PatrickPretty.com

Tag: James C. Hill

  • UPDATE: Teetering ‘Wealth4AllTeam’ Scheme Reportedly Was Using I-Payout, Same Facilitator Cited By ‘OneX’ Scheme In July

    Screen shot: I-Payout website showing logos of "Global Strategic Partners." Ponzi-forum reports surfaced yesterday that the Wealth4AllTeam HYIP scheme was using I-Payout. In July, a scheme known as "OneX' that federal prosecutors previously described as a fraud and a "pyramid" announced that it was transitioning to I-Payout.

    UPDATE: Wealth4AllTeam, one of the many HYIP schemes pushed by Zeek Rewards “I Got Paid” cheerleader “Ken Russo,” reportedly was using I-Payout as a payment facilitator, according to new Ponzi-forum reports.

    Wealth4AllTeam appears to have suspended operations, leaving the Ponzi forums in an uproar amid claims that it is transitioning to a new business model that incorporates something called “Project Genesis.”

    Earlier this year, Wealth4AllTeam planted the seed that it would sue the RealScam.com antifraud forum  for publishing information unfriendly to Wealth4AllTeam.

    “I-payout quick links has been removed….all the attached bank account has been deactivated..there is no option left to deposit or withdraw…Looks like W4all have a hold on I-payout,” MoneyMakerGroup poster “jhakas22” claimed yesterday.

    If the report is true — and MoneyMakerGroup poster Tobwithu claimed that he (or she) “can confirm that all links at i-payout are gone!’ — then it means that Wealth4AllTeam was using the same facilitator to which the mysterious “OneX’ scheme claimed it was transitioning.

    In April, federal prosecutors described the purported OneX “program” as a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” pushed by former AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin. ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme. In August, Bowdoin was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison.

    On July 19, the PP Blog reported that OneX claimed it had dropped SolidTrustPay — a Canada-based processor linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme — in favor of I-Payout. That announcement was made by “J.C.,” later identified by federal prosecutors as James C. Hill.

    I-Payout’s website publishes the logos of HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and other “Global Strategic Partners,” including Bank of America.

    “J.C.” made the OneX I-Payout announcement on July 17, the same day the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was grilling HSBC executives on HSBC’s anti-money-laundering practices, including an executive who announced his resignation in front of the panel.

    (Also see June 20 PP Blog report about OneX claim that it was working with a processor with a tie to Bank of America. Given events that occurred after the dropping of Bank of America’s name and the appearance of the bank’s name on the I-Payout site, it appears “J.C.” was alluding to I-Payout in June.)

    Any number of ASD Ponzi-scheme pushers used Bank of America’s name to sanitize the ASD fraud. In raising Bank of America’s name in June and announcing the I-Payout transition in July, OneX appears to have been doing the same thing.

    Name-dropping to sanitize fraud schemes is common in the HYIP sphere. So are lawsuit threats and other bids to chill websites that publish information critical of HYIPs.

    In July, Robert Craddock, a purported “consultant” for Rex Venture Group LLC — the operator of the Zeek Rewards MLM scheme — sought to have a HubPages site operated by Zeek critic “K. Chang” removed from the web by filing a complaint with HubPages about purported copyright and trademark infringement and libel. Craddock’s efforts succeeded temporarily.

    In a bizarre Blog post on Aug. 4, Zeek claimed that “all” criticism of Zeek was unfair and planted the seed that unspecified “North Carolina Credit Unions” were circulating a purported “internal memo” that allegedly was “at once unfavorable to Zeek Rewards and false.”

    The Zeek post, attributed to then-acting COO Gregory J. Caldwell, complained the credit unions were slandering Zeek and warned Zeek members to toe the company line.

    Thirteen days later, the SEC filed an emergency court action that described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.

    Craddock now is involved in a purported effort to defend Zeek affiliates from clawback actions by the court-appointed receiver in the SEC’s Zeek case. That effort began after the SEC’s actions against Zeek and also included name-dropping. During a pitch for Zeek members to send in money, Craddock dropped the name of former Florida Attorney General (and former U.S. Rep.) Bill McCollum.

    McCollum, now a partner at the SNR Denton law firm, no longer is in public office. Precisely why Craddock mentioned McCollum’s name is unclear, although Craddock initially said that the Zeek affiliates were hiring SNR Denton. That effort appears now to have fallen through.

    As Florida’s Attorney General, McCollum sued ASD for fraud in August 2008. Some ASD members countered that McCollum should be sued for Deceptive Trade Practices for holding the view that ASD was a fraud. Although McCollum’s office later dropped the ASD lawsuit, it said it had gathered names of ASD fraud victims and provided them to the U.S. Department of Justice, which had established a remissions process through which ASD victims could receive compensation from proceeds seized by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD Ponzi case filed at the federal level in the District of Columbia.

    Zeek is known to have members in common with the ASD Ponzi scheme. Some Zeek members also promoted OneX, the scheme promoted by ASD’s Bowdoin after his December 2010 arrest by the U.S. Secret Service on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    Bowdoin told prospects that OneX was good for “college students.”

    “Ken Russo” also is known as “DRdave.”

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Prosecutors Ask Judge To Sentence AdSurfDaily’s Andy Bowdoin To Maximum Prison Term

    “Fortunately for the investing public, ASD’s popularity in the spring and summer of 2008 also drew the attention of the United States Secret Service, which investigated Bowdoin and ASD and discovered the true nature of the business model.” — Federal prosecutors, in Aug. 13 sentencing memo that asked a federal judge to impose the maximum prison sentence on 1-percent-a-day Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin.

    Thomas A. "Andy" Bowdoin

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia have asked U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer to sentence acknowledged Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily to the maximum term outlined in Bowdoin’s May 2012 plea agreement: 78 months.

    News of the sentencing memo and detailed new allegations against Bowdoin, 77, broke one day after some ASD members were circulating an email that asked their fellow members to “flood” a federal judge with letters of support for the recidivist con man.

    In a sentencing memo and accompanying exhibits, prosecutors advised Collyer that they had linked Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal (AVG), a collapsed 1-percent-a-day Ponzi scheme “that was simply a repackaged version of ASD.”

    The criminal preparations to launch AVG began in October 2008, just two months after the seizure of tens of millions of dollars in ASD-related bank accounts by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008, according to an evidence exhibit filed by prosecutors.

    Bowdoin was a two-thirds owner of AVG, which did some of its banking in Switzerland, according to an exhibit.

    And prosecutors linked Bowdoin to OneX, another alleged fraud scheme.

    In what is believed to be the first public filing that includes specific details about OneX, prosecutors produced an exhibit that identified one of the principals of OneX as James C. Hill, who allegedly also is known by the initials J.C.

    The introduction of the document ends one of the long-standing OneX mysteries: the identity of “J.C.,” who once assured conference-call listeners that “God” was aboard the OneX train.

    When confronted about OneX, prosecutors said, Bowdoin claimed he’d done nothing wrong and was acting on “advice of counsel.”

    ” . . . it became clear that Bowdoin did not speak to a lawyer about OneX, but merely relied on another OneX promoter who had supposedly spoken to a lawyer,” prosecutors said.

    But the most explosive revelations by the government concerned AVG. The exhibits show that investigators obtained emails going back and forth among AVG participants described as Bowdoin “co-conspirators.”

    In one document obtained by investigators,  Bowdoin describes two separate alleged thefts from AVG totaling $2.65 million, according to an evidence exhibit.

    Bowdoin’s partner in AVG was former ASD executive Gary Talbert, according to an evidence exhibit. Bowdoin blamed the alleged theft on Arizona business associates of Talbert.

    The Bowdoin story is one “that reads like a handbook on fraud and deception,” prosecutors said.

    ASD’s patriarch and the co-profiteer of AVG cheated investors out of tens of millions of dollars, prosecutors argued, saying that Bowdoin’s career as a crook dated back “several decades” and caused victims to turn over more than $120 million to the huckster.

    “He had no concerns for the lives he affected or destroyed, and he boldly continued or expanded his criminal conduct even while under the supervision of this Court,” prosecutors argued.