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Tag: KINGZ Capital Management Corp.

  • OUR ANSWER: ‘Nuts!’ PP Blog Receives Threat That ‘Authorities’ Will Move Against It If It Doesn’t Remove Content About Profitable Sunrise Figure Nanci Jo Frazer And Others; Email Claims FBI ‘Fully Aware Of All Your Consistent Attempts’ To Harm Frazer Group

    profitablesunrisethreateningemails

    “No!” Make that “Hell no!” — or, as Gen. Anthony McAuliffe once famously scribbled at the prompting of Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard during the Battle of the Bulge, after soldiers for the Nazi Third Reich demanded surrender: “Nuts!”

    At 12:11 a.m. ET today, the PP Blog inexplicably received five duplicate emails from an IP in the vicinity of Tiffin, a city in North Central Ohio. The emails were sent through the Blog’s contact form and threatened that “the authorities” would get involved if the Blog did not remove content about Nanci Jo Frazer and other Profitable Sunrise story figures by Nov. 15, nine days from today. The emails were signed “Nanci Jo Frazer,” but the Blog cannot independently confirm Frazer was the sender.

    Why the Blog received five emails is unknown. The Blog tested the form after receiving the duplicated submissions, and it appears to be working properly, meaning it does not appear to be sending multiple copies of inquiries from readers. The Blog, however, did experience an outage that lasted approximately two hours yesterday. The outage occurred shortly after an IP from Ukraine made an appearance here at approximately 1:50 p.m. (Bots that leave a Ukranian signature have been circling the Blog for weeks.) The precise cause of yesterday’s outage, which occurred after the Blog reported on an HYIP/prime-bank scam in California outed as part of an FBI undercover operation that began in 2006, remains unclear.

    In any event, the Blog will not remove any Frazer or Profitable Sunrise-related content unless ordered to do so by a U.S. federal judge. Nor will it submit to threats that incongruously are mixed with appeals to the Christian faith to make posts go missing. HYIP schemes are all about incongruities and preposterous constructions: “secret” or “safe” or “guaranteed” or “insured” investments that purportedly are “offshore” and able to deliver Christians and other people of faith legitimate interest rates of hundreds or even thousands of percent each year, for instance.

    For security reasons, the Blog will not reply to the emails at the Gmail address entered by the sender. Instead, it will publish the content of the emails in this  space. The FBI is free to make its own assessment about acts attributed to the agency by the sender in or around Tiffin. The Blog also will continue to publish Profitable Sunrise-related stories. Such stories are in the public interest.

    The emails build on a conspiracy theory that has been circulating for weeks: that the Blog somehow acts in concert with fraudsters, cyberstalkers and at least one felon posing as a Christian do-gooder to subject Nancy Jo Frazer and her ministry to harm. Meanwhile, the emails plant the equally false seed that the Blog is part of a group involved in Bitcoin scams.

    Among other things, the emails seek to chill the Blog’s reporting by contending that “The FBI is fully aware of all your consistent attempts to keep my name and our FocusUp Ministries Board members, our staff, voluteers and even my husband (who had no connection) tagged to negative , damaging words (such as scam, fraud and Ponzi) along with negative press and stories we are not connected to at all.” (No editing performed by PP Blog.)

    “Last week through a phone conversation, the Senior investigator from the FBI, instructed me to have my attorney send you a Cease and Desist and demand for immediate removal of your unauthorized usage of materials, videos, audio, all radio & TV media, articles and all types of communication connected to FocusUp Ministries and our Board Members, staff and volunteers: including Nanci Jo Frazer (Nancy Frazer) and Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel (volunteer), Jon Simmons (staff pastor) also my husband David Frazer,” the emails read in part. (No editing performed by PP Blog.)

    The emails did not identify the purported “Senior investigator from the FBI” who purportedly gave the sender instructions on how to accomplish the deletion of PP Blog content the apparent Frazer group supporter finds both objectionable and actionable. The PP Blog is willing, however, to voluntarily provide the IP address of the sender to the FBI, the SEC, the Ohio Office of the Attorney General or other law-enforcement agency in the United States that has an interest in the Profitable Sunrise case.

    No subpoena will be necessary; we’ll simply provide the information and copies of the email, once the Blog verifies the request is genuine.

    Over the years, the PP Blog has encountered various bids to chill its reporting on the HYIP sphere, including a sustained DDoS attack in 2010 and traffic floods in 2011 for which the Blog received a claim of responsibility. The Blog forwarded the claim to a U.S. law-enforcement agency.

    In 2012, during a period of heavy reporting on two specific HYIP schemes, the Blog received repeated threats believed to be from different senders. Two of the threats were not aimed at the Blog. The first was received Aug. 6, 2012, and was aimed at three prominent U.S. politicians: one Democrat and two Republicans.  This communication appeared to have been sent from Switzerland and questioned why the American politicians are “still alive and running around.” The email further described an American subject of the PP Blog’s crime reporting as a “true Patriot[]” who, like other purported “Patriots,” believed in “sending out mercenaries to take out those corrupt bankers, USG politicians, agents, judges and attorney’s [sic].”

    Such content is consistent with members of the so-called Patriot Movement or similar U.S. extremists who identify themselves as “sovereign citizens.” Because the communication appears to have originated in a country famous for banking secrecy, it leads to questions about whether U.S. domestic extremists were networking with counterparts in Europe or perhaps were there themselves to “defend” HYIP schemes and chill reporting on the outrageous frauds by suggesting that mercenaries and assassins were at their disposal.

    The second communication, received Aug. 29, 2012, was aimed at the alleged operator of a huge international Ponzi scheme. This communication appears to blame the accused operator for not properly defending the purported opportunity from investigations by the U.S. government.

    “why you don’t stand to back [program name deleted by PP Blog][?]” the communication read in part.

    “we lost our money. we will kill you . . .”

    The communication concluded by slurring the alleged Ponzi operator as a “dog.” It appears to have been sent from Pakistan.

    Yet-another 2012 communication believed to be from a different sender suggested that members of the PP Blog’s family might die if the Blog continued to report on HYIP schemes. The Blog forwarded all of these communications to a U.S. law-enforcement agency.

    In 2009, the Blog repeatedly was stalked by an apologist for the AdSurfDaily and AdViewGlobal Ponzi schemes who sought to engineer an SEO campaign against the Blog. This tactic was repeated in 2012 by an apologist for the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid scheme which, like ASD and AVG, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.

    This specific individual appears to have been inspired in part by an infamous troll whose posts and visits bear an IP signature from the United Kingdom. The troll has been attacking antiscam sites since at least 2009, often incorporating sexual innuendo, antiChristian themes and elements of misogyny into his bizarre and vulgar game plan. In any event, the JSS/JBP apologist he inspired asserted he’d defend purported operator Frederick Mann “so help me God.” He also targeted specific PP Blog readers in an SEO campaign carried out on a free Blogger site — all while spreading absurd conspiracy theories and utterly preposterous lies. At the same time, he appears to have embedded code in certain communications as a means of trying to identify potential federal witnesses and perhaps even obtain/isolate the identities undercover federal agents may use online.

    Requests for the Blog to delete content are not always menacing, but can be described fairly as mind-bogglingly bizarre. In 2010, an affiliate of the MPB Today MLM scheme asked the Blog to delete a story that reported President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were being depicted as Nazis in a promo designed to recruit MPB Today affiliates. A separate script from the same MPB Today recruiter described the Obama family as welfare recipients who aspired to eat dog food and put these words into the mouth of First Lady Michelle Obama: “Hmm, I should prolly call my Food Stamp worker now that I’ve joined MPB.”

    The Blog declined the deletion request.

    MPB Today operator Gary Calhoun later was jailed in Florida on state-level racketeering charges. Federal prosecutors contended in July 2012 that crimes such as access-device fraud and fraud in connection with identification documents had occurred. Some MPB Today affiliates claimed the purported grocery “program” had been endorsed by the U.S. government and Walmart and that impoverished prospects should sell their Food Stamps to raise the $200 needed to join MPB Today. At least one MPB Today affiliate referenced pipe bombs in a promo.

    In May 2009, the PP Blog reported that the AdViewGlobal scam announced it had secured a deal with a new offshore wire facilitator. The AVG announcement was made on the same day the President of the United States announced a crackdown on offshore fraud. The PP Blog later was asked by AVG’s purported facilitator to remove the story. The Blog refused.

    The purported AVG facilitator — KINGZ Capital Management Corp. — later was linked to the epic Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme in Minnesota and was booted from the National Futures Association. AVG earlier had collapsed in a pile of Ponzi rubble. Even as it was going down, critics of the “program” and even members concerned about where their money had gone were threatened with lawsuits and ISP terminations for speaking out online.

    Federal prosecutors later linked the AVG scam to the $119 million AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme broken up by the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD story figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming, a purported “sovereign citizen,” is serving a federal prison sentence for targeting federal employees involved in the ASD case with bogus liens seeking billions of dollars, assisting a known tax fraudster in the filing of false liens, harboring federal fugitives in a case unrelated to ASD and being a felon in possession of firearms.

    HYIP schemes are a cancer on America and the rest of the globe because they permit the murkiest of figures to acquire tremendous sums of money that endanger the United States and other nations. They are a scourge on society in no small measure because they attract “sovereign citizens” and other extremists whose intent is to undermine legitimate markets and create widespread confusion, if not anarchy. People of faith often are targets of HYIP scammers. The scams often switch forms, but the criminality remains largely the same.

    In the case of Profitable Sunrise, the SEC has alleged that potentially tens of millions of dollars were driven to an individual potentially operating overseas. This individual’s identity may not be known. The allegations alone are chilling.

    Frazer and her associates are not named in the SEC civil action. But Frazer and two of her alleged business associates — husband David Frazer and Nancy Frazer business associate Albert Rosebrock — are named in a Profitable Sunrise-related civil fraud action filed by the state of Ohio in July.

    As noted above, the PP Blog will not remove any Frazer or Profitable Sunrise-related content. Here, now, the verbatim content of the emails received by the Blog at 12:11 a.m. today. (The Blog added carriage returns to make the contents more readable.)

    The Emails

    Dear Patrick;

    I am send you this private (not to be published or shared) email to you as a Christian brother, from your Christian sister, in hopes to have your assistance to stop all media coverage concerning our Ministry and our volunteer board members without having to get the authorities involved to get this accomplished.

    We understand that you have been trying to find the truth about Profitable Sunrise. The FBI has fully reviewed every document, communication and record we have and has returned everything to us. Our lead investigator stated that it is clear that we were a victim of “innocent ignorance”.

    The investigation resulted in no criminal charges being filed. The Federal Government has confirmed we are not being named in this case. Kansas is in the process of dismissing the case and Ohio has stated they do not have enough information to move forward (after losing the majority of the assets at our hearing on August 30th, 2013). We are so thankful that we are finally being vindicated and can speak out soon.

    2013 has been a refining year but so many awesome miracles have occurred that I cannot just feel there was no positive purpose. We believed that Profitable Sunrise was the “real deal”. We know that many of you believe that BitCoin is the “real deal” but in Texas, it is now declared a security and to some- part of a Ponzi? We sometimes learn things the hard way.

    The FBI is fully aware of all your consistent attempts to keep my name and our FocusUp Ministries Board members, our staff, voluteers and even my husband (who had no connection) tagged to negative , damaging words (such as scam, fraud and Ponzi) along with negative press and stories we are not connected to at all. Thus driving traffic to your website for your own purpose.

    Last week through a phone conversation, the Senior investigator from the FBI, instructed me to have my attorney send you a Cease and Desist and demand for immediate removal of your unauthorized usage of materials, videos, audio, all radio & TV media, articles and all types of communication connected to FocusUp Ministries and our Board Members, staff and volunteers: including Nanci Jo Frazer (Nancy Frazer) and Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel (volunteer), Jon Simmons (staff pastor) also my husband David Frazer.

    I am requesting that Patrickpretty.com and all associate websites, blogs and media… Cease and Desist immediately from using images, text, tags,YouTubes, Powerpoints, articles, documents and recordings associated in any way with the patrickpretty.com website, which is containing or referring to Nanci Jo Frazer, Nancy Frazer, David Frazer, Albert Rosebrock, David Steckel, Jon Simmons and FocusUp Ministries and/or any of our associate Ministries, as you are not authorized to use our names or image for any purpose without written permission.

    We have spent hundreds of hours of research to help authorities in everyway to fully understand and solve this case. We are almost to the point whereas I can share what I have learned to help avoid this event from happening again. I believe in going to my Christian brother first to resolve an issue. I believe that your heart is in the right place.

    We need to see that everything is deleted and completely removed from the Internet by Friday, November 15th, 2013 so we can all move on. I hope you honor this and that we can start over and have this be a much better story for all.

    Thanks Patrick!
    Nanci Jo Frazer

  • ‘American Greed’ Producing Episode On Trevor Cook Ponzi Fraud; Seniors, People Of Faith Fleeced By Cook And His Pitchmen

    Trevor Cook
    Trevor Cook

    CNBC’s “American Greed” will be in Minneapolis today to begin filming an episode on the massive Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme that was targeted at senior citizens and conservative Christians and rendered some victims penniless, a source told the PP Blog.

    Cook’s scheme gathered about $194 million. It collapsed in 2009. Money that potentially could go to victims is still missing. The scheme was reminiscent of the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in that it took various bizarre and disturbing turns.

    Earlier this month, Cook pitchman Jason Bo-Alan Beckman was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Gerald Durand received 20 years. Christopher Pettengill, who cooperated with prosecutors, received a 90-month sentence. Sentencing for Pat Kiley, a conspiracy theorist and former radio host in his seventies, was put on hold, pending the results of medical and psychological exams.

    Cook, the ringleader, received a 25-year sentence in 2010.

    For what the Cook fraud lacked in dollar volume — indeed, it was significantly smaller than Tom Petters’ epic Ponzi fraud in Minnesota — it more than made up for in pure brazenness. Beckman essentially was accused of taunting victims in his court filings after stealing millions from a senior-citizen couple in their late eighties. Durand told a tale about a submersible submarine Cook allegedly bought on eBay for the waters of Canada before moving it to Panama, where Cook purportedly found the conditions to be more sub-friendly.

    Kiley once tried to have a CFTC lawyer fined $1,000 for filing court papers Kiley deemed “offensive.”

    The Cook scheme also had something in common with AdViewGlobal, the collapsed 1-percent-a-day autosurf linked to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme: a tie to offshore facilitator KINGZ Capital Management Corp.

    AdViewGlobal announced its purported tie to KINGZ on May 4, 2009, the same day the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore fraud. KINGZ denied any tie to AVG. But the National Futures Association (NFA) established a tie between KINGZ and Cook.

    AdViewGlobal collapsed during the summer of 2009, amid reports that millions of dollars had been stolen. The purported “opportunity” bizarrely declared itself a “private association” operating in Uruguay, apparently in a bid to evade U.S. regulatory scrutiny even though it was conducting business in the United States. Federal prosecutors tied ASD President Andy Bowdoin to AdViewGlobal in 2012. Bowdoin, now serving a 78-month prison sentence, once claimed that prosecutors were “Satan” and compared the U.S. Secret Service to the 9/11 terrorists. His scheme gathered at least $119 million.

    Prosecutors have evidence that suggests at least some of the AdViewGlobal money was deposited in Switzerland. The Cook Ponzi also did business in Switzerland.

    There also is a tie between Trevor Cook and Peregrine Financial Group Inc., the collapsed fraud scheme of Russell R. Wasendorf Sr., now facing up to 50 years in federal prison. Wasendorf once was a member of NFA’s Futures Commission Merchant Advisory Committee

    Peregrine consumed at least $215 million and conducted a scam for two decades, prosecutors said. “[I]n order for the fraud to be effective and sustainable for years, defendant routinely created and used false certifications and forged documents to deceive his customers, his accounting department, his fellow corporate officers, an outside auditor, and multiple regulatory agencies whose core function was to detect and prevent exactly the type of criminal activity defendant perpetrated,” prosecutors said of Wasendorf.

  • EDITORIAL: Animated Attack On Obama Goes Missing From MPB Today Affiliate’s Sales Arsenal; PP Blog Declines Request From Affiliate’s MLM Sponsor To Remove Story That Describes Bizarre Sales Pitch Painting President As Nazi

    Regular readers of the PP Blog know that it supports the efforts of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to weed out the purveyors of schemes who brought the U.S. and much of the world economy to its knees. Obama is a Democrat.

    What readers may not know is that the Blog is written by a Republican who celebrates America’s entrepreneurial spirit, its market economy, its job-creators, its Great Defenders of Freedom, its Great Guardians of Liberty.

    The PP Blog concerns itself with matters of interest to readers who embrace online commerce and see the Internet as an outlet that is pivotal to future economic expansion. How wonderful would it be, say, if Americans and the other peoples of the world who are living in poverty could harness their entrepreneurial spirits and the power of the Internet to engage in legitimate commerce and elevate the standard of living worldwide?

    And how wonderful would it be if companies and individuals who already are benefiting from financial success could use the Internet to create a legitimate turbine that generates sustainable jobs that pay a pride-producing wage and freelance sales and vendor positions that create bright financial futures?

    Although the PP Blog focuses on business and generally avoids politics, today it makes an exception: When the President of the United States — regardless of party — is attacked to drive business to an online multilevel-marketing (MLM) firm, it must be noted for posterity that the MLM sphere has reached a new and deeply disturbing low.

    To call the anti-Obama, animated screed by an affiliate of MPB Today “tasteless” would be a gross understatement. It harms MPB Today, which is the subject of a “review” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture amid affiliate claims the company has been endorsed by the government. Various government agencies — regardless of what political party controls the White House and the Congress — have warned repeatedly for years that one of the scammer’s most important tools is the shovel that plants the seed that the government endorses a “program” or “business opportunity.”

    MLM “opportunities” are infamous for planting this cancer-spreading seed. Members of AdSurfDaily, for instance, planted the seed that President George W. Bush had given ASD President Andy Bowdoin an award for a lifetime of business achievement. Bowdoin fanned the pollination of the seed by taking his “award” on the road with him and even posing with it.

    The clear aim of the claim was to make prospects believe that ASD could not possibly be a scam because the President of the United States would not give an important business award to a scammer.

    It turned out that the “award” actually was a memento for making campaign donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee. In effect, Bowdoin had made the donations to the NRCC in return for banquet tickets. Records show that Bowdoin made the donations during a period of time in which federal prosectors say he was operating an international Ponzi scheme that perhaps ensnared more than 100,000 people.

    It is a virtual certainty that Bowdoin, who’d been charged with felonies in Alabama in a previous securities swindle and was given a suspended jail sentence, used Ponzi proceeds to make the donations.

    Harm spreads virally when such bogus seeds are planted and take root on the Internet.

    But getting back to the matter of the MPB Today affiliate’s Obama-bashing sales pitch . . .

    Walmart and Walmart’s Sam’s Club name now have been harmed because the MPB Today affiliate used the name of Sam’s Club in the animated attack, which painted Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Nazis — with Obama as a cowering Nazi and Clinton as a drunken one wearing “puke colored” clothes purchased from Big Lots, a discount retailer.

    This occurred while other MPB Today affiliates were claiming that MPB, which dispenses Walmart gift cards to winners in the MPB 2×2 matrix cycler, was under “contract” with Walmart, that MPB members were “partners” with Walmart, that MPB sells food “vouchers” that can be exchanged for Walmart gift cards and that the MLM program was “Govt. certified with Food Stamps!”

    As incredible as it seems, Michelle Obama — the First Lady of the United States — was depicted in the affiliate’s animation as experiencing an embarrassing gas attack in the Oval Office after sampling “beans” at a Sam’s Club store. A dog depicted in the pitch more or less said that the First Lady was stinking up the joint.

    Good grief!

    The pitch also harms the image of U.S. business in general because it sends the message that “anything goes” in American Capitalism as long as it returns a profit, the precise message U.S. companies now under indictment or investigation were sending when they brought the financial sector to its knees.

    Meanwhile, it specifically harms online business. Much of the world already believes the Internet is one giant cesspit, in no small measure because of the business practices of certain MLM programs and affiliates of MLM programs.

    At the same time, it harms the Republican party, which is trying to make gains in the upcoming midterm elections. It would be easy, for example, for the Democrats to seize on the message that the sales pitch for MPB Today is just another example of wretched GOP excess and hatred embedded in code. The most bizarre thing about the pitch is that it seems to presume that it is a perfectly acceptable business practice to alienate MPB members and prospects who might be Democrats and Obama supporters — as well as Republicans who actually respect and admire the President even if they disagree with his policies and do not share his political philosophy.

    Even though the MPB Today affiliate’s precise party or political affiliation is not known, it seems clear that the affiliate sees nothing wrong with mixing business with inflammatory, divisive politics,  and is not enthusiastic about the current Democratic leadership. In this sense, it also harms the Democratic party. Political pranksters and Obama opponents could paint the MPB pitchman as a Democratic saboteur or a Tea Party activist seeking to create dissension in the ranks, something that could inure to the benefit of Republicans.

    Most of all, though, the pitch hurts America. Much of the world looks to America for both financial and moral leadership. What the world got in the context of the promotion for MPB Today is yet-another impossibly ham-handed attempt to sell an MLM product at any price — even at the price of American prestige.

    Segments of the MLM trade already are infamous for their inability to sell products without lying, for resorting to gutter tactics, for using sales pitches to reimagine products as something they are not and for setting the stage for tens of thousands of people to get fleeced in one spectacular scam after another that goes “viral” on the Internet.

    Today the PP Blog received a request from a person who described herself as the sponsor of the MPB Today affiliate who produced the anti-Obama screed to “delete” the Blog’s stories on the reprehensible sales pitch.

    “The animated short video on MPB with Hilary and Obama was created by a member I sponsored into MPB and the film has since been taken down,” the sponsor noted. “The member agrees it may have been in poor taste and chose to delete it. Please do the same.”

    Welcome to the often-bizarre world of MLM — a world in which the affiliate who authored a political attack on the President of the United States to gain payments from a 2×2 cycler matrix pushed on known Ponzi forums such as ASAMonitor  “agrees” only that the pitch “may have been in poor taste” and the dutiful sponsor seeks to make sure the the record gets deleted.

    Although the PP Blog verified that the sales pitch had been deleted from the animation site, the Blog is declining to delete its coverage of the matter. All people engaged in MLM need to see it. If they are interested in being taken seriously, they need to condemn it.

    MPB Today should issue a statement that condemns it.

    In May 2009 — just days after the Obama administration announced a crackdown on international financial fraud — the PP Blog received a request from KINGZ Capital Management to delete a story about the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf’s claim that it had secured KINGZ as an offshore wire facilitator to make it easier for Americans (and other peoples of the world) to send money to an obvious Ponzi scheme that had risen from the ashes of ASD, yet another Ponzi scheme

    The PP Blog declined the request. KINGZ later was banned by the National Futures Association for turning a blind eye to the actions of Trevor Cook, a now-convicted felon who operated an international Ponzi scheme that caused investor losses of at least $158 million. The scheme traded on religion. A federal judge called it “wretched, tawdry and cheap.”

    History will record that AVG made the claim about  its new relationship with KINGZ on the very same day in May 2009 that Obama himself announced the fraud crackdown. By June 25, 2009, AVG suspended autosurf cashouts, taking an unknown sum of money sent in by members with it. It is known that many AVG members also were members of ASD, the subject of a racketeering lawsuit and two federal complaints that sought the forfeiture of more than $80 million. The government won both forfeiture cases. The decisions by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer now are under appeal by Bowdoin.

    It also is known the ASD victims have been targeted in promotions for MPB Today. If that’s not enough, it also is known that at least one MPB Today affiliate’s pitch page includes links to at least 100 “surfing” programs, as well as a link to Data Network Affiliates (DNA).

    DNA, yet another MLM program, purports to collect license-plate data that can aid law enforcement and the AMBER Alert program rescue abducted children. Even as DNA and affiliates are claiming to be interested in helping law enforcement, the company says it is selling a spray product that prevents cameras from snapping photographs of license plates at intersections that use electronic systems to enforce traffic laws.

    As DNA is doing this, it also is telling churches that they have the “MORAL OBLIGATION” to recruit affiliates for a purported mortgage-reduction program targeted at people who are facing foreclosure. Meanwhile, MPB Today also is targeting foreclosure subjects in sales pitches, and some MPB affiliates are using religion in sales pitches to attract MLM members.

    Both MPB Today and DNA are operating in Florida, which has one of the highest concentrations of foreclosures in the United States and is near the top of the list in U.S. bank failures.

    So, no. The PP Blog will not delete its coverage of the MPB Today affiliate’s attack on Obama.

    All of America — all of the world and all of the MLM universe — needs to see that the President of the United States was right in May 2009 when he announced the fraud crackdown and was right in November 2009 when he announced the formation of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

    The PP Blog has no doubt — none whatsoever — that corrupt elements within the MLM universe are doing everything in their power to use the Internet to bleed wealth from hard-working Americans and other hard-working peoples of the world, and that the corrupt transfer of wealth is leading to losses of billions of dollars globally. Simply put, these reprehensible — if not downright criminal business practices — are a money grab on a colossal scale.

    Proceeds from fraud schemes are difficult to trace. Money moves at the speed of an electronic impulse. Any number of nefarious enterprises, including narcotics traffickers, organized crime and terrorist groups, could be tapping into the fraud stream. There is no doubt that some of the criminal enterprises are dressed up as legitimate MLMs or employ a direct-sales business model that pays commissions to attract new money.

    Stand strong, Mr. President. Your efforts to turn off this criminally gushing Ponzi and fraud spigot not only are commendable, but also are in the interest of U.S. national security, the safeguarding of which is your highest duty to the American people.

    The photos below are for posterity. We are publishing them even as we wonder if nothing is off limits if it helps an MLM offer convert — and even as we wonder why the MLM trade seems so willing to repeatedly attribute its image problem to only a “few bad apples” while simultaneously calling the industry’s critics “haters.”

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  • BULLETIN: Trevor Cook Sentenced To 25 Years In Federal Prison; Victims Lost At Least $158 Million In International Forex Ponzi Scheme That Traded On Religion

    Trevor Cook

    BULLETIN: Ponzi schemer Trevor Cook has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his role in an international Forex Ponzi scheme that gathered more than $190 million and fleeced victims out of more than $158 million.

    In ordering the prison term, U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sided with the prosecution’s recommendation of a quarter of a century. It is believed to be the longest prison term ever imposed in a Minnesota financial-fraud case in which the defendant pleaded guilty.

    “Such a sentence fairly, adequately, and justly punishes the defendant for his offense, reflecting the seriousness of the offense, his willingness to plead guilty and provide information to law enforcement, and the need to protect the public,” prosecutors said last week in a sentencing recommendation to Rosenbaum.

    “Over the course of a few years, the defendant executed an investment fraud, victimizing approximately 923 victims and defrauding them of over $158 million,” prosecutors said. “As is all too common, the defendant often used victims’ religious beliefs as a means of enticing them to give him their money.”

    Cook, 38, is not out of legal harm’s way — even with the sentence of 25 years. Prosecutors disclosed last week that he has signed a waiver that would subject him to further punishment if the ongoing investigation shows he has “somehow secreted undisclosed assets.”

    Victims have expressed concerns that Cook could have stashed money from the scheme anywhere on earth. Cook failed a lie-detector last month about the whereabouts of assets.

    FBI and IRS agents later found more than $400,000 in undisclosed assets under the control of Graham Cook, Trevor Cook’s brother.

    Despite Cook’s lack of disclosure, prosecutors contended that it made no sense to delay Cook’s sentencing any longer as the asset search by the government and R.J. Zayed, the court-appointed receiver in a civil case filed against Cook and former Christian radio host Pat Kiley last year by the SEC and the CFTC, continued.

    Cook had been scheduled to be sentenced last month. Kiley, who called his radio listeners “truth seekers,” has not been charged criminally in the case.

    “The government has worked closely with the court-appointed receiver to assist its efforts in finding and identifying assets,” prosecutors said of Cook. “The government and the receiver now agree that any additional time prior to sentencing will not result in any additional information or assistance to the receiver’s efforts.”

    It is possible that Cook could prove to be a valuable source of information for the government — in the same sense that disbarred attorney, convicted racketeer and Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein has become an information source.

    Rothstein, who presided over a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme in Florida, was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison earlier this year. It is known that Rothstein has provided information helpful to the government.

    Cook “has been repeatedly debriefed by law enforcement in an effort to identify assets and to provide information regarding other individuals,” prosecutors said. “He has done so. The information has been of assistance to law enforcement in its ongoing investigation.”

    Ponzi schemes are toxic — and frequently are incredibly elaborate. Court documents in case after case show that the schemes frequently feature schemes within schemes and elaborate money-laundering networks. Criminals often go to fantastic lengths to disguise the conduits of the schemes, using shell companies and multiple bank accounts to funnel money and make the schemes difficult to reverse-engineer.

    FBI Director Robert Mueller has warned Congress at least twice this year about a “shadow” banking system criminals employ and an increasing reliance on “shell corporations” to commit crimes and hide from investigators.

    Cook’s scheme featured companies with confusingly similar names.

    Records show that Cook had a tie to a company the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf claimed to be its facilitator of offshore wires.

    KINGZ Capital Management, AVG’s purported facilitator, denied any affiliation with AVG, which has close ties to the AdSurfDaily autosurf. ASD is implicated in a Ponzi scheme alleged to involve tens of millions of dollars.

    AVG collapsed in June 2009, after running a virtually nonstop promotion that advertised matching bonuses of 200 percent for both recruits and their sponsors.

    The National Futures Association said last year that Cook was managing money for KINGZ. AVG made the claim KINGZ was its wire facilitator on May 4, 2008 — the same day the Obama administration announced a crackdown on offshore fraud.

  • FLASHBACK: Year Ago Today, AdViewGlobal Announced Offshore Wire Facilitator — On Same Day Obama Announced Crackdown On International Fraud

    One year ago today, President Obama announced a crackdown on international fraudsters. On the same day, the AdViewGlobal autosurf announced a new, offshore wire facilitator. By November, the president had created the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

    Longtime readers of the PP Blog may scarcely believe a year has passed since the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf announced a new, offshore wire facilitator — on the same day President Obama announced a crackdown on international fraud.

    Obama delivered his remarks at 11:37 a.m. By 5:54 p.m., a member of an AVG forum operated by some of the Mods and members of the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum announced that AVG members could wire money offshore from the United States after the company’s bank account had been mysteriously suspended earlier in the year.

    AVG highlighted its purported “offshore” location in sales promos.

    The date of the wire announcement — May 4, 2009 — was an important one in the history of the PP Blog. In the following weeks, the Blog came under attack by advocates for autosurf Ponzi schemes. In the months that followed, however, one autosurf scheme after another came crashing down — including AVG.

    Not even the collapse of one autosurf Ponzi scheme and HYIP scheme after another, however, has caused serial promoters to renounce these sordid pursuits. Too much money is involved. Why fret over the national-security implications if a downline commission is on the line in this shadowy and unseemly pocket of reprehensible commerce populated by greedsters, MLM hucksters and just plain criminals and racketeers?

    In this seedy world of constantly expanding rationalizations for criminal conduct and personal profit, the bomb or missile probably will land on a neighborhood that deserves to be destroyed. Right? Longtime readers of the PP Blog know the Ponzi advocates reshape their stories whenever the need arises. Any fanciful, made-up reality will do.

    Some of the Blog’s readers — and the Blog itself — came under near-ceaseless attacks last spring and summer from people who desire to legalize Ponzi schemes. Although the proposition itself is absurd, it was championed by the Blog’s Kool-Aid-drinking critics. Indeed, some of them believe, for example, that all commerce should be legal.

    Some of them are so out-of-touch that they appear not to recognize they are advancing the argument not only for economic misery and the steady supply of drugs for the schoolchildren of America, but also for slavery and human bondage. Their argument is one that would set Bernard Madoff free if society placed any credence in it at all. Madoff victims would be out billions of dollars, 80-year-old people fleeced of their pensions and savings would be forced to reenter the workforce because “that’s the breaks” of capitalism — and yet Madoff would be set loose to run a brand-new scheme of his choosing.

    No part of that vision for America computes. It is a desperate argument of convenience advanced by people who are willing to embrace crime as long as some people make money. In short, it’s the delusional argument for Enron-style capitalism applied to Ponzi schemes. The scalding irony is that some of the very same people who championed Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily did not do the same for Madoff. The hypocrisy — the disconnect — is stunning. If the basis of a pro-Ponzi argument is that all commerce should be legal and that the government wields too big a stick, then both Madoff and Bowdoin should be equally championed — victims be damned.

    So what if Grandma, 92, is greeting customers at Walmart because Madoff needed another big house? And so what if Enron employees and stockholders lost jobs and what they believed to be their financial security? That’s the breaks. Right? It’s much better to follow the lead of some AdSurfDaily members in calling for the prosecutors to be jailed and the judges to be brought up on charges for violating their oaths? Right?

    Today the PP Blog invites readers to visit its archives.

    You’ll see a story about the announcement of AVG’s purported new, offshore wire facility here. You’ll find a related story here.

    In this story, you’ll find a tie between KINGZ Capital Management — AVG’s purported offshore facilitator — and the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme in Minnesota.

    Here you’ll find a comment from a purported attorney who advised the PP Blog that it might be stepping on too many toes by publishing stories about AVG. Our response is here.

    You’ll find a story about the collapse of AVG here. The collapse occurred about 23 days after we received the note from the purported attorney. As a side note, the story about the collapse also points out that AVG threatened its own members.

    Here you’ll find a story about AVG’s name being mentioned in a racketeering lawsuit against AdSurfDaily, which has close ties to AVG. (Take time to read the comments from readers below the story.)

    In this earlier story, we provided plenty of reasons for people not to join AVG.

    We also recommend you read this story and the accompanying comments. Weighed by a number of factors beyond page views, it is the “most popular” story in the history of the PP Blog.

    Finally, we encourage you to read this story. It’s one of a number of stories we’ve done on  what the President of the United States is doing to combat the insidious amount of financial fraud.

  • Another Fraud Case In Minnesota: Renee Marie Brown Accused By SEC Of Starting ‘Sham’ Investment Fund Known As ‘X’

    UPDATED 7:52 A.M. EDT (April 13, U.S.A.) On the very day Tom Petters was sentenced in Minnesota to 50 years in prison for operating a colossal Ponzi scheme, a federal judge froze the assets of Renee Marie Brown after the SEC accused her of ripping off clients by persuading them to invest in a mysterious vehicle known as “Fund X.”

    U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank issued a temporary restraining order against Brown and her company, Investors Income Fund X LLC. The order was issued April 8.

    Brown, 46, of Golden Valley, was accused of operating a “sham” fund into which investors plowed more than $1.1 million between July 2009 and March 2010.

    “Brown told her investors that Fund X is a ‘bond fund’ with fixed annual returns of 8% or 9%,” the SEC said. “[S]he distributed fictitious ‘returns’ to investors, furthering the fiction that Fund X was a legitimate and successful investment opportunity.”

    But Brown “misappropriated most of the $1.1 million she raised from investors to, among other things, purchase a condominium for herself and build . . . office space for her new business,” the SEC said.

    Investors Income Fund X LLC was registered as a corporation in South Dakota, the SEC said.

    “Unbeknownst to her victims, Fund X is a sham — Brown’s alter ego,” the SEC said.

    The case features allegations of siphoning, forgery, cherry-picking clients of Brown’s former employer and issuing fraudulent “returns” in Bernard Madoff-like fashion. It also occurred against the backdrop of March 17 Congressional testimony by FBI Director Robert Mueller III that U.S. companies increasingly were relying on shell corporations to commit fraud.

    Minnesota Fraud Cases

    In recent months, investigators and prosecutors in Minnesota have opened up a number of major fraud probes. The combined cases are alleged to have drained hundreds of millions of dollars from investors. In some instances, prosecutors and regulators have asserted that companies used multiple names to commit fraud.

    Petters was convicted last week of presiding over that was described as the largest financial-fraud case in Minnesota history: a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme.

    Petters displayed “stunning criminality,” prosecutors said. One of the victims wrote, “Our society, unfortunately, is becoming plagued with too many people like this, and like Bernard Madoff. Tom Petters needs to learn that there are severe consequences for his incomprehensible behavior.”

    Meanwhile, the SEC, the CFTC, the FBI, prosecutors and a court-appointed receiver are poring over records to reverse-engineer the alleged Trevor Cook/Pat Kiley Ponzi scheme. Court records suggest multiple company names were involved and that the scheme involved at least $190 million and caused investor losses of at least $139 million.

    Money was moved “all over the world,” according to court filings.

    Cook and Kiley were sued by the SEC and the CFTC in November. Cook was charged criminally last month. Prosecutors said he was “aided and abetted by others.” In this document, the National Futures Association, which also filed an action that references Cook, asserted that $75 million from a purported Swiss fund may have been directed at a mysterious investor known only as “Fased.”

    The purported payment occurred while Cook, a Minnesota resident, allegedly was managing money for a Canadian company known as KINGZ Capital Management Corp. KINGZ name also has been linked to an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG), which had close ties to an autosurf known as AdSurfDaily (ASD).

    On May 4, 2009 — on the same day the Obama administration announced a crackdown on international financial fraud — AVG announced that KINGZ had become its facilitator for international wire transfers. KINGZ denied the assertion, saying it believed it had been targeted in a scam. The company painted the picture that AVG was attempting to route money to itself through a U.S. shell company.

    AVG purportedly operated from Uruguay.

    Florida-based ASD, which members said was popular in Minnesota, was implicated in August 2008 by the Secret Service in a Ponzi scheme. A federal judge has issued orders of forfeiture totaling more than $80 million in the ASD case. ASD used at least three names, according to records: AdSurfDaily, AdSalesDaily, and ASD Cash Generator.

    Prosecutors also linked ASD to at least two other autosurfs: LaFuenteDinero (the “fountain of money”) and Golden Panda Ad Builder, the so-called “Chinese” option for ASD members.

    In February, the U.S. Secret Service alleged that Minnesota resident Steve Renner was operating a Ponzi scheme through a company known as INetGlobal and companies related to the firm. The scheme, the Secret Service said, largely targeted Chinese members who may have little or no facility in English.

    Renner denies the allegations. Prosecutors described the case as a “major fraud and money laundering investigation,” saying INetGlobal came to life during a period in which federal agents were seizing tens of millions of dollars in the ASD case amid Ponzi, wire-fraud and money-laundering assertions.

    An ASD member introduced an undercover Secret Service agent to INetGlobal, the agency said in court filings.

    Other recent fraud cases in Minnesota include the Gerard Cellette Jr. Ponzi case ($53 million); the Charles “Chuck” E. Hays case ($20 million); and the Kalin Thanh Dao case (up to $10 million).

  • TREVOR COOK AND KINGZ’ MURKY WORLD: Did Accused Ponzi Schemer Cook Send $75 Million To Mysterious ‘Investor’ Known Only As ‘Fased?’ Why AdSurfDaily/AdViewGlobal Cheerleaders Should Pay Attention

    David Krywenky of KINGZ Capital Management: Source: Marketwire

    UPDATED 5:25 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) KINGZ Capital Management Corp. (KCM) might have been used or contemplated for use as a tool in two far-reaching, incredibly elaborate Ponzi schemes, according to an analysis of public records and other information.

    One of the schemes ultimately appears to have consumed tens of millions of dollars in a squalid venture that used a royalty theme trading off the name “Crown.” It involved purported forex trading in Switzerland under the name “Crown Forex SA” and an American namesake called “Crown Forex LLC” allegedly set up to confuse investors and perhaps authorities.

    The other scheme, which appears to have been nipped before it could mushroom on a grand scale, sought to kickstart a rapidly collapsing autosurf believed to be an offshoot of an existing criminal enterprise desperately seeking to extend its reach from the United States into the Caribbean, Central America, South America and perhaps Europe to keep itself alive.

    The first scheme, which included other confusingly similar corporate names such as Oxford Global Partners LLC and Oxford Global Advisors LLC, became the subject of fraud charges filed by the SEC and the CFTC in November. Investors appear to be out tens of millions of dollars.

    Charged in the $190 million November case were Trevor Cook, former Christian radio host Pat Kiley and several other companies. The allegations paint the picture that Crown Forex LLC set up a U.S.-based bank account to siphon money investors believed was destined for the Swiss entity, which they knew as Crown Forex SA.

    “Cook and [Pat] Kiley, directly and acting through others, deposited checks from many investors, into a U.S. bank account in the name of a domestic shell company, with a name — Crown Forex, LLC –  that was misleadingly similar to the Swiss firm Crown Forex, S.A.,” the SEC said.

    Cook was jailed earlier this week for violating a court order that required him to turn over assets.

    Separately, the National Futures Association (NFA) charged KCM in September with permitting Cook — who was not accredited and previously was disciplined by NFA for highly questionable business practices — to manage a KCM fund that purportedly contained “somewhat above and below $300 million” between September 2008 and July 2009.

    KCM now has been permanently banned from NFA membership. David Krywenky, KCM’s vice president, has been banned for three years.

    It’s anybody’s guess how much money the fund actually contained and what happened to the money. The SEC, the CFTC and a court-appointed receiver are turning over numerous domestic and international rocks to find assets of Cook and Kiley’s alleged epic fraud.

    NFA’s allegations against KCM are disturbing. Not only was Cook managing a KCM pool known as KCI, according to the allegations, Cook’s Oxford Global Partners “appeared to be the only investor” in the KCI pool and all of the pool’s money was dumped into Crown Forex SA, a company in which Cook purportedly owned a majority stake and a company Swiss authorities declared bankrupt.

    Was Cook At The Intersection Of A Second Scheme?

    The second scheme to which KCN’s name has been linked was called AdViewGlobal (AVG), an autosurf purportedly headquartered in Uruguay but believed actually to have operated from inside the United States, most likely from Florida but perhaps also from Arizona. Autosurfs pose as “advertising” companies to skirt securities laws, authorities say.

    AVG had close family, membership and promoters’ ties to AdSurfDaily, a Florida company implicated by the U.S. Secret Service in a $100 million Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors are well aware of AVG. So are attorneys suing ASD President Andy Bowdoin and ASD attorney Robert Garner for racketeering.

    KCM’s tie to AVG  — according to AVG — was as the surf’s new facilitator of offshore wire transfers after AVG earlier had lost access to a bank whose name was not disclosed. AVG, among other things, claimed to own a payment processor known as eWalletPlus.

    Records suggest eWalletPlus was an extension of corporate shells in Nevada and Arizona. At least two other companies claimed to own eWalletPlus during the same time period in which AVG claimed ownership. In March 2009, AVG announced its back account had been suspended. Problems with eWalletPlus were reported at the same time.

    AVG identified KCM as its new wire facilitator on May 4, 2009, the same day the Obama administration announced a crackdown on international financial fraud. KCM denied AVG’s claim on May 7, saying it believed AVG had targeted it in a scam and perhaps was tying to use a third company based in Florida to route money to itself.

    KCM identified the third company as Living Legacy One LLC. Records in Florida identified Gerald Castor as Living Legacy One’s principal, and a communication from AVG identified Castor as an employee of the surf’s “Compliance” department.

    Michael P. Krywenky, David Krywenky’s father, denied any AVG ties in an interview with the PP Blog. The interview was conducted in May 2009, after Michael Krywenky contacted the Blog and asked it to remove a story citing AVG’s wire claim.

    The Blog declined to remove the story. Instead, it published a story about Michael Krywenky’s denial. The story was based on an interview the Blog conducted with Michael Krywenky and an email Michael Krywenky sent the Blog on May 7, 2009.

    “I think that we may be victims of a scam here and we are investigating this further at our end as well,” Michael Krywenky said in the email.  “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. In the meantime, we please (sic) remove this posting since it contains false information that is detrimental to our company.”

    A month later, in June 2009, the SEC began to investigate the Cook/Kiley entities. By September 2009, the NFA was accusing David Krywenky and KCM of permitting Cook to manage an investment fund and not making a claim for money lost when the Swiss entity went bankrupt.

    Whether NFA questioned David Krywenky and KCM about AVG is unclear.

    “KCM and D. Krywenky failed to act in the best interests of KCI’s participants, both known and unknown, in that when they knew or should have known that funds on deposit at Crown Forex, SA were frozen pursuant to that firm’s bankruptcy they took no action on behalf of the KCI pool to participate in the bankruptcy as a creditor or otherwise protect KCI’s equity,” NFA said.

    NFA further accused David Krywenky and KCM of turning a blind eye to Cook, now implicated with Kiley in a colossal fraud.

    AVG, which shielded members from knowing the identities of its owners by signing communications “The AVG Management Team,” never explained how it had identified KCM as a possible facilitator. The surf also ignored Michael Krywenky’s public denial that it had any business relationship with AVG, explaining that the wire deal it had announced as completed only days earlier — up to and including providing detailed wiring instructions — had fallen through as a result of failed negotiations.

    Meanwhile, the surf also did not address Michael Krywenky’s claim that AVG appeared to be trying to route money to itself through Living Legacy One, the entity associated with Castor.

    Michael Krywenky said KCM was consulting with attorneys to address AVG’s false claims and that the company had taken steps to ensure AVG could not receive money through KCM. AVG spent the balance of May promoting the launch of a new website and telling both prospects and recruiters that they could earn matching bonuses of 200 percent for sending money to the company or causing money to be sent to it.

    Like ASD, AVG used offshore payment processors such as Canada-based Solid Trust Pay.

    AVG collapsed in June, taking an unknown amount of money with it. Before the collapse, AVG identified George and Judy Harris of Tallahassee, Fla., as its owners. They previously had been identified as “Trustees” of AVG’s “private association,” which had cited U.S. Constitutional protections while purporting to he headquartered in Uruguay.

    AdSurfDaily members later said ASD President Andy Bowdoin was a silent partner in AVG, claiming that Bowdoin had dispatched George Harris to Switzerland to establish bank accounts.

    George Harris is Bowdoin’s stepson. The Harrises were named beneficiaries by the U.S. Secret Service of ASD’s illegal conduct in December 2008. AVG formally launched two months later, in February 2009, after the Harrises and Bowdoin’s wife, Edna Faye Bowdoin, had been named recipients of ill-gotten ASD gains — and after a major court ruling went against ASD, and after Bowdoin had been named a defendant in a racketeering lawsuit brought by members.

    In May 2009 — the month during which AVG purportedly had turned to KCM to establish a wire facility and during a period in which Trevor Cook allegedly was managing money for a KCM entity known as KCI — the alleged Cook/Kiley Ponzi scheme appears to have been collapsing.

    Cook has not been publicly linked to AVG. At a minimum, however, someone within AVG appears to have identified Barbados-based KCM as a solution to the company’s wire problem — and the NFA allegations establish a tie between KCM and Cook.

    At least for a few days in May 2009, AVG was sufficiently confident that its wire problem was solved, so much so that it provided members detailed wire instructions with KCM’s name and an account number.

    Given the nature of NFA’s allegations that Cook somehow had wormed his way into KCM’s purported forex operations with KCM turning a blind eye, it is reasonable to ask whether Cook also somehow had wormed his way into an intersection at which he could have cherrypicked funds from other KCM customers — and whether AVG and other autosurfs and HYIPs had turned to KCM to solve domestic banking and wire problems.

    Investigators might be interested in determining if Cook somehow positioned himself to cherrypick  fresh autosurf cash and apply it to his alleged existing Ponzi scheme, thus funding it with proceeds from other Ponzi schemes. Indeed, it is reasonable to ask if Cook’s influence with KCM extended from the forex fund to other areas of the business.

    Why?

    Because KCM, which became an NFA member in November 2007, issued two news releases less than a year later — in October 2008 — announcing it was managing more than $330 million. In a release dated Oct. 15, 2008, KCM said it had “received investment subscriptions of $334,263,000.” In a release eight days later — on Oct. 23, 2008, KCM said “clients who participated in their first raise of just over $330 Million US . . . have reported a very steady and consistent cash flow and rate of return.”

    The Star-Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul, quoting a lawyer for KCM,  reported in November 2009 that Cook offered to provide KCM start-up funding. KCM executives met Cook at a function in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to the attorney. Florida has become Ground Zero for Ponzi schemes.

    A Mysterious Investor

    NFA asserted in this filing that Cook perhaps peeled off $75 million from the purported Swiss fund and directed it to a mysterious investor. Cook also was alleged to have changed “passwords” on KCI “accounts” as part of the scheme.

    KCM, according to the NFA allegations, “permitted Cook to effectuate a purported $75 million withdrawal from KCI’s trading accounts for a purported [Oxford Global Partners] investor who was identified to them by Cook only as “Fased.”

    KCM is said to be cooperating with investigators from more than one state and federal agency.

    It is unclear if “Fased” is a person, a business, an acronym, a proper name, a misspelling of the word “phased” or a slang spelling of “phased,” an amalgamation of some sort or a complete fiction.

    What is clear is that Cook allegedly was managing money for KCM, a company to which AVG said it had turned last year to facilitate offshore wire transfers. AVG’s announcement — and the subsequent actions by the NFA, the SEC and the CFTC, may put KCM at the intersection of two murky worlds — the worlds of underground currency-trading schemes and offshore autosurf and HYIP schemes that promise enormous returns.

    It’s worth investigators’ time to check it out — if for no other reason than to rule out the possibility that Cook also was playing the autosurf and HYIP games either as an investor or by somehow positioning himself at an intersection in these noxious worlds to siphon funds and divert them to his alleged principal Ponzi scheme.

    What’s more, an HYIP known as Gold Nugget Invest (GNI) collapsed earlier this month, several weeks after NFA brought its action against KCM, and the SEC and CFTC brought their actions against Cook and Kiley.

    GNI reportedly was having trouble accessing needed funds in a European bank, but announced a “Re-organization” plan that would reduce payouts from 7.5 percent a week to a mere 20 percent a month.

    No, it’s not a misprint. GNI purportedly launched in October 2006, the same month AdSurfDaily was preparing for launch. ASD promoters advertised returns of 1 percent a day for viewing “advertisements.” Prosecutors said it operated as a virtually pure Ponzi scheme.

    Some GNI members have referred to money — or representations of money — in their “ewallets.” It is unclear if the “ewallets” to which they refer have any connection to eWalletPlus or if the term “ewallet” is being used as a generic.

    What is clear is that HYIP, autosurf and forex schemes have many players in common — and that tremendous sums of money go missing routinely.

  • KA-BOOM! Offshore Firm To Which AdViewGlobal Claimed Wire Tie Booted From National Futures Association After Investigators Discover Ponzi Figure Trevor Cook Was Managing Its Investor Pool

    UPDATED 1:18 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) A company that denied any ties to the AdViewGlobal autosurf after AVG listed it as a facilitator of offshore wire transfers has been permanently banned by the National Futures Association (NFA) amid allegations that it failed to uphold high ethical standards and failed to supervise its operations.

    KINGZ Capital Management Corp. (KCM), which operates in Barbados and has corporate officers in Canada, was banned as a result of permitting Trevor Cook to manage an investment pool, according to NFA.

    Cook is one of the two central figures in the alleged Cook/Pat Kiley Ponzi scheme in Minnesota.

    AdViewGlobal (AVG) is not mentioned in NFA’s Business Conduct Committee complaint against KCM and its vice president, David M.S. Krywenky.

    Michael P. Krywenky, president and chief executive officer of KCM, issued a public denial in May that KCM had any ties to AVG. Michael Krywenky’s denial came after AVG identified KCM as a newly acquired facilitator of offshore wire transfers.

    AVG made the announcement that KCM was facilitating wire transfers on the same date — May 4, 2009 — the Obama administration announced a crackdown on international financial schemes. Three days later, on May 7, 2009, Michael Krywenky told the PP Blog that KCM had no connection with AVG, suggesting that AVG had tried to route money to itself through an account in the name of a separate company, Living Legacy One LLC of Florida.

    Link To Alleged Cook/Kiley Scheme

    David Krywenky let Cook take control of an offshore investment pool that a KCM-related entity known as KCI was supposed to be operating, according to NFA’s complaint. Cook was neither an NFA member nor properly registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), NFA charged.

    NFA is a self-regulatory body.

    “In July 2009, NFA received information that indicated that KCM had links to an intertwined group of NFA Member and non-NFA Member entities and individuals that had come under some scrutiny because of difficulties that some investors had encountered in trying to retrieve their investments,” NFA said in a Sept. 30 charging document.

    As its investigation proceeded, NFA learned that a Cook-controlled entity — Oxford Global Partners — “appeared to be the only investor in KCM’s KCI pool and that all of the pool’s money had purportedly been deposited with an entity named Crown Forex, SA, a non-NFA Member firm that is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and that was put into bankruptcy by that body in May 2009,” NFA said.

    Cook and Kiley later were implicated in an alleged Ponzi- and forex-fraud scheme involving at least $190 million, according to the SEC and the CFTC. A federal judge jailed Cook earlier this week until he turns over tens of millions of dollars linked to the alleged Cook/Kiley scheme.

    NFA charged KCM with “cheating, defrauding or deceiving another person or attempting to do so.” The company consented to the permanent ban without admitting or denying the allegations.

    David Krywenky also was charged with failing to uphold high ethical standards and failing to supervise. Like KCM, he neither admitted nor denied the allegations.

    Should David Krywenky wish to become an NFA associate after his ban, he’ll be required to pay a fine of $25,000, NFA said.

    AdViewGlobal Cited KCM Tie In May

    In March 2009, AVG announced its bank account had been suspended because too many participants had wired transactions in excess of $9,500. The surf said it was working on a remedy.

    Its purported remedy — routing wire transfers to itself with KCM as a facilitator — was announced with great fanfare on May 4, only hours after Obama appeared on national television to announce a crackdown on offshore fraud schemes.

    AVG provided specific, detailed wiring instructions. Members were given the instructions under a headline titled, “BREAKING NEWS Fund your Advertising.” The instructions appeared on an AVG forum operated by some of the Mods and members of the Pro-AdSurfDaily Surf’s Up forum.

    The instructions later were deleted, AVG members said. AVG never addressed KCM’s denial, choosing instead to explain that negotiations it had described as completed had broken down.

    By June 25, AVG announced it was suspending members cash-outs and exercising its version of a “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause, thus empowering itself to keep all money previously sent in by members who were expecting to receive not only 100 percent of their money back, but also a profit.  AVG has close ties to AdSurfDaily, implicated in a $100 million Ponzi scheme.

    Critics observe that the “rebates aren’t guaranteed” clause effectively is a license to steal. Autosurfs, which operate as virtually pure Ponzi schemes and position themselves as “advertising” companies, dangle the promise or suggestion of an investment return, sometimes gathering tens of millions of dollars.

    Investigators say such clauses are designed to skirt securities laws.

  • BREAKING NEWS: KINGZ Capital Management Corp. Denies Any Ties To AdViewGlobal Autosurf, Launches Investigation Into AVG Wire Claim; Says Attorneys Are Monitoring Situation

    UPDATED 2:59 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Claims by the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf that KINGZ Capital Management Corp. is aiding AVG in offshore wire transfers are false, and KINGZ has launched an investigation, the company’s top executive said in an interview this morning.

    “Nothing has ever been accepted from [AVG], nothing has been — and nothing will be,” said Michael P. Krywenky, president and chief executive officer of KINGZ. “We are very shocked, and we’re appalled [by the AVG claims].”

    Krywenky said the company was “astounded” when it received a call from Europe about the AVG claims.

    “KINGZ Capital Management Corporation nor any of its affiliates have any relationship with AdViewGlobal,” Krywenky said. “Also, I have already confirmed with our bank in Barbados that we are NOT accepting any funds from anyone at, or any clients of, AdViewGlobal.”

    Krywenky said KINGZ believed that a scam of some sort was under way. He noted that KINGZ had discussed services with a firm known as Living Legacy One LLC, but said he did not have details about the company at his immediate disposal.

    A corporation by that name was registered in Florida April 18, 2008, and filed an annual report on April 29, 2009. Living Legacy One LLC lists Gerald Castor as its managing member.

    Gerald Castor has been identified in AVG announcements as an employee of AVG’s “Compliance” department.

    No money would make its way to the autosurf firm from KINGZ, Krywenky said.

    “It’s extremely bizarre,” he said. “I am absolutely astounded.”

    On Monday, AVG announced in a forum set up by Mods and members of the embattled AdSurfDaily (ASD) autosurf that AVG had secured a deal for members to wire money offshore to pay for “advertising.”

    KINGZ was mentioned in the AVG announcement as one of the companies that would be involved in the transfers. AVG provided a KINGZ account number in its announcement, along with instructions for members to facilitate wire transfers.

    “We’re in discussion with our lawyers,” Krywenky said.

    AVG’s announcement came on the same day that the Obama administration announced it was cracking down on offshore tax cheats.

    AVG has close ties to ASD. The U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from ASD President Andy Bowdoin in August, amid allegations of wire fraud, money-laundering, engaging in the sale of unregistered securities and operating a Ponzi scheme from Florida.

    AVG purports to be headquartered in Uruguay. Gary Talbert, AVG’s chief executive officer and a former ASD executive, resigned suddenly on March 20.

    In a March 23 announcement signed by “The AVG Management Team,” AVG said its bank account had been “suspended.” It blamed customers, saying they had sent too many wire transactions in excess of $9,500.

    On March 25, an AVG announcement signed by Gerald Castor said AVG’s banking problems were being rectified.

    Problems with an Arizona-based, money-service business known as eWalletPlus followed. Servers for eWalletPlus now resolve to Panama. Like AVG, the company claims now to be headquartered in Uruguay.

    Promoters made AVG’s purported offshore location a big selling point since its inception a few months after the seizure of ASD’s assets.

    AVG, which had been promoting a 200-percent, matching bonus offer — an offer that caused one promoter to exclaim that $5,000 turned into $15,000 “instantly!” — said it was working to rectify its banking problem.

    The solution AVG said it had found — wiring money to an offshore bank — was not going to work, said Krywenky of KINGZ.

    “I think that we may be victims of a scam here,” he said.

    AVG also is known as the AV Global Association.