of those shell companies, and launder criminal proceeds through trust accounts. Other lawyers working for organized crime figures bring frivolous libel cases against individuals who expose their criminal activities.“
Cole, of course, wasn’t talking specifically about the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and ASD’s preposterous claims that Bowdoin had found a legitimate way to pay interest of 1 percent a day on the tens of millions of dollars sent in by participants and that ASD would create 100,000 millionaires in three years.
Even so, the words Cole uttered in Mexico City today have deep relevance to the HYIP sphere. Indeed, ASD reached across international borders and relied on an international sales force.
Here is how ASD worked: It relied on “legitimate actors” of the sort Cole described — in ASD’s case, a lawyer who allegedly scrubbed the “opportunity” to ensure compliance, and Moms and Pops and entrepreneurs (and people down on their luck) who signed up and became the friendly faces to their prospect bases. The salespeople were paid 10 percent for recruiting a friend with money and 5 percent more if the friend could recruit a friend with money — on top of “surfing” earnings of 1 percent a day and even more through the purported miracle of “compounding.”
The current HYIP scheme of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has the same type of payout schemes that ASD foisted on the marketplace. One big difference is the JSS/JBP says it can provide twice the daily payout of ASD.
JSS/JBP’s purported operator is Frederick Mann, a former ASD pitchman.
In September 2011, the U.S. Secret Service described ASD as a “criminal enterprise.”
You’ll note above that Cole today used the same phrase to describe one of the inherent threats of transnational organized crime. And, as noted above, he also spoke about bids to chill critics through the filing of libel lawsuits.
Those same types of threats were made in the ASD case, beginning in the summer of 2008. In fact, federal prosecutors even included an evidence exhibit in case filings that alluded to one such alleged threat. Unmentioned in the initial ASD case filings were the bids to chill reporters in at least two states and a newspaper in Georgia.
If you’ve been following the HYIP sphere for any length of time, you know that threats to sue members of the antiscam community are part of the landscape — so much so, that it has become an HYIP cliche. The bids to chill are not limited to threats to sue for libel and “slander,” however.
It also is becoming an HYIP cliche that the operators and apologists for brazen HYIPs threaten to file complaints with the ISPs of members of the antiscam community — i.e., if you report about us we’ll take down your Internet connection and/or sue you for copyright/trademark infringement.
These things are transparent bids to chill speech. They also are designed to have a secondary “benefit”: to make the marks — who may consist in part of people who are otherwise “legitimate actors” — believe that harm will come to them if they ever complain, that there are severe consequences to those who complain.
These nefarious methods have surfaced in scheme after scheme after scheme, as have various assertions about “offshore” venues and the purported “safety” the “offshore” venues provide. Longtime observers know the claims are part and parcel to the HYIP sphere — and that claims that someone is a successful businessman who has presided over multiple companies almost certainly will be incorporated into the sales pitch for an “opportunity.”
The FBI, for just one example, has been warning for years about securities fraud, the “shadow banking system” and the use of shell companies to disguise fraud proceeds. The director has testified repeatedly on Capitol Hill about the subject, while simultaneously warning about debit cards that are being used in nefarious ways and the dangers posed by lone wolves and “home-grown, violent extremists.”
All of these things are or may be in play in the HYIP sphere. Here are some things you should know:
It is likely that the scheme’s operator is trading on the credibility you have with loved ones and friends within your immediate sphere of influence to drive dollars to the scam. It is equally likely that you are being denied the sort of information that would empower you to make an informed purchasing decision and highly likely you are being asked to participate in a venture that could result in prosecutions under both civil and criminal law, possibly even the RICO statute.
The rate of return will be preposterous in any real-world context and the math will be fuzzy and confusing, if not downright impossible.
Your sponsor will lie to you or pass on GIGO that is part of the company line because the company line is more convenient than the uncomfortable truth. It will be garbage coming in, and garbage going out.
You will be subjected to a direct or indirect threat or a bid to chill, especially if you ask uncomfortable questions or raise any doubts.
There is a chance you’ll be working for a racketeer or an international criminal, perhaps even a “sovereign citizen” who has hatched a construction by which nothing is a crime, that all conduct is lawful in the name of freedom and free markets. If your sentiment is against the government or “big business” because of your personal financial situation or your political or philosophical views, an extremist may try to exploit your sentiment for personal profit.
Just some things to think about in the age of the HYIP, the age of terrorism and the age of transnational organized crime as practiced on the Internet . . .
Read the full remarks of Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole here.
“Either we talk about here, or I talk about somewhere else (that’s not a threat, it’s a promise :)” — ‘MoneyMakingBrain (MMB), in email threat to PP Blog, Feb. 29, 2012, 7:52 a.m. ET
UPDATED 4:22 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) It has happened again: The PP Blog has received yet another threat via email for its reporting on the HYIP sphere, which FINRA described in a 2010 Alert as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.”
Today’s threat came from “MoneyMakingBrain” (MMB) in apparent “defense” of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, an HYIP “program” purportedly operated by self-described former AdSurfDaily and Ad-Ventures4U pitchman Frederick Mann. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid claims it pays a return of 2 percent per day.
ASD operator Andy Bowdoin, 77, is an accused Ponzi schemer under indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. The ASD scheme, which was based in Florida, gathered at least $110 million and created thousands of victims, federal prosecutors have said. Bowdoin’s Ponzi trial has been scheduled for September 2012. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return twice that of ASD.
Among other things, Bowdoin has compared the August 2008 U.S. Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and described it as the work of “Satan.”
MMB’s initial email threat was received at 7:52 a.m. ET. It was followed by another email threat at 11:14 a.m. in which MMB suggested he’d seek to cause banking troubles for a specific PP Blog poster and defend Mann “so help me God.”
“You could be the nicest guy in the world, doing a real public service, but on the matter of Frederick Mann, you’ve made a gross error, and you crossed the line, Mr.,” the second threat read in part. “I am not a passive by-stander Patrick, I am one of those who will come and help an old man from being beaten up by a bully, so help me God.”
The second email also claimed that, “If anything, you’ve brought all this upon yourself.”
On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a site registered to Mann in South Africa at the same street address of JustBeenPaid had at least 11 links to videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox. Cox, 27, is a purported “sovereign citizen.” He is accused in Alaska of a “militia” murder plot against public officials.
Federal prosecutors known to be investigating the ASD scheme in the District of Columbia declined to comment on the Blog’s story, which was published Monday. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors known to be investigating the “sovereign citizen” movement in the Pacific Northwest did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
Today’s disturbing developments began with the Blog’s receipt of the initial threatening email at 7:52 a.m. The initial threat implied that, if the PP Blog did publish a comment submitted by MMB during the overnight hours and respond to the email, MMB would seek to cause harm to the Blog. The PP Blog did not reply to the initial email. Nor did it reply to the follow-up threat.
MMB’s comment already had been published by the PP Blog by the time the initial email threat was received. The comment was submitted at 1:12 a.m. today and approved by the PP Blog at approximately 7:30 a.m., after being temporarily sequestered in a holding queue because of the menacing nature of previous comments submitted by MMB.
An anonymous proxy in Europe was used to send the comment, and a Gmail address was entered on the PP Blog’s Comments form. For the past two days, MMB has been submitting comments that imply he has the power to harm the Blog if the Blog does not submit to his threats. His comments were sent from IPs in the United States and Europe. Today’s email communications from MMB were the first received from MMB.
Because the Blog believes it is important to publish comments that showcase the bizarre and sometimes menacing nature of the HYIP sphere, it has published several comments from MMB since Monday. But because today’s email threats introduced a new form of electronic menacing and implied a PP Blog reader would be subjected to a hectoring campaign, the Blog no longer will publish any additional comments from MMB.
The PP Blog engages in the marketplace of ideas, not the marketplace of threats.
These are among MMB’s menacing assertions yesterday:
“I know you’re reading everything I write and you are scared.”
” But, continue to annoy the MoneyMakingBrain and deviate him from his monitoring duties, and you’ll be the ones to be in the hot water. “
“no one is invisible to the MoneyMakingBrain and you need to stop doing what you’re doing against this man immediately. Because if you don’t, I am going to make a formal complain (sic) to the very authorities you purport are coming after scam sites and send all the evidence I’ve gathered so far from posting on your site and the realscam site. I don’t like witch hunts and I am sure Fred Mann can whip your ass in court for your highly suggestive, provocative, highly contentious and flat-out defamatory commentaries against his character on your sites.”
“You can delete my comments as much as you like, but take what I said to the bank. In the end, you are going to look like a fool.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea that you stop your charade once and for all and finally cease and desist attacking Mr. Fred Mann, who is innocent until proven guilty. Not going to be repeating myself again.”
“Needless to say that you’ll be needing to look for another ISP because you won’t have internet access at home or your office, wherever. Needless to say that your server host will also shut down your sites down for violation of terms and conditions.”
MMB also advanced a number of conspiracy theories, including one in which he asserts that two different people who post on RealScam.com and the PP Blog are one and the same. RealScam is a forum that concerns itself with mass-marketing fraud.
In November 2011, RealScam was subjected to a bid to chill from Bogdan Fiedur, the operator of AdLandPro, a website whose members routinely promote HYIP schemes and other highly dubious pursuits. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is one of the “programs” promoted on AdLandPro, which also has a presence on Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
Conspiracy theories are part and parcel to the HYIP landscape, as are threats — direct and veiled. Today”s second MMB email threat also raised the specter of fear.
” . . . it’s clear that you are too scared of me by now,” the second email read in part.
In November 2011, an FBI Terrorism Task Force arrested ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming on charges he filed false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Two months later, a superseding indictment was returned against Leaming that accused him of participating in a scheme to file false liens against two U.S. prison officials, uttering a false “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million and being a convicted felon in possession of firearms.
So-called “sovereign citizens” have been linked to various forms of securities fraud and tax fraud. Because they believe prosecutors and judges have no authority over them, “sovereigns” have been known to target state, local and national officials in plots to file bogus liens and destroy the credit of members of the law-enforcement community and litigation opponents.
Their harassment methods, which feature the use of both postal mail and email and often include direct or veiled threats, have become known as “paper terrorism.”
When arrested, Leaming, the ASD figure and purported “sovereign,” was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas who’d been indicted on charges of duping participants in a home-business scheme of more than $2 million. Those fugitives also have been linked to the “sovereign citizen” movement and filed a series of bizarre pleadings in Arkansas after their arrests with Leaming, who is jailed near Seattle. Both fugitives now are detained at federal facilities in Texas, according to prison records.
After MMB sent today’s initial email threat, he sent another comment to the Blog that included a threat:
“Stop abusing your forum as Lynn does, or I am going to conclude that there is a business relationship between the two of you, and that would be bad a thing (I am afraid to say anything else as you may call it another ‘threat’).
“And yes, this is not a threat: you’re better off having me talking here than somewhere else. I know too much already about both you and Lynn, and I still want to believe that the two of you are men of good (although the tactics of one indicate the otherwise).”
“Lynn” is a reference to Lynn Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates Inc., a 501(c)3 Public Benefit Charitable Corporation based in Mission Viejo, Calif.
The second email implied that MMB would seek to interfere with an Eagle Research banking relationship.
Nicholas A. Smirnow. Source: Interpol "Wanted" notice.
After the news broke yesterday that Gregory N. McKnight, the accused operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a $72 million caper, things only got worse for the serial Ponzi-forum cheerleaders — not that they’re likely to abandon their practice of willful blindness while reaching across oceans to pick the pockets of any person with cash and a pulse.
Nicholas Smirnow, a convicted robber, burglar and drug dealer before he became an HYIP operator and darling of the TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and ASAMonitor Ponzi forums, is listed as wanted by INTERPOL.
How long Smirnow has been on INTERPOL’s wanted list and the circumstances under which he was placed on the list were not immediately clear. An email yesterday by the PP Blog seeking comment from federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Illinois on the status of Smirnow and the case against him was not immediately returned.
Smirnow, 54, also is known as Nicolay Smirnow, Alexander Judizcev, Nicholas Kachura and Jeff Prozorowiczm. He was charged in the Southern District of Illinois with fraud and money laundering-related crimes in May 2010 for his alleged operation of the Pathway To Prosperity (P2P) Ponzi scheme.
When the charges against Smirnow were announced approaching two years ago, U.S. federal prosecutors said they intended to ask the government of the Philippines to extradite Smirnow to the United States. Whether Smirnow had been jailed in the Philippines and somehow later was set free after the U.S. arrest warrant was issued could not immediately be determined.
What is clear is that INTERPOL is publishing a “Wanted” listing with the following physical details about Smirnow:
Height: 1.76 meter
Weight: 76 Kg
Colour of hair: Brown
Colour of eyes: Green
The INTERPOL poster for Smirnow was up even as the SEC was announcing the McKnight conviction. (See “Wanted” poster, which is active at the time of this post.)
The P2P scheme was almost unimaginably widespread, a postal inspector said in the 2010 affidavit.
“Financial records of payment processors utilized by P-2-P to collect investment funds from investors show that approximately 40,000 investors in 120 countries established accounts with P-2-P,” the postal inspector said. “Despite the fact that the investment was supposedly ‘guaranteed, investors lost approximately $70 million as a result of [Smirnow’s] actions.”
Ponzi-forum cheerleaders yesterday appeared either to be unaware of (or to have to ignored) the news about the guilty plea of Legisi’s McKnight and corresponding civil judgments against him totaling about $6.5 million.
Some of them continued to focus on their efforts to promote JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that also uses AlertPay and SolidTrustPay.
AlertPay and SolidTrustPay also are referenced in court filings in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case. A 2008 promo for ASD attributed to Mann asserted that Mann was an ASD promoter. ASD operator Andy Bowdoin faces a criminal trial in September 2012 on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid asserts it pays a daily return of twice what ASD offered. ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming has been linked to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement and is jailed near Seattle on federal charges of filing false liens against public officials involved in the ASD case.
McKnight’s base program in Legisi offered a return of .25 percent (one quarter of 1 percent) per day, according to a 2008 SEC filing.
Mann’s purported base program offers eight times that return on a daily basis, according to JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promos. On an annualized basis, the “program” offers a return that is between 48 and 73 times higher than the returns of imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.
Madoff is serving a U.S. prison term of 150 years. McKnight faces up to 20 years, the SEC said yesterday.
A promo for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that appeared yesterday on a forum known as CariGold made this claim. (Italics added):
JSS-Tripler now has 213,884 members — continuing to grow by over 3,000 new members a day. (If it hadn’t been for yesterday’s downtime, the number would have been “over 4,000.”) Thank you to our many promoters for doing such a great job!
Purchases of new JSS-Tripler positions are on track for a new all-time record, today.
More than a month ago — on Jan. 23 — the Italian securities regulator CONSOB announced that JSS Tripler promoters were under investigation. Ponzi-forum promoters pooh-poohed the news.
This grainy likeness of Gregory N. McKnight is taken from federal court filings in 2008.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING:Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan, the SEC said this afternoon.
McKnight was charged criminally on Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. His guilty plea followed two days later, the SEC said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. The SEC charged him civilly in May 2008.
Legisi, which gathered more than $72 million and fleeced more than 3,000 investors in the United States and several other countries, was popularized in part on Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
MoneyMakerGroup is specifically referenced in U.S. court files in the Legisi case.
Legisi’s Terms of Service resemble those of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a purported “opportunity” currently being flogged on the Ponzi boards even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the actions of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters.
Promos by Legisi triggered an undercover operation by the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan.
In addition to the prospect of jail time, McKnight is on the receiving end of a civil judgment and penalties totaling about $6.5 million, the SEC said.
Legisi members, according to the Terms, had to affirm they were not an “informant, nor associated with any informant” of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others, according to documents filed in federal court.
The others included “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office and Interpol.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”
One of Legisi’s payment “programs” advertised a return of .25 (one-quarter) percent per day, according to court filings.
JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promotes a return of 2 percent a day — eight times higher than Legisi.
A sentencing date for McKnight will be determined later, the SEC said.
U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith presided over McKnight’s guilty plea, the SEC said.
Frederick Mann is the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
“You can only load money from your Alertpay account onto it. So, now I can start using AP in other programs & have an easy way to get my money to spend, by loading funds from my AP account onto the card. Then I can use the card like a regular debit card in stores, online & even withdraw the money off of the card via an ATM machine.” — MoneyMakerGroup post by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoter, Feb. 16, 2012
There’s none so blind as those who will not see.
Only a little more than eight months ago — on June 3, 2011 — the U.S. Secret Service advised a federal judge in Maryland that HYIP schemes spread in part through coordinated posts on “discussion boards.” One of the boards referenced in a Secret Service affidavit aimed at seizing tens of millions of dollars in “criminal proceeds” linked to HYIP hucksters and other scammers was TalkGold.
Yes, that TalkGold, the Ponzi cesspit, the same TalkGold to which promoters of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid race to fire up “I got paid” posts to help sustain a scam that advertises an annualized return of 730 percent on top of two-tier downline commissions totaling 15 percent — more, if members choose to “compound” their “earnings” by leaving them in the system.
JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid promoters are doing this on the Ponzi forums even after CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, announced a JSS Tripler-related action late last month and certain promoters’ websites in the United States suddenly have gone missing this month. Frederick Mann is the purported operator of the scheme.
It was not the first time TalkGold’s name had been referenced as a place from which massive fraud schemes were promoted. The board was referenced in 2010 filings by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in the Pathway to Prosperity (P2) case. So was MoneyMakerGroup, another Ponzi and fraud cesspit. P2P operator Nicholas Smirnow was charged criminally, and investigators described P2P as an HYIP scheme that had spread to at least 120 countries and created as many as 40,000 victims. The alleged P2P haul: about $70 million.
Courtroom references by the Secret Service to TalkGold in the context of fraud schemes date back at least to 2007.
Here is how the Secret Service affidavit from June 2011 described the activities that occur on TalkGold and elsewhere. (Italics added):
“Most of the individual posts to the boards are from those who invest in the pyramid schemes and those who operate and promote the illegal investment scams.”
Based on the Secret Service affidavit and voluminous evidence culled in the aftermath of the 2007 E-Gold investigation that had led to 2008 guilty pleas on charges related to unlicensed money-transmitting and money-laundering, the judge authorized the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the E-Gold accounts of alleged scammers who’d set up shop through E-Gold to fleece the masses.
On June 20, 2011, U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander ordered the money “arrested.” The forfeiture is pending, and the final sum seized is unclear. But the website of a court-appointed claims administrator includes this notation. (Emphasis added): “Approximately $90 million has been seized and/or restrained from the sale of e-metal held in accounts at E-Gold.”
These things are exceptionally noteworthy in the context of the forfeiture case:
E-Gold is assisting investigators in ridding itself of corrupt proceeds warehoused as a result of the money-laundering allegations in 2007. It has cooperated with prosecutors in identifying accounts linked to HYIP scammers and other hucksters.
The Secret Service agent who filed the affidavit is the same agent who led the 2008 AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme investigation, which resulted in the forfeiture of at least $80 million and criminal charges against ASD operator Andy Bowdoin.
Even though the agent allegedly has been targeted with false liens by so-called “sovereign citizens” for his work in the ASD Ponzi case, he continues to serve in a capacity that is vital to the security of the United States. He has conducted numerous investigations involving money-laundering and other crimes. These cases, according to court filings, have resulted in the seizure of more than $300 million in “criminally derived proceeds.” That is more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The agent and his colleagues have worked with a Task Force whose members reverse-engineer fantastically complex financial crimes.
The court-appointed administrator handing the claims process is the same company that handled a similar process in the ASD Ponzi case.
E-Gold has done the right thing in cooperating with investigators.
Coming Soon To An ATM Near You
Any person who spends so little as five minutes on the Ponzi boards knows that Canada-based AlertPay is conducting business with serial promoters of outrageous frauds — frauds that have grave consequences to individual pocketbooks and frauds that have grave ramifications to national and international security.
And now, according to posts that originate on forums referenced in multiple U.S. court filings about massive international fraud schemes, AlertPay is sending debit cards to the scammers.
“Thanks Mann & Co.,” the excited poster announcing her coup on MoneyMakerGroup said, adding five smilies to accent her glee after her earlier reference to ATMs and stores that now could be used to offload profits from a scheme that advertises a return of 2 percent a day.
In an earlier post, the MoneyMakerGroup member said she received the AlertPay debit card in her mailbox in North Carolina.
“Now I’m able 2 get my money out FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!” she roared.
Below her post was a link to a “program” known as “Expert Invest Group” that purports to pay “up to 20000% After 30 days.” The company says its accepts AlertPay, Perfect Money and “Liberty Reserver (sic).”
A (Brief) Pictorial Study In Contrasts
1.
MoneyMakerGroup post from Feb. 16 by promoter of JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid. The post highlights the utilty of AlertPay debit cards in joining other "programs" and offloading profits at ATMs and retail outlets.
2.
From Paragraph 55 of a U.S. Secret Service affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland on June 3, 2011.
