A recidivist securities felon tied to at least 24 bank accounts had an airline ticket for Bermuda last week but was arrested in Florida before he could get offshore after scamming investors in a long-running fraud scheme that had gathered $20 million, according to law-enforcement officials.
Charged in a criminal complaint by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service was James D. Risher, who is associated with firms identified as Jade Asset Group LLC, Managed Capital LLC and Safe Harbor Investments. Risher is accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, money-laundering and conspiracy.
Risher, 61, of Sanibel, Fla., was released from federal prison on Aug. 14. 2004, according to records. His imprisonment stemmed from 1997 convictions for mail fraud, securities fraud and money-laundering for which he was sentenced to 92 months, with three years’ supervised probation after his release.
He also has state-level convictions in Georgia from a securities swindle in the early 1990s, according to records.
The new charges against Risher suggest he embarked on a new swindle in early 2007, perhaps while still on probation for the swindle that led to his 1997 convictions. The FBI, the IRS, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation are assisting postal inspectors in the new probe, which is ongoing.
One of the keys to Risher’s arrest was a notification that law enforcement received from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that Risher had a plane ticket to fly from North Carolina to Bermuda last week, according to court documents.
Risher, according to the investigating postal inspector, had been placed on an ICE watch list during the probe and was being monitored for “scheduled travel outside of the country.”
The investigating postal inspector advised a federal magistrate judge that Risher was a flight risk and may have a bank account in Bermuda, which is located in the Atlantic Ocean about 640 miles from North Carolina. ICE is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Risher had reason to believe investigators were closing in, according to the postal inspector’s affidavit.
Fleeced investors were demanding their money, according to the affidavit. Meanwhile, at least two Florida law firms were investigating claims against Risher on behalf of about 150 investors, according to other records.
Harvey Douglas Goff. SOURCE: Weber County (Utah) Sheriff's Office.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Longtime readers will recall that some members of Florida-based AdSurfDaily engaged in a hectoring campaign against public officials after the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008. Such actions can lead to serious criminal consequences, as the story below illustrates.
It has happened again — this time in Utah, this time involving claims for the spectacular sum of more than $53 TRILLION.
Harvey Douglas Goff, 53, of Ogden, was indicted last month on charges he placed fraudulent liens against Utah public officials after asserting “diplomatic immunity” during a traffic stop last year.
Goff filed bogus liens against 77 parcels in Weber County “[i]n an apparent effort to create an appearance of indebtedness” to him on the part of officials representing the state of Utah, Weber County, Ogden City and the Ogden Police Department, federal prosecutors said.
He has been charged in a 14-count indictment with obstruction of justice, impeding internal revenue laws, filing fictitious obligations, attempted mail fraud and using the mail in furtherance of a scheme and artifice to defraud.
In November 2010, prosecutors said, Goff “mailed” documents styled “Notice of International Commercial Claim Within the Admiralty ab initio Administrative Remedy of Harvey Douglas Goff, Jr., Creditor Secured Party,” prosecutors said. “The documents claimed the agencies contracted to pay more than $53 trillion in damages to Goff. The documents purported to be part of a ‘self-help administrative process’ and asserted that the recipients had 10 days to respond before a ‘default’ resulted.”
The case in part traces its roots to encounters Goff had with law enforcement during traffic stops, including one in which he asserted “diplomatic immunity,” prosecutors said, charging that Goff also impeded tax laws and filed “false and frivolous documents” involving a judge in an IRS case.
Goff challenged the jurisdiction of a state-court judge in pro se pleadings, but the court denied his arguments. When Goff failed to appear for a pretrial conference in December 2010, a bench warrant was issued, prosecutors said.
After Goff was arrested on May 12, he refused to stand before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judge Samuel Alba, which led to an “intervention” by the U.S. Marshals Service, prosecutors said.
Among other things, Goff refused the appointment of counsel, would not state his name or acknowledge his identity and “claimed he had been kidnapped from his home even though the Court made findings in his presence that federal agents had served a duly authorized search warrant,” prosecutors said.
Goff was ordered to undergo a mental-health examination, prosecutors said. He potentially faces decades in prison if convicted on all counts.
The two “fictitious obligation” counts alone carry penalties of up to 25 years in prison, prosecutors said.
An investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the IRS continues, prosecutors said.
Kaboom! It turns out that the cases announced this week against American Precious Metals LLC (APM) by the CFTC and FTC were part of a geographically localized law-enforcement initiative that sprouted from “Operation Broken Trust,” a major national initiative undertaken last year by the U.S. Department of Justice and partner agencies as part of the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
The localized initiative that led to both the CFTC and FTC bringing actions against APM is known as the South Florida Securities and Investment Fraud Initiative. It was created in December 2010 by U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, the top federal prosecutor in the Miami region.
The CFTC accused APM of running a precious-metals scam. Meanwhile, the FTC opened up a second legal front by charging the company with operating a telemarketing fraud scheme from a boiler room. The effect of the approach is that APM, which both agencies accused of running frauds that had gathered tens of millions of dollars, now has to square off against litigation coming from two different directions.
Ferrer has warned for months that white-collar fraudsters operating in the region had no safe haven either onshore or offshore.
In addition to Ferrer’s office, the CFTC and FTC, members of the South Florida Task Force include the FBI, the IRS, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the SEC, the FDIC, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and ICE Homeland Investigations.
ICE is a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“Investors lose billions of dollars annually to fraudulent schemes,” Ferrer said in December, when introducing the new task force. “Some victims — the luckier ones — lose only thousands of dollars. Others lose their entire lives’ savings. While the victims of fraud are financially ruined, the fraudsters live a life of luxury. Together with our law enforcement and regulatory partners, we hope to help put an end to this type of fraud.”
Thanh-Viet “Jeremy” Cao, the California Ponzi schemer later accused in Nevada of filing fraudulent liens for enormous sums against public officials and identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a “sovereign citizen,” once threatened to torture and kill his business partner and the partner’s wife and family, federal prosecutors said.
To keep victims in a state of terror, Cao said he knew people who previously had “chopped up” a baby in front of the baby’s parents, and then killed the baby’s mother,” prosecutors said.
Those threats led to an extortion and firearms case brought by the state of California.
And Cao dialed up the terror by referencing an “assassination” and “fatal car accident.” When he was arrested, “he possessed a loaded firearm, and body armor and other firearms were found at his residence,” prosecutors said.
Cao, who was convicted in the state-level extortion case in 2009, was convicted Monday in the federal Ponzi case, which was brought after an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay victims $12.4 million in restitution. He is scheduled to stand trial in the false-liens case later this year.
Victims in the liens case included four federal judges, staff members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California and employees of the SEC, the Secret Service and the IRS, federal prosecutors in Nevada said year.
The IRS Criminal Investigations unit brought the Nevada case, prosecutors said.
Cao filed at least 22 fraudulent liens for astronomical sums, according to records. He turned to filing bogus financial claims after law enforcement, acting with the authority of a court order in the California Ponzi case, seized a $200,000 Bentley Cao had acquired with investor funds and sought to equip with armor.
“Cao is a financial predator who will stop at nothing to cheat his victims out of their life savings,” said U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy of the Southern District of California.
“He continues to show no remorse for his actions, which destroyed the finances of many innocent and hardworking people,” Duffy said. “When law enforcement and the federal judiciary stepped in to stop this fraud, Cao retaliated by trying to ruin their finances through the filing of false liens. The sentence in this [Ponzi] case demonstrates how dangerous predators like Cao can be.”
A veteran Secret Service agent said bids to injure victims and the U.S. financial system would not be tolerated.
“The U.S. Secret Service has more than 140 years of experience in investigating criminals like Cao, who target the stability of this country’s financial systems and prey on innocent victims,” said Gregory J. Meyer, special agent in charge.
Cao faces a maximum sentence of 223 years if convicted of all counts in the false-liens case. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas in July 2010.
As part of his liens fraud, Cao developed a “hit list” in which he promised to obtain certain personal information of government offcials “so he could ruin them financially,” prosecutors said.
He also filed for bogus tax refunds, according to records.
Cao’s purported business career was one marked by “cheating” that got him fired from his job for “fraud and misconduct,” prosecutors said, describing him as a “career criminal.”
“When victims asked Cao what happened to their investments, Cao taunted them with profanity,” prosecutors said. “Cao’s victims lost their life savings, retirement funds, and their homes.”
About 190 victims were affected in the Ponzi scheme, prosecutors said, describing his 30-year sentence as one of the longest in a white-collar case in the history of Southern California.
BULLETIN: Convicted Ponzi schemer Thanh-Viet “Jeremy” Cao, who also was accused of filing false liens against federal officials and has been linked to the “sovereign citizen” movement by the Anti-Defamation League, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison in the Ponzi case.
Cao was convicted in December 2010. The U.S. Secret Service and the IRS handled the probe.
In July 2010, Cao was charged criminally with filing false liens for tens of millions of dollars against federal officials. He also was accused of filing for a false tax refund for the astronomical sum of $82 billion.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Although Donna Jones did not run an autosurf or online HYIP fraud, the case against her is instructive. Indeed, prosecutors said, Jones was an insider who was aware of the Ponzi scheme being conducted by her boss, Michael J. Park. And Jones took an active role in the scheme, encouraging customers to invest, hustling cash even as the scheme was unraveling, creating bogus “spreadsheets” and fabricating information given to investors.
It is common for autosurf and HYIP insiders to solicit funds for fraud schemes, use spreadsheets with bogus or illusory information to reel in and (later) lull prospects, siphon investor funds and simply lie to maintain their ability to keep drinking from a criminal well.
At least seven federal, state and local agencies became part of an intense probe to reverse-engineer the Park scheme. In the end, Park himself testified against his former employee.
UPDATED 9:58 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A woman employed by a Tennessee Ponzi schemer added $19,000 in new clothes to her wardrobe, withdrew $225,000 in cash and spent more than $300,000 on home renovations, federal prosecutors said.
Now, Donna Jones has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison. Jones, 37, of Dickson, Tenn., also was ordered to pay nearly $8.2 million in restitution to victims.
Jones was the office manager of Park Capital Management Group (PCMG), a Brentwood, Tenn.-based business operated by Michael J. Park. Park, who is serving a 96-month prison sentence, testified about Jones’ knowledge of the scheme at her sentencing hearing, prosecutors said.
Federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies worked together to expose the fraud, prosecutors said.
Among the agencies working the criminal probe were the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the IRS, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Brentwood (Tenn.) Police Department. The SEC sued Park in a civil case.
“Jones repeatedly encouraged people to invest by falsely promising security, growth and inflated returns on their money, but instead the investors lost their savings as part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme,” said U.S. Attorney Jerry E. Martin of the Middle District of Tennessee.
Park advised U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger that Jones used a “spreadsheet” to keep track of “fictitious” PCMG accounts and that he and Jones “pooled” investor funds and used them as “their own personal bank account,” prosecutors said.
“This case further demonstrates how effectively IRS Criminal Investigation agents work jointly with our federal and state law enforcement partners in investigating complex financial crimes,” said Darryl Williams, acting special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation unit in Nashville.
“IRS Criminal Investigation agents were able to use their expertise to conduct a complex financial investigation, follow the paper trail, and unravel violations of federal law,” Williams said.
It also was Jones’ idea to use the seal of the Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC) to create the illusion that investing with PCMG was safe, according to Park’s testimony.
But “PCMG was not a member of the SIPC, and the SIPC provided no protection for PCMG investors,” prosecutors said.
Jones, who also was accused of concealing the scheme by fabricating documents and soliciting funds to cover shortfalls, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money-laundering in January.
Among the documents were IRS 1099 forms, but “none of the funds listed in PCMG investment accounts were ever invested,” according to Park’s testimony.
It is common in the autosurf and HYIP spheres for purveyors to claim an “opportunity” is legitimate because the company gathers tax information and sends 1099 forms.
Park also was the subject of a 2008 complaint filed by the SEC, bringing the number of state and federal agencies involved in PCMG-related litigation to at least seven.
“Park used investor funds, among other things, to help purchase a $1 7 million home, pay for expensive golf memberships, to purchase a Porsche automobile and to purchase a Mercedes Benz sedan worth more than $90,000,” the SEC said in September 2008.
BULLETIN: It has happened again, this time in the Sunshine State.
Mark D. Leitner has been indicted in Florida on charges of filing false liens against federal prosecutors, investigators and court personnel involved in his criminal trial last year on tax charges.
Leitner, whose age and address were not provided in a Justice Department statement, was accused of filing liens for $48.489 billion against a number of federal employees. He was specifically accused of filing false liens, corruptly endeavoring to impede and impair the Internal Revenue Service and publicly disclosing Social Security numbers in the commission of illegal activity.
In at least five instances, Leitner disclosed the Social Security numbers of federal officials, prosecutors said. Records at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, meanwhile, show that Leitner unsuccessfully tried to sue the United States last year.
Records at the Federal Bureau of Prisons show that Mark Daniel Leitner is an inmate at the Lewisburg federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania. His age is listed as 39.
Mark Daniel Leitner was convicted in Pensacola last year in a tax case, according to federal records.
The new case against Leitner is reminiscent of events surrounding the AdSurfDaily autosurf, which federal prosecutors described as a $110 million Ponzi scheme.
ASD figures Kenneth Wayne Leaming and Christian Oesch unsuccessfully sought to sue the United States last year, apparently for the staggering sum of $29 TRILLION, after key court rulings went against the Florida-based company operated by Andy Bowdoin.
Leaming and Oesch also used the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. As was the case with Leitner, their lawsuit bid was rejected.
ASD is known to have members who define themselves as “sovereign” beings who are not answerable to U.S. law.
In the Leitner case, prosecutors said that he “filed and mailed numerous harassing and frivolous documents to the court and personnel.”
Some ASD members claimed a federal judge owed tens of millions of dollars for her role in the ASD case. The U.S. Secret Service and federal prosecutors also were targeted with mail that demanded them to take certain actions.
See earlier story on Kenneth Wayne Leaming. See another one. Leaming, who claims to practice maritime law but appears never to have attended law school, has been sanctioned in Washington state for filing bogus liens, according to records.
See December 2010 story about a false-liens case against Andrew Isaac Chance in Maryland.
See an August 2010 story about a false-liens case against Thanh Viet Jeremy Cao in California.
See a June 2010 story about a false-liens case against Ronald James Davenport in Washington state.
BULLETIN: David A. Smith, who presided over a $220 million Forex fraud known as OLINT, has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Smith, 41, is a citizen of Jamaica. He “executed a Ponzi scheme to defraud over 6,000 investors located in the Middle District of Florida and elsewhere out of more than $220 million,” prosecutors said. “Smith led investors to believe that he was investing their money in foreign currency trading, earning 10 percent per month on average. In fact, he was not trading their funds.”
The case included a conspiracy with unnamed others to launder $128 million, prosecutors said.
“Considerable investigative support” was provided by the Financial Crimes Unit with the Royal Turks and Caicos Police Force, the Financial Services Commission in Jamaica, the Special Investigation and Prosecution Team in Turks and Caicos, and the governments of the United Kingdom, Turks and Caicos, and Jamaica, the FBI said today.
Lead agencies in the United States included U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI and the IRS. Also assisting in the probe were the CFTC and the NFA.
Smith pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and 18 counts of money laundering. He was the majority owner in a Lake Mary, Fla., firm known as I-Trade FX LLC, prosecutors said last year.
BULLETIN: Five days after Ponzi swindler Trevor Cook pleaded guilty to defrauding victims in an elaborate international scam that reduced investors to ruin, a Minneapolis man hid proceeds from the caper from law enforcement and the court-appointed receiver, federal prosecutors said.
Victims of the Cook scheme — many of whom were people of faith — were defrauded of tens of millions of dollars. Court records strongly suggest that some of the recoverable money was spent on booze, exotic dancers and gambling — after the scheme was exposed by the SEC and CFTC in November 2009 and Cook’s assets were frozen.
Jon Jason Greco, 40, now has been charged with making false statements to federal agents. The case was filed under seal Tuesday, and the seal was lifted yesterday.
Cook, 38, pleaded guilty on April 13, 2010, and is serving a term of 25 years in federal prison. His plea agreement in the $190 million swindle required him to disclose the whereabouts of assets and cooperate with investigators. Investors immediately expressed fears that money that could be used to help them recover from the devastating scam had been hidden and that Cook could not be trusted in any context.
Some of the hidden loot was found months after the plea and cooperation agreement. Part of it had been concealed behind a toilet-paper dispenser and in air ducts in an apartment occupied by Cook’s brother, Graham Cook. Loot also was found in a storage locker at the Mall of America.
Although the recovered loot made up only a tiny percentage of the $190 million scam, victims said every dime was needed and that justice demanded that no third party should be permitted to profit from Cook’s colossal fraud.
Prosecutors now say that Greco came into possession of some of the loot on April 18, 2010 — five days after the Cook guilty plea. Greco helped hide the loot and lied about it when questioned by investigators, according to prosecutors.
Court records suggest investigators established links among Cook, Graham Cook and Greco, who once worked briefly for Trevor Cook as a purported security guard at the Van Dusen mansion in Minneapolis. The big break in the case appears to have occurred in July 2010, when Greco’s roommate told federal agents that Greco was “holding assets” for the Cook brothers and impeding a federal investigation.
Investigators had believed since at least June 2010 that Greco had stashed money from the caper, according to court filings.
The case against Greco was bolstered when an exotic dancer told an IRS criminal investigator who was following leads that Greco, believed to have been unemployed for months, suddenly began to spend generously at a Minneapolis strip club and to plow $100 bills into slot machines at a gambling emporium.
“Greco placed some of the assets in his possession in a locker at the Mall of America,” prosecutors charged. “On July 24, 2010, law enforcement seized the assets, valued at approximately $150,000. Subsequently, Greco allegedly claimed to investigators that the seized assets belonged to him.”
But the assets were from the Ponzi caper, prosecutors charged.
Greco faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on two counts of making false statements.
When interviewed last summer, Greco told agents that he had no knowledge of concealed assets belonging to Cook, when, in fact, he did,” prosecutors said.
InstaForex, a company accused by the CFTC last month of targeting U.S. customers to purchase unregistered offerings and paying through Perfect Money, says participants can win this Lotus — but they have to pay to play by depositing at least $1,000 USD. Sweepstakes that require a purchase by participants are illegal in the United States.
SPECIAL REPORT:UPDATED 2:27 P.M. ET (U.S.A., FEB. 9) Federal court and web records show that at least three of the 14 purported Forex dealers named defendants in a major sweep of unregistered firms last month by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission advertised that they accepted funds from Perfect Money.
Perfect Money is a murky money-services business purportedly based in Panama that allegedly was used by a company that defrauded thousands of deaf investors by promising Visa debit cards and returns of 1.2 percent per day, according to federal records. The name of a man purported to be Perfect Money’s contact person in Panama City is referenced in federal court filings that tie money from the alleged EMG/Finanzas Forex fraud scheme to an international narcotics probe that led to the seizure of at least 59 bank accounts in the United States and the companion seizure of 294 bars of gold and at least seven luxury vehicles.
The number of purported Forex dealers that allegedly accepted Perfect Money and were named defendants in the CFTC sweep could be higher than three because not all of the defendants publicly disclosed the precise mechanisms by which they accepted payments from U.S. customers.
According to court filings and web records, some of the companies also advertised that they accepted funds from Liberty Reserve, another murky offshore processor, and even PayPal. PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy specifically bans the use of its services for “currency exchanges,” businesses that support Ponzi and pyramid schemes and businesses associated with “off-shore banking.”
PayPal says it requires “pre-approval” for any businesses “selling stocks, bonds, securities, options, futures (forex) or an investment interest.” Whether any of the businesses named in the CFTC Forex complaints received approval from PayPal to either use its name in promos or use its services to collect money is unclear.
Records show (see paragraph 17 of SEC complaint) that Perfect Money payments were accepted by Imperia Invest IBC, the mysterious offshore company accused by the SEC in October 2010 of pulling off a spectacular fraud that fleeced at least 14,000 people of millions of dollars. Included among the Imperia victims were thousands of Americans with hearing impairments, the SEC said.
Imperia was promoted on Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forums such as TalkGold, which also promoted at least two of the companies named defendants in the CFTC’s Forex sweep. One of the companies — InstaTrade Corp., doing business as InstaForex — is advertising on TalkGold that participants will have a chance in the months ahead to win a Lotus Elise, a sports coupe that carries a price tag of more than $50,000.
To win the expensive car, however, investors have to pay to play, according to InstaForex. Sweepstakes that require a purchase are illegal in the United States, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
InstaForex investors can qualify to win the Lotus by replenishing “the real trading account in InstaForex Company with 1000 USD or more during [the] Campaign period,” the company says in stilted English.
“Participant has a right to register in the Campaign more than 1 account and raise his/her chances for the victory,” InstaForex continues in stilted English. “However, in case contest administration detects more than 100 accounts registered by one person, it reserves the right to decrease the number of accounts till (sic) 100.”
Meanwhile, the name of Roger Alberto Santamaria del Cid — the purported contact person of Perfect Money — appears in federal court filings in the EMG/Finanzas Forex forfeiture case. The EMG/Finanzas case was brought last year by a federal task force based in Florida and alleges that tens of millions of dollars seized in Arizona as part of the probe were linked to the international narcotics trade. (See Paragraph 10 of the federal affidavit for the reference to del Cid, who is identified as the “Secretary” of EMG. Del Cid is referenced in domain-registration data for PerfectMoney.com as the contact person for Perfect Money Finance Corp.)
Elements of the prosecution against more than $100 million in assets linked to EMG/Finanzas were brought by members of the same task force that brought civil and criminal prosecutions against Florida-based AdSurfDaily. Some of the members of the task force have experience working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Secret Service, the IRS and other agencies to reverse-engineer fantastically complex financial crimes.
At least one of the investigators, according to records, was instrumental in bringing the successful money-laundering conspiracy prosecution against the e-Gold payment processor in 2007. The e-Gold case was brought in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It resulted in guilty pleas announced on July 21, 2008.
About two weeks later, the U.S. Secret Service raided ASD’s headquarters in Quincy, Fla. Federal prosecutors later alleged ASD was operating a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million — and had ceased using e-Gold “shortly after” the e-Gold indictments were announced in April 2007.
Federal prosecutors also alleged that 12DailyPro and PhoenixSurf — two autosurfs charged by the SEC with operating Ponzi schemes — also had used e-Gold. In December 2010, prosecutors said that ASD also had the ability to accept money from e-Bullion, yet-another processor accused of accepting and distributing Ponzi funds from various schemes.
James Fayed, the operator of e-Bullion, was accused of arranging the July 2008 murder of Pamela Fayed, his estranged wife and potential witness against him. Pamela Fayed’s body was found in a California parking garage just days before the ASD raid in Florida.
Erma Seabaugh, known among ASD members as the “Web Room Lady,” used E-Bullion in November 2007 to transfer $10,510 to ASD, according to a forfeiture complaint filed in December 2010.
On Jan. 26, the CFTC sued 14 purported Forex companies simultaneously, alleging that they were unregistered entities that were illegally targeting U.S. residents. At least three of the companies — ForInvest (Perfect Money reference appears online), InstaTrade Corp. (see Paragraph 21 of CFTC complaint for the Perfect Money reference) and Kingdom Forex Trading and Futures Ltd. (see Paragraph 17 of CFTC complaint for the Perfect Money reference) — accepted Perfect Money, according to records.
Two of the complaints — InstaTrade and Kingdom Forex — were brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the same venue in which the e-Gold case was brought in 2007. The case against ForInvest was brought in U.S. District Court from the Northern District of Illinois.
Perfect Money advertised a relationship with at least two of the defendants named in the CFTC cases: InstaForex and FXOpen, according to web records.
On its website, Perfect Money advertised its relationship with InstaForex and FXOpen, two companies accused by the CFTC of targeting Americans with unregistered Forex offerings. The FXOpen website now appears to be blocked from loading in the United States. It was not immediately clear if the site will load in other parts of the world.
An affinity fraudster and financial scammer has received a 15-year prison sentence in the “In God We Trust” caper, an online Ponzi scheme that traded on religion and patriotic sentiments while gathering more than $17 million.
Byron Keith Brown, 34, of Vienna, Va., also was ordered by U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson of the District of Maryland to make restitution of more than $9.8 million to investors.
Prosecutors said Brown bought at least 16 high-end cars with investors’ money. Nameplates included Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini, among others. Brown was not licensed as a broker, dealer or investment adviser in Maryland, Virginia or the District of Columbia, the areas in which his scheme was concentrated.
“Byron Brown used the internet to make it appear as if he were running an investment management business for wealthy investors, when in fact he was stealing millions of dollars from investors and using it to buy a fleet of luxury cars,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein of the District of Maryland.
The IRS brought the case.
Brown, prosecutors said, filed bankruptcy in 1999 — but soon emerged with a tale of fabulous success that painted him as the head of an international firm that specialized in catering to wealthy investors from offices in Washington, D.C., Wilmington, Del., New York, and London, England.
It was all an illusion, prosecutors said.
The words “IN GOD WE TRUST” became the official U.S. motto by an Act of Congress in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower was President. The words officially were added to U.S. paper currency, beginning in 1957.
Brown operated at least three companies that used the “In God We Trust” theme, prosecutors said. Experts say scammers frequently use appeals to faith and patriotism to steal from investors or line them up to be fleeced in fraud schemes.
A recidivist securities felon tied to at least 24 bank accounts had an airline ticket for Bermuda last week but was arrested in Florida before he could get offshore after scamming investors in a long-running fraud scheme that had gathered $20 million, according to law-enforcement officials.
