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Tag: Legisi

BULLETIN: AdSurfDaily Figures (And Zeek Rewards Pitchmen) Todd Disner And Dwight Owen Schweitzer Raise Possibility Of Prosecution For Tax Evasion Because Of Government Seizure Of ASD Database

After the August 2008 seizure by the U.S. Secret Service of tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, Dwight Owen Schweitzer became a pitchman for the Zeek Rewards "program," according to this ad. Schweitzer, a former attorney whose license was suspended in Connecticut, and fellow ASD figure Todd Disner sued the United States in November 2011 for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case, claiming the government had authored a "tissue of lies" in the ASD case and that ASD was a legitimate business. ASD President Andy Bowdoin admitted last month that ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that his business never operated legally from its 2006 inception, putting Bowdoin at odds with both Disner and Schweitzer and also purported MLM expert Keith Laggos, who curiously opined ASD was not a "Ponzie" scheme. Bowdoin is now jailed in the District of Columbia after a federal judge revoked his bond. The judge ordered Bowdoin jailed pending formal sentencing after the government proffered evidence that Bowdoin continued to promote fraud schemes after the seizure of $65.8 million from his personal bank accounts in 2008 and after Bowdoin was arrested in December 2010 on ASD-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The filing by Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer to which the PP Blog refers in this story was in response to a May 18 government motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Disner and Schweitzer against the United States in the Southern District of Florida or to transfer the case to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The government filed its motions on the same date ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud and admitted that ASD was a Ponzi scheme . . .

BULLETIN: In a curious, 23-page narrative, AdSurfDaily figures Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer — who went on to become promoters of the Zeek Rewards MLM — have raised the prospect that they could be prosecuted for tax evasion because of the government seizure of ASD’s database in August 2008.

Neither Disner nor Schweitzer referenced Zeek in a filing stamped June 15 and entered today on the docket of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida. But the filing includes the name of Zeek consultant Keith Laggos, positioning Laggos as an expert on Ponzi schemes who ventured an opinion that ASD was not a Ponzi scheme.

The Disner/Schweitzer filing does not mention that Laggos repeatedly misspelled “Ponzi” as “Ponzie” in his purported expert opinion in the ASD case. Nor does it mention that Laggos was prosecuted by the SEC in a 2004 case that alleged he issued laudatory press releases and a laudatory article for a company that later become the subject of a securities investigation without disclosing he was being compensated for touting the purported opportunity.

Laggos neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, which involved a company known as Converge Global Inc. and a subsidiary known as TeleWrx Inc. The future Zeek consultant settled the 2004 SEC case by disgorging nearly $12,000, paying interest of nearly $2,000, paying a civil fine of $19,500 and agreeing to a five-year penny-stock ban.

Laggos was permanently enjoined in the case from violating Section 17(b) of the Securities Act, which makes it unlawful to tout a stock without disclosing the nature and substance of any consideration, whether present or future, direct or indirect, received from an issuer, underwriter or dealer.

An image of Laggos now appears in a commercial for Zeek, and a publication owned by Laggos has issued laudatory coverage of the purported MLM opportunity, which plants the seed it provides a return of between 1 percent and 2 percent a day without being a “pyramid scheme” and without constituting an investment opportunity.

It is known that Zeek and ASD had common promoters and that, beginning in about July 2011, some well-known figures in the ASD story began to emerge publicly as Zeek boosters. Among them are former “Surf’s Up” moderator Terralynn Hoy and former ASD pitchman Jerry Napier.

Hoy, who has been listed as a “Zeek” employee and has hosted at least once conference call for Zeek, was a moderator of a defunct ASD cheerleading forum known as “Surf’s Up.” While “Surf’s Up” still was operating, Hoy became a moderator of a forum that led cheers for an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal, which federal prosecutors now say was a fraudulent scheme backed by ASD President Andy Bowdoin. Both Surf’s Up and the AdViewGlobal forum, which also now is defunct, described ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Curtis Richmond as a “hero.”

Richmond has a contempt of court conviction for threatening federal judges and once was sued successfully under the federal racketeering statute for participating in a scheme in which enormous purported judgments were filed against public officials and the officials were threatened with arrest. ASD is known to have had ties to tax deniers and “sovereign citizens.”

Some Zeek promoters also are pushing a purported “opportunity” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that may have links to the “sovereign citizens” movement. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, does not identify where the purported opportunity operates from and has speculated that the servers of JSS/JBP could be targeted in a “cruise missile” attack by the government.

JSS/JBP advertises a return of 2 percent a day, a percentage that Zeek sometimes says it has matched or exceeded — though Zeek generally stays between 1 percent and 2 percent a day when the purported payout is averaged over a week, Zeek promoters claim.

As a Zeek promoter, Napier was given a puff piece last summer by the purported Zeek opportunity. An individual with the same name appears to have signed a petition in December 2008 calling for the U.S. Senate not to investigate ASD and Bowdoin, but to investigate various federal prosecutors and the U.S. Secret Service agent who brought the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008. The petition showing the name of “Jerry Napier” appears to have been signed by “Jerry Napier” after federal prosecutors brought a second forfeiture case against ASD-related assets on Dec. 19, 2008. As was the case with the August 2008 forfeiture filing by the government, the December 2008 case alleged a Ponzi scheme.

Today’s filing by Disner and Schweitzer advances a theory — even after Bowdoin’s guilty plea to wire fraud last month and public acknowledgment that he presided over a Ponzi scheme — that the government’s Ponzi claims constituted a “house of cards.”

It also plants the seed that prosecutors shopped the ASD case to a “frendly [sic] forum” in the District of Columbia to make it easier for the government to enlist “some of their Washington D.C. operatives to become members of ASD, thereby making them potential witnesses.”

Disner and Schweitzer claim that the seizure of ASD’s database in Florida was unconstitutional because it subjected them to an invasion of privacy and potentially a tax investigation.

“The plaintiffs have alleged that the information taken by the defendant places the plaintiffs in jeopardy of the defendant seeking to prosecute the plaintiffs for tax evasion as a result of the defendant having taken the plaintiffs records which are necessary to enable the plaintiffs to file accurate tax returns for the period covered by those records,” Disner and Schweitzer argued.

And Disner and Schweitzer further ventured (italics added):

As a result of the government’s action, the plaintiffs cannot file accurate tax returns, have lost both past and future business revenues, their reputations have been damaged to the extent that they recruited others to join in the program that the defendant alleged to be a Ponzi scheme, and by inference the plaintiffs have therefore enlisted others to participate in an illegal enterprise. The injuries suffered by the plaintiffs are not hypothetical or conjectural but are both finite and calculable. They have alleged that the actions taken against them were authorized without meeting the constitutionally guaranteed and statutorily increased requirements to establish probable cause and resulted in an illegal search and seizure of their property and effects.

Neither Zeek nor any of its executives or promoters have been accused of wrongdoing. Zeek, though, claimed last month that it was closing two U.S. bank accounts and looking to open an account with a bank it did not name.

Zeek is using offshore payment processors linked to numerous schemes that promote outsize returns. A Zeek auction arm known as Zeekler is auctioning sums of U.S. cash and telling winners it will pay them via offshore processors.

Components of the Zeek scheme are similar to components of the ASD Ponzi scheme.

In 2008, an HYIP scheme known as Legisi resulted in an an SEC civil prosecution. Court papers showed that the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan were conducting an undercover probe of Legisi which, like JSS/JBP, sought to make participants affirm they were not government employees.

Like ASD’s Bowdoin, Legisi operator Gregory McKnight pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Records show that a tier of the purported Legisi program offered a daily return that was about one-fourth the daily return Zeek plants the seed can be realized through its purported opportunity.

Although Surf’s Up, which received ASD’s official endorsement as a news outlet with Hoy as a moderator, led cheers for ASD and Bowdoin until the forum mysteriously vanished in January 2010, Hoy appears to believe that Ponzi schemes actually can exist.

SSH2 Acquisitions, a Nevada company that listed Hoy as a director, claimed in 2010 that it had been defrauded in a Ponzi scheme.

Jun 18, 2012
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: JSS/JBP’s Frederick Mann Admits Program Is Not Registered; Government Workers ‘Part Of A Criminal Gang Of Robbers, Thieves, Murderers, Liars, Imposters,’ Program Patriarch Says

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING:

(UPDATED 10:56 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, acknowledged in a conference call last night that the program that advertises a return of 60 percent a month is not registered with regulators. The acknowledgement, which potentially puts promoters worldwide at risk of being drawn into both civil and criminal prosecutions for selling unregistered securities and participating in a global financial conspiracy, occurred near the tail end of a call that lasted nearly an hour and a half.

JSS/JBP may have ties to the “sovereign citizen” movement, a loosely knit confederation of individuals who have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. The enterprise does not say where it is operating from and is using a number of payment processors that are “offshore” from a U.S. perspective.

A caller who identified himself as “Brian” from California asked Mann straight out if JSS/JBP was “legally registered.”

“You may have it backward,” Mann replied. “If you are legally registered, then you’ve signed up to be a slave, part of the slave system, and then they have jurisdiction over you and can shut you down.”

Earlier in the call — in response to a question from “Ricky” about why the JSS/JBP member agreement makes enlistees affirm they are not employees or officials of the “government” — Mann said this:

“In general, government people are not welcome in JBP.”

And then Mann explained why.

“Well, they’re part of a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”

Mann also said this: “These people are much worse than the Mafia.”

He conceded that some government employees might be good people. Mann also implied that, if a government employee signed up for JSS/JBP and later became a witness against the company, JSS/JBP would be able to challenge the credibility of the witness because of the firm’s member agreement.

In February, Gregory McKnight, the operator of the $72 million Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Legisi had member terms similar to JSS/JBP. The terms neither insulated Legisi nor McKnight from prosecution.

After Mann compared the government to the Mafia, a caller who identified himself as “Richard” from “Phoenix” described Mann as a “savior for the world.”

JSS/JBP purports to provide a preposterous daily return of 2 percent — twice that of AdSurfDaily, a $110 million Ponzi scheme that came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service in 2008. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud.

Mann, identified in 2008 promos as an ASD pitchman, said last night that ASD “basically operated as a sitting duck.”

Asked by a caller if JSS/JBP had lawyers to protect itself, Mann said this:

“Typically, lawyers are part of the slave system.”

And Mann speculated that the government could fire “cruise missiles” to take out a building in the Netherlands “where our servers are.”

Mann implied during the call that JSS/JBP had studied the ASD Ponzi case and had taken measures not to get swept into a Ponzi probe.

ASD was a “very badly managed business,” Mann said, adding that JSS/JBP had “much better security than the typical registered company.”

May 25, 2012
WILL JSS/JBP AND ‘ONEX’ MEMBERS PAY ATTENTION? Andy Bowdoin’s Plea Agreement Bans Him From MLM, Internet Programs And Mass Marketing; ‘I Am Pleading Guilty Because I Am In Fact Guilty . . .,’ AdSurfDaily Patriarch Tells Judge

Under the terms of his plea agreement, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin effectively has been banned from multilevel marketing, Internet opportunities and businesses that employ mass marketing.

The agreement contains this provision, and Bowdoin consented to it in writing as a condition of release before he is formally sentenced: “Your client shall not participate in any business venture using the internet, multi-level marketing, or mass marketing.” (Italics added.)

Language in the agreement suggests the bans could last until Bowdoin is well into his eighties — until Bowdoin, now 77, serves any prison or probationary term imposed. No sentencing date has been scheduled. Bowdoin’s next court date is set for June 12 “to determine if he should be incarcerated pending his sentencing,” federal prosecutors said.

Bowdoin pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud for the web-based ASD scam. The information in the numbered entries (below) was confirmed by Bowdoin himself in a “Statement of Offense” that bears his signature. It is in stark contrast to earlier online claims by the ASD patriarch that he had been railroaded and that ASD members should send him money to pay for his criminal defense.

Second Key Win For Government

Bowdoin’s guilty plea marked the second recent win by the government in a major online HYIP case. Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP and Ponzi scheme, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February. The Legisi and ASD schemes fetched a combined haul of more than $180 million, according to court filings. Bowdoin’s scheme was a form of HYIP fraud known as “autosurfing” in which participants were promised enormous returns for viewing advertisements. The schemes spread in part through social networking and shilling sites such as the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums.

The U.S. Secret Service was involved in both the ASD and Legisi probes.

ASD Discussed In HYIP’s Conference Call Day Before Bowdoin Guilty Plea

A current HYIP scheme known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid continues to make inroads online. Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, was identified in 2008 promos as an ASD pitchman. Bowdoin’s legal problems were among the subjects of a JSS/JBP conference call Thursday that appeared to be heavily populated by U.S. residents, including some who expressed worry about the “program.” JSS/JBP purports to provide a daily return of 2 percent, twice that of ASD.

Less than 24 hours after Thurday’s JSS/JBP call ended, Bowdoin pleaded guilty in open court and subjected himself to a possible prison term of 78 months, along with three years’ supervised release. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Bowdoin potentially faces court supervision for the next 9 and a half years.

During Thursday’s call, Mann — an older man, like Bowdoin — did not rule out the possibility that his program could encounter an ASD-like intervention by the government.

“The slavemasters don’t want their slaves to escape,” Mann said, casting the U.S. government as wicked.

“What you need to realize is that the de facto U.S. Constitution is ‘anything goes’ that we can get away with. So, that’s how Obama operates. That’s how Romney would operate if he were elected President. That’s how George Bush operates.”

Like ASD, JSS/JBP may have ties or be sympathetic to the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement. “Sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. JSS/JBP is so secretive that the “opportunity” does not identify where it is operating from and makes members affirm they are not with the “government.”

After a caller asked Mann Thursday about ASD, Mann said this:

“If they want to arrest people and take their money, they will find some pretext.”

HYIPs operate as virtually pure Ponzi schemes. Victims can pile up by the tens of thousands in a single scheme. The schemes redistribute wealth from the masses and put it in the hands of a select few.

Bowdoin’s Statement

ASD's Andy Bowdoin

Before getting into some of the specifics of Bowdoin’s signed statement — a statement also signed by Bowdoin’s attorney Charles A. Murray and a federal prosecutor — it perhaps is worth noting that Bowdoin’s plea agreement contains this provision to which Bowdoin agreed in writing: “Your client represents to the Court that his attorney has rendered effective assistance.” (Italics added.)

Though boilerplate language, it is important in the context of Bowdoin’s history. Indeed, he has a history of publicly blaming lawyers for his problems. In 2011, for example, he appeared in a video solicitation in which he asked the people he now admits he defrauded to pay for his criminal defense. Bowdoin blamed his prior counsel, a federal judge, two federal prosecutors and three agents of the U.S. Secret Service for his predicament. The final page of the plea agreement contains this language to which Bowdoin agreed in writing:

“I have read this Plea Agreement and discussed it with my attorneys, Michael McDonnell, Esq. and Charles Murray, Esq. I fully understand this Plea Agreement and agree to it without reservation. I do this voluntarily and of my own free will, intending to be legally bound. No threats have been made against me nor am I under the influence of anything that could impede my ability to understand this Plea Agreement fully. I am pleading guilty because I am in fact guilty of the offense(s) identified in this Plea Agreement.” (Italics/bolding added)

Because of the plea agreement and the MLM/Internet/mass-marketing bans, Bowdoin’s role as an an online pitchman for a program known as “OneX” has ended.

In essence, because of what Bowdoin did in ASD — and allegedly what he continued to do even after being arrested for running a Ponzi scheme — Bowdoin has been banned from MLM, kicked out of the business side of the Web and barred from making mass solicitations in any form.

Prosecutors said last month that OneX was a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid” that was recycling money to members in ASD-like fashion. Bowdoin was arrested on ASD-related charges in December 2010. In October 2011 — 10 months after his arrest — he told OneX prospects that God had provided the OneX program and that he intended to use money from the scheme to pay for his criminal defense.

On Tuesday — just three days before Bowdoin pleaded guilty to a felony for his operation of ASD — a fellow OneX pitchman described Bowdoin as “our Mentor.”

Here, now, some highlights from Bowdoin’s signed “Statement of Offense” — along with editorial notes. Bolding added by the PP Blog . . .

1.) “Bowdoin called ASD’s operation a revenue-sharing advertising program . . .” (NOTE: All kinds of HYIP schemes use the phrase “revenue sharing” as a means of masking the Ponzi elements. The phrase, for example, appears on the website of JSS/JBP. It “works” because it sounds plausible. After all, many businesses share revenue legally. The connection many new HYIP enlistees do not make is that scammers have co-opted the term to sanitize their fraud schemes.)

2.) “But, contrary to its representations, the advertising packages sold by ASD generated insufficient revenue to fund the returns it promised to the members. Instead, ASD operated as a ‘Ponzi’ scheme.” (NOTE: ASD members Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner sued the government last year, alleging that ASD was a legitimate business. Bowdoin now publicly disagrees with them, based on his admission that ASD was a Ponzi scheme.)

3.) “Throughout ASD’s operation, Bowdoin was aware that ASD was an illegal money making business, and that he was intentionally defrauding ASD members.”

4.) ASD, according to Bowdoin’s statement, actually gathered more than “$119 million” from members. (NOTE: This figure is about $9 million higher than the rough amount of $110 million cited by the government in previous filings. The PP Blog will check next week to see if it can confirm that the $119 million figure is the final sum identified after investigation. As things stand, both Bowdoin and the government agree on the $119 million figure.)

5.) ASD made more than $45 million in Ponzi payments and spent more than $10 million on operations. About $1.161 million was directed at Bowdoin or his family.

6.) During ASD’s initial iteration at AdSurfDaily.com, Bowdoin realized “[a]fter only a few months of operation” that ASD was in over its head “because he was not selling any independent products or services sufficient to generate an income stream needed to support the returns and commissions ASD was paying . . .” (NOTE: The JSS/JBP scheme has a commission-payout scheme (two tiers, one paying 10 percent the other 5 percent) that is virtually identical to ASD. Incredibly, JSS/JBP says it can pay double ASD’s daily return of 1 percent on top of the two-tiered commissions.)

7.) “In approximately March 2007, Bowdoin ceased ASD’s operations because it was paying out money to its employees and members faster than it was taking in new money.” (NOTE: Bowdoin’s concession proves the government’s longstanding theory that ASD collapsed in its original iteration because of the Ponzi pressure. At one point, according to court filings, Bowdoin blamed ASD’s inability to pay on script problems and a purported theft of $1 million by “Russian” hackers.)

8.) Bowdoin — instead of getting out of the Ponzi business — thereafter launched ASD under a new name at a new website: ASDCashGenerator.com. Bowdoin, according to his statement, admits he made some cosmetic tweaks — lowering the return from 150 percent to 125 percent, for example. “By not changing ASD’s business model in any meaningful way, Bowdoin continued to intentionally defraud members.” (NOTE: It is common in the HYIP fraud sphere for “admins” to claim they’ve employed tweaks to take Ponzi issues out of play. An obvious Ponzi scheme known as JSS Tripler 2 appears recently to have employed some Bowdoin-like tweaks, including a name change to T2MoneyKlub — while adding to its claims that the “opportunity” had income streams sufficient to pay an absurd return of 2 percent a day on top of referral commissions.)

9.) Bowdoin never told his second group of fraud victims that they were paying for the fraud Bowdoin committed against his first group of victims.

10.) “Bowdoin also intentionally failed to explain to old and new members that, in the 1990s, he was convicted in Alabama of three securities-related crimes, charged in Alabama in at least 13 additional indictments alleging securities fraud, and barred from ever selling securities in Alabama.”

11.) Bowdoin compounded lies told about his lack of a criminal record by permitting lies to be told about an award for business achievement purportedly given Bowdoin by President George W. Bush. The “award” actually was a memento from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) that was “entirely dependent” on a Bowdoin money contrbution to NRCC of $25,000 “and was not based on Bowdoin’s business acumen or any other evaluation of his prior business practices.”

May 19, 2012
A PONZI WORLD FIRST? JSS Tripler 2 Collapses — And Obvious Ponzi ‘Program’ Blames Ponzi-Pushers’ Forum For Demise

UPDATED 4:05 PM EDT (U.S.A.): It’s MoneyMakerGroup’s fault that JSS Tripler 2 (T2) — also known as T2MoneyKlub — has collapsed.

And it’s also the fault of “Elmer,” a forum poster who apparently committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the legitimacy of a scheme that advertised a return of 2 percent a day — after naming itself after another scheme that advertised 2 percent a day and after T2 gave birth to itself in a forum referenced in U.S. court filings as a place from which massive HYIP Ponzi schemes such as Legisi and Pathway to Prosperity were promoted.

The bizarre assertions were made by T2 Admin “Dave,” a self-described newlywed apparently fully recovered from a recent bout with Dengue Fever but no longer able to ward off a case of Ponzi topplitis fatalis.

“CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!!” the T2 site screamed last night in all-caps and red type. “DUE TO INCESSANT UNDERMINING BY THE STAFF AND A SELECTION OF ‘STAFF ASSISTED’ MEMBERS OF MONEYMAKERGROUP.COM.”

Only days before, “Dave” announced that members who plowed money into the scheme would begin receiving payments to make them whole and put them in profit. Whether those payments were made remains an open question. Serial scammers and willfully blind Ponzi recruiters who populate the Ponzi boards and organize their public and private sales pitches to speed the flow of cash to the schemes as a means of harvesting commissions as illegal broker-dealers may be the only winners — other than “Dave” himself.

Whether “Dave” assigned himself a Ponzi “rake” is unclear. In the AdSurfDaily online Ponzi case, federal prosecutors said ASD President Andy Bowdoin and a “silent partner” who was Bowdoin’s sponsor in the 12DailyPro online Ponzi scheme agreed to a rake of 10 percent of ASD’s “gross sales.”

The U.S. Secret Service said ASD had gathered at least $110 million. Bowdoin was charged in 2010 with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. He faces a Ponzi trial in September and a bond-review hearing May 18. Investigators say he continued to scam after the Secret Service raided ASD in August 2008.

Ponzi-board posts suggest “Dave” had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars sent in by T2 members, beginning late last year and at least into the early part of 2012. But a problem with an offshore (from a U.S. perspective) payment processor purportedly developed, a situation that purportedly led to a freeze on cashouts. “Dave” claimed he was operating the program from both Britain and Thailand, while also venturing to countries such as Cambodia.

The collapse of T2 occurred just days after the conclusion of a conference in Israel at which INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui described two recent online scams operating in Asia that had gathered billions of dollars and resulted in 220 arrests.

Some of the suspects were trying to make a fast getaway at an airport, Hui said, describing the purveyors as transnational criminals.

“[Eighty] per cent of crime committed online is now connected to organized gangs operating across borders,” Hui said, citing figures from a study by London Metropolitan University. “Criminal gangs now find that transnational and cybercrime are far more rewarding and profitable than other riskier forms of making money.”

MoneyMakerGroup is referenced in both the Legisi and Pathway To Prosperity cases as a place from which Ponzi and fraud schemes are promoted. The combined hauls of those schemes exceeded $140 million, according to court filings.

The combined hauls of ASD, Legisi and Pathway To Prosperity exceeded $250 million, according to court filings. Like Legisi, Pathway To Prosperity and T2, ASD also was promoted on the Ponzi forums. Federal prosecutors now say that OneX — yet another “opportunity” promoted on the forums — is a “fraudulent scheme” and “pyramid.”

Bowdoin now is accused of promoting OneX.

Although the closure announcement on the T2 site did not reference Elmer, remarks attributed to “Dave” (as Peakr8) on MoneyMakerGroup made it plain that “Dave” holds Elmer equally accountable for the collapse of the T2 scheme, which recently started a Ponzi feeder program known as “Compound150.”

Here’s “Dave” as Peakr8 yesterday on MoneyMakerGroup (italics added):

I got an email from [MoneyMakerGroup Admin] Yippee some months back. Included in it was one line I will never forget.

Elmer and his friends will NEVER be banned from MMG, the owner wants them there. To create ‘interesting discussion’.

My kids found this doing a search about T2MK… The youngest is 9 years old, the oldest is 13… they cried.

Hope you feel great about that Elmer and friends.. Hope you all feel great!!

I am closing both programs down as of NOW, and i will leave it to the processors to distribute the funds.

Yippee said hogwash.

“This is a BOLD FACED LIE!” Yippee exclaimed.

Elmer said “Dave’s” Ponzi experienced a meltdown and that “Dave” had become the “newest member of the ‘Crazy admin excuses’ club.”

“Why don’t you just tell the truth Dave? Elmer quizzed. “Your ponzi imploded. It ran out of cash to pay with.”

As part of its fraud, T2 maintained its own fraud forum. In a moment of almost-perfect fraud symmetry, legendary fraudster “Ken Russo” made the last “I got paid” post in T2s subfraud forum for its Compound150 fraud.

Ken Russo’s signature line at T2’s fraud forum led to an “opportunity” known as “Wealth 4 All Team,” which appears to have a cheerleader who is planting the seed that the RealScam.com antifraud forum may get sued for publishing information unfriendly to Wealth4AllTeam.

Whether “Ken Russo” had plowed into Wealth4All any of his purported May 11 net payout of $535.95 from “Dave’s” multifaceted T2 Ponzi venture is unknown.

“Ask About My Matching Loan Offer,” “Ken Russo” prompted in his ad for Wealth4AllTeam at “Dave’s” forum for the combined T2 frauds.

In March, “Dave” asserted that the PP Blog and “all your lackies” had “completely undermined your credibility . . . from the word go” in stories and comments about T2.

The T2 death notice followed about two months after “Dave’s” assertions on the PP Blog.

May 13, 2012
[VOMIT ALERT]: JSS Tripler 2 — After Name Change to T2MoneyKlub — Opens Feeder Scam Called Compound150; Operator/Cheerleader Lecture MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi-Forum Mods As ‘Opportunity’ Targets ‘Compounding Lovers’

Compound150 says it is a spinoff of T2MoneyKlub, while targeting "compounding lovers" like a sandwich joint targets lovers of cheeseburgers.

The ink was barely dry on the most recent civil judgments for millions of dollars against serial HYIP pitchman Matthew J. Gagnon when Compound150 launched yesterday. On Tuesday, the SEC announced $4.2 million in new court-ordered assessments against Gagnon, who’d earlier been hit with more than $2.5 million in assessments in a related case and became the subject of a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Secret Service.

Gagnon was a web-based pitchman for the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme and other high-yield “opportunities,” including a “program” in which his alleged partner was a twice-convicted felon. The SEC essentially charged Gagnon with turning a blind eye to obvious fraud schemes — repeatedly.

Apparently not taking the clue that HYIP promoters are at risk of both civil and criminal prosecution, the operators of JSS Tripler 2 have launched the Compound150 feeder scam, a companion to the original JSS Tripler 2 scam. After suspending member payouts in December 2011 amid reports of an AlertPay freeze, JSS Tripler 2 — also known as T2 — gave itself a new name: T2MoneyKlub.

The addition of the Compound150 scam means that the entity — purportedly operated by “Dave” from locales ranging from Britain to Cambodia to Thailand — means that the original JSS Tripler 2 entity now has a third entry in its scam lineup.

But the strangeness does not end there: Indeed, JSS Tripler 2 reportedly based its original name on JSS Tripler, a purportedly unrelated “program” whose affiliates became the subjects in January of a probe by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator. Compound 150 reportedly launched during a period in which “Dave” was building prelaunch buzz while simultaneously battling (or recovering from) a bout with Dengue fever.

In the fraud sphere, it is common for “opportunities” to refer to illnesses, server problems or catastrophes such as typhoons. In upholding the 20-year prison sentence of pyramid schemer Seng Tan, the U.S. Court of Appeals last month pointed out that Tan — who targeted the scam she ran with her husband at Cambodian émigrés in the United States — blamed the scam’s inability to make payouts on Hurricane Katrina.

Tan’s husband — James Bunchan — ultimately received sentences totaling 60 years because he discussed murdering witnesses and the federal prosecutor who brought the case.

How strange could the JSS Tripler2/T2MoneyKlub/Compound150 “opportunity” get? The answer, perhaps, is that the sky is the limit. Perhaps positioning itself as a category creator, Compound150 says “compounding lovers” are among its target audience.

Compound150 apparently believes it is to multilevel marketing (MLM) what a fast-food chain is to lovers of cheeseburgers

Compound150 opened its doors amid a weekend flap at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum in which “Dave” — posting as Peakr8 — protested the forum’s description that the emerging opportunity was an HYIP, not an MLM opportunity.

“So are we a HYIP?” Dave asked.

“Hell no!” he answered himself, even as Compound150 was claiming on its website that it pays participants “1% daily for 150 days up to 150%.”

In effect, Compound 150 is advertising a (precompounding) annualized return of 365 percent, about the same purported ROI that led to the 2010 indictment of AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin amid allegations he was operating an international Ponzi scheme.

If convicted on all counts in his September 2012 Ponzi trial, Bowdoin, 77, faces up to 125 years in federal prison and fines in the millions of dollars. As part of the ASD Ponzi investigation, the U.S. Secret Service seized the bank accounts of some individual ASD promoters.

Ten of Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts were seized — and five bank accounts allegedly involved in the operation of Golden Panda Ad Builder, a companion autosurf, were seized.

“Dave” was joined in his protest by JSS Tripler2/T2MoneyKlub/Compound150 shill “lolalola,” who insisted that Compound150 was an MLM.

In the civil portion of the ASD case, ASD also insisted it was an MLM. A federal judge was unmoved, ordering the forfeiture of more than $80 million, including more than $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts.

An “opportunity” can at once be both an HYIP and an illegitimate MLM “program.” (Simply calling a program an ‘MLM” does not cure a program of legal defects, and some scams mix-and-math elements of both pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes. Such programs may be described by investigators as pyramid-style Ponzi schemes.)

Compound150 appears to have a confluence of payout schemes very similar to the schemes that led to at least FOUR ASD-related forfeiture actions, the filing of a racketeering (RICO) lawsuit against Bowdoin, the seizure of tens of millions of dollars, millions of dollars in ASD-related civil judgments — and the ultimate filing of wire fraud and securities- fraud charges against Bowdoin.

Bowdoin also was charged with selling unregistered securities.

Like Bowdoin, Seng Tan also insisted her “opportunity” was an MLM.

Apr 1, 2012
Day After SEC Announces Judgments Totaling $4.2 Million Against Serial HYIP Pitchman, Another Serial Pitchman — ‘Ken Russo’ — Makes ‘I Got Paid’ Post On TalkGold For JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid; Separately, McAfee’s ‘Site Advisor’ Declares JBP Pages ‘Dangerous’
In a 29-page court order announced yesterday by the SEC, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan laid out the case of willful blindness against serial HYIP pitchman Matthew John Gagnon.

That case now has resulted in court-ordered judgments of more than $4.2 million against Gagnon, who also was named in a criminal complaint by the U.S. Secret Service in November 2011.

But in the HYIP sphere, which FINRA described in 2010 as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet,” not even the huge judgment against Gagnon announced yesterday appeared to unnerve the serial scammers on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums.

Posting as “DRdave” on TalkGold, huckster “Ken Russo” announced he’d received a new payment of $482.08 from JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” whose purported daily payout rate of 2 percent dwarfs the purported payout rate of Legisi, one of the “programs” that led to Gagnon’s demise.

In a March 15 conference call, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS/JBP, told members that the company was making the payouts from money sent in by “new members.” Paying “old” members with money from “new” members is the central element of a Ponzi scheme.

Even as “Ken Russo” was making the announcement, the online security company McAfee was publishing a “Warning: Dangerous Site” message about the JustBeenPaid website.

“We tested this site and found it’s risky to visit,” McAfee’s Site Advisor reported.

In 2010, the SEC declared Gagnon a “danger to the investing public” for his serial promotion of scams. (See paragraph 11 of May 2010 SEC complaint.)

Assessing Gagnon more than $4.2 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest and penalties, Steeh found that:
- Gagnon promoted the Legisi HYIP online, through emails and through a forum.
- Even though Gagnon promoted the program, he was not associated with a registered broker-dealer and had never been registered with the SEC in any capacity.
- Gagnon understood HYIP frauds and Ponzi schemes, and yet gleaned about $3.6 million from Legisi operator Gregory McKnight and did not disclose details of his agreement with McKnight to solicit investors for Legisi.
- Gagnon helped orchestrate the “massive” Legisi Ponzi scheme and initially had come into contact with McKnight after Gagnon had recruited McKnight into an MLM business that sold dietary supplements.
- Legisi was selling unregistered securities.
- Gagnon was selling unregistered securities.
- Gagnon did not qualify investors in any way. (In essence, the only necessary qualification was to have money to send to Legisi.)
- Gagnon performed no “due diligence” on the profitability of the Legisi program. He did not retain or review trading records, bank or brokerage accounts statements or e-currency account records.
- Gagnon knew or “recklessly disregarded” warnings that Legisi was a scam, did not know where McKnight was keeping the money or how McKnight was calculating profits and losses.
- Eventually Gagnon distanced himself from McKnight (after learning about an SEC probe, according to the agency), but proceeded to pitch other scams touting the illegal sale of securities. A twice-convicted felon was Gagnon’s alleged partner in one of the scams, but Gagnon performed no legwork up front.
- Gagnon eventually learned that a man with the same name as his partner had been convicted of fraud, but “accepted” his partner’s “representation that it was not him.” Gagnon did not investigate his partner’s denials, which were false.
- Gagnon then proceeded to another opportunity touting unregistered securities, effectively using the same blueprint he’d used when touting Legisi and the other scam in which his partner was a convicted felon. As in the other scams, Gagnon did no legwork and “recklessly ignored several warning signs.”
- Even as he touted the third program, Gagnon had received “several” bad checks from the purported “successful” trader. Gagnon continued to tout the program.
- Gagnon then touted a fourth program, apparently one operated by a Ugandan national Gagnon had met on the Internet. (Gagnon stopped promoting this program, according to the SEC, only after the agency subpoenaed his bank records.)
- Gagnon has shown “no remorse” for his conduct “and has tried to downplay his culpability.”
Whether “Ken Russo” has conducted any “due diligence” on JSS/JBP is unknown. Whether “Ken Russo” has any qualifications to sell securities is unknown. Whether “Ken Russo” qualified investors in any way is unknown. Whether “Ken Russo” retained or reviewed JSS/JBP records, bank or brokerage accounts statements or e-currency account records is unknown.

What is known is that “Ken Russo” proceeds from scheme to scheme to scheme.

“I would caution everyone not to listen to anyone who is posting negative comments about this program,” “Ken Russo,” posting as “DRdave” on TalkGold, urged today. “JBP/JSSTripler has changed many lives during the past 13 months and it is one of the best programs I have seen since I first entered the industry back in 1996!”

Here, according to the SEC, is how Gagnon, who’d been pitching programs online “since at least 1997,” described Legisi:

“IN ALL OUR EXPERIENCE IF (sic) HIGH YIELD PROGRAMS THIS IS THE ONLY GENUINE PROGRAM THAT WE HAVE EVER FOUND!”

McKnight, like Gagnon, is facing millions of dollars in civil judgments. And McKnight pleaded guilty last month to a criminal charge of wire fraud.

It turned out that Legisi was not “GENUINE” at all.
Mar 29, 2012
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Legisi Ponzi-Scheme Pitchman Matthew J. Gagnon Ordered To Pay More Than $4.2 Million In Disgorgement, Penalties

Matthew John Gagnon

UPDATED 10:35 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Matthew John Gagnon, an HYIP huckster and promoter of the Legisi Ponzi scheme, has been hit with orders of disgorgement and penalties totaling more than $4.2 million, the SEC said.

Gagnon, of Portland, Ore., and Weslaco, Texas, was described by the SEC as a serial promoter of fraud schemes through his Mazu.com website.

“The Court found that Gagnon ‘purposefully built up an image of trustworthiness in the on-line investing community and exploited this trust,’” the SEC said. “The Court also found that Gagnon ‘repeatedly committed egregious violations of the federal securities laws’ and ‘has shown no remorse for his conduct.’”

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan presided over the Gagnon case, which the SEC brought in May 2010. The SEC case against Gagnon was not limited to his involvement in Legisi. It also addressed his involvement in a “resorts” securities-fraud scheme from which money was diverted to a recidivist felon, and his involvement in multiple Forex schemes.

Legisi, an HYIP fraud, had a considerable presence on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums. Legisi operator Gregory McKnight pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month.

Here is the breakdown of the financial penalties ordered by Steeh in the May 2010 case against Gagnon: $3,613,259 in disgorgement; $488,570.47 in prejudgment interest; and a $100,000 civil penalty.

The court-appointed receiver in the Legisi case also holds millions of dollars in judgments against Gagnon.

Here is a snippet from Steeh’s order of permanent injunction against Gagnon (italics added):

“[Gagnon] explained that ‘I have a trader I represent in Europe that can trade your funds in a managed account.’ Gagnon promised that investors in the European Trade Offer would experience ‘consistent monthly profits’ and ‘very few losing trades.’ Apparently, the European trader is ‘Juju,’ who is Jjunju Kateregga, a Ugandan national residing in Finland. Gagnon promoted Juju’s trading prowess after meeting him on the internet, exchanging emails and talking to him on the phone ‘a few times.’”

NOTE: The quoted passage above pertains to a purported “managed Forex trading” offer pitched by Gagnon after he moved on from Legisi. (Read the full order at Justia.com.)

In November 2011, the U.S. Secret Service filed a criminal complaint against Gagnon for his alleged wrongdoing in Legisi.

Mar 28, 2012
UPDATE: Antihistorical ‘MoneyMakingBrain’ Claim: ‘Law Enforcement Agencies Don’t Pay Attention To What’s Being Said On Forums And Blogs’

“There is a line between First Amendment Rights vs. Libel here. So, when does your right to form an opinion begins (sic) and when does it constitute a defamation of character? The answer is, law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs, so get your head straight and feet firm on the ground.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 4, 2012, post on RealScam.com

As previously reported on the PP Blog, a JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “defender” known as “MoneyMakingBrain” (MMB) has emailed threats to the PP Blog, hatched bizarre conspiracy theories here and at RealScam.com and planted the seed that he was someone to fear.

The email threats were received after MMB claimed Feb. 18 on RealScam he had performed “due diligence” on JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. On a website known as “ReviewOPedia,” a poster with the same handle offered this on Feb. 14, in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid:

“They are for real! ”

Within the same Feb. 14 ReviewOPedia post, MoneyMakingBrain ventured this (italics added):

“BTW, everybody should check out the JBP live support chatroom which has over 160 people at any given time and is live 24/7. You can ask all the questions you can come up with and there is always moderator. Who does that? I’m sold already. So, if someone here claims that they ‘didn’t get paid’, either they still don’t understand how the matrix works or they’re just internet trolls.”

Whether the “MoneyMakingBrain” on the PP Blog and the “MoneyMakingBrain” on ReviewOPedia are one and the same is unknown to the PP Blog.

Precisely why the MMB known to the PP Blog and RealScam.com has been trying to chill specific individuals and antiscam forums is unclear. What is known is that what he’s doing is hardly unique.

Lessons Of HYIP History Ignored

While asserting that he knows the PP Blog’s IP address and posting location, MMB now is making a claim on RealScam, a forum that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud, that “law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs.”

That claim is contrary to the public record, which shows that any number of agencies, self-regulatory bodies and private attorneys have been noting for years that HYIP schemes are proliferating on the Internet and being spread by posters on forums and social-networking sites. It also ignores the reality — also a matter of public record — that law-enforcement has a history of filing court documents that reproduce HYIP forum posts and of infiltrating HYIP schemes.

Prominent FINRA Warning On HYIPs

In July 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued this highly public alert. FINRA noted that “HYIPs use an array of websites and social media — including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook — to lure investors.”

HYIPs fabricate a “buzz” and create “the illusion of social consensus,” FINRA said, describing the sinister approach as a “common persuasion tactic fraudsters use to suggest that “everyone is investing in HYIPs, so they must be legitimate.”

Forum Posts Become Evidence In HYIP Cases

In the SEC’s May 2008 prosecution of the Legisi HYIP scheme, the agency included page after page of forum posts as part of a 267-page evidence exhibit in support of an asset freeze. A federal judge approved the freeze. (The screenshot below is from one of the forum pages.)

Legisi operator Gregory McKnight pleaded guilty to criminal charges of wire fraud last month. He also faces millions of dollars in civil judgments. The SEC Legisi filings also include a reference to the MoneyMakerGroup forum, which is listed in other federal court filings as a place from which HYIP Ponzi schemes are promoted.

This section of the Legisi Terms of Service purports that members must avow they are not an "informant, nor associated with any informant" of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others. The others included "Her Majesty's Police," the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office, Interpol and others.

Included within the SEC filings is a reproduction of Legisi’s bizarre Terms. (See graphic at right. It is taken from court filings.) Among other things, the Terms made members avow they were not an “informant” for various government entities.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has similar Terms. The Terms read like an invitation to join an international financial conspiracy. (The next two paragraphs are verbatim from the JSS Tripler/Just BeenPaid member agreement. Italics added.)

6. I affirm that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.

7. I affirm that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.”

When the U.S. Postal Inspection Service filed criminal charges against Nicholas Smirnow in May 2010 for his alleged operation of the Pathway To Prosperity HYIP Ponzi scheme, MoneyMakerGroup, TalkGold and ASAMonitor were specifically referenced in the service’s case filings. Smirnow now has his face on an INTERPOL “Wanted” poster.

MMB took great exception to the PP Blog’s Smirnow post, apparently believing it had no relevance in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. MMB also apparently believes the PP Blog and RealScam are treating Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, unfairly.

Among other things, MMB asserted on the PP Blog that “no one is invisible to the MoneyMakingBrain and you need to stop doing what you’re doing against this man immediately. Because if you don’t, I am going to make a formal complain (sic) to the very authorities you purport are coming after scam sites and send all the evidence I’ve gathered so far from posting on your site and the realscam site. I don’t like witch hunts and I am sure Fred Mann can whip your ass in court for your highly suggestive, provocative, highly contentious and flat-out defamatory commentaries against his character on your sites.”

MMB further suggested that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid critics may be “needing to look for another ISP because you won’t have internet access at home or your office, wherever.”

About three months after the SEC brought the $72 million Legisi/McKnight HYIP Ponzi case, the U.S. Secret Service — in August 2008 — filed evidence exhibits in support of an order to freeze tens of millions of dollars in AdSurfDaily-related bank accounts. The complaint in support of the seizure specifically references an ASD-related “Breaking News” Blog, and an evidence exhibit labeled “Government Exhibit 5” consists entirely of an ASD-related post on a different Blog that took up 15 printed pages.

The 15-page post featured alleged comments from ASD President Andy Bowdoin in which he threatened to sue critics.

“These people that are making these slanderous remarks, they are going to continue these slanderous remarks in a court of law defending about a 30 to 40 million dollar slander lawsuit,” the post quoted Bowdoin as saying. (The screen shot below is from Government Exhibit 5. It has been a matter of public record approaching four years.)

Both the ASD and Legisi investigations used government agents in undercover capacities, according to court filings.

Meanwhile, in June 2009, attorneys suing Bowdoin on behalf of ASD members in a civil RICO (racketeering) case referred to the PP Blog’s reporting on the ASD Ponzi case, specifically its reporting on a spinoff surf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG). (See court document. See June 30, 2009, related story. See PP Blog story the attorneys referenced in their filings.)

Threat Of HYIP ‘Fire Power’

Also in June 2009, a poster who purported to be an attorney issued a veiled threat to the PP Blog, stating that that “[i]f you keep pushing it now the toes you are stepping on might start stepping back. Looks like they have some fire power behind them now.”

AVG ceased payouts about 24 days after the threat. Even as it suspended cashouts, AVG threatened the media with copyright-infringement lawsuits for reporting on the payout suspension. Within days, it planted the seed that it would arrange to have the Internet Service Provider (ISP) connections of critics suspended.

During its short run, AVG bizarrely asserted that it operated as a “private association” that enjoyed U.S. Constitutional protections in Uruguay. AVG used U.S.-based Gmail addresses to conduct business, something JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is doing. The defunct surf further claimed that it had appointed a person who held the title of “Protector.”

Such claims have been linked to the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement. On Feb. 27, 2012, the PP Blog reported that a site linked to Mann published videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, a purported “sovereign citizen” indicted in Alaska in an alleged murder plot against public officials. The site features a drop-in ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that encourages prospects to register with a Gmail address.

Whether MMB is aware of all of these these historical incidents while issuing threats and planting the seed he has the power to divorce JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid critics from their Internet connections is not known. MMB’s posting privileges were revoked by the PP Blog last week after he emailed threats and menacing communications. RealScam has continued to permit MMB to post on its forum.

The PP Blog believes it is unwise to click on any link MMB has posted on RealScam. He appears to be attempting to bait members of the antiscam community into clicking on links as part of a bid to gather IP addresses and other data from posters — all while asserting he has the power to use the information to harm individuals and entities such as Eagle Research Associates, a California based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about scams.

Piling On The HYIP Absurdity

In what would become one of the most visited threads in the history of the PP Blog, a poster known as “CORRECTION” repeatedly demanded that the Blog retract this June 3, 2009, headline about the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf and a strategy advanced by a promoter by which AVG upline sponsors could gather money from individual prospects and funnel it through the sponsors’ local banks before passing it to offshore payment processors — instead of letting AVG gather the money.

“Get it right before you lead with this inaccurate, bias (sic) and unfair reporting!!!!!!!!!!!” CORRECTION demanded.

The PP Blog did not submit to the demand to retract the headline.

It was revealed later in court filings that the grand jury that indicted Bowdoin on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities began to meet in May 2009, about a month prior to ASD- and AVG-related threats and demands made against the PP Blog.

More Gov’t HYIP Documentation

Read this SEC warning about social-media fraud.

Read a December 2010 statement from a top FBI official on “Operation Broken Trust” and why Americans need to be vigilant in the era of HYIP schemes and mass-marketing fraud.

“The focus of this sweep was fraud committed against individual investors, including Ponzi schemes, high-yield investment fraud, and market manipulation cases,” said Shawn Henry, the FBI’s executive assistant director. “Operation Broken Trust highlights the pervasiveness of the threat we face, and its impact on individuals from all walks of life.

“The perpetrators of these crimes are those who YOU might trust . . . friends and colleagues — people from your workplace, your child’s soccer team, even your church,” Henry said.

Read this March 1, 2012, story that reports a top U.S. Justice Department official speaking in Mexico referenced bogus libel lawsuits filed to protect criminal enterprises. Read this Justice Department news release last week on a meeting in Ottawa between top U.S. officials and top Canadian officials to discuss cross-border fraud.

More HYIP Nonsense: No ‘Unfriendly Political Jurisdictions’

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return of twice that offered by Bowdoin and ASD — and eight times that of Legisi. The JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid returns are somewhat on par with the returns offered by Pathway To Prosperity.

At the same time, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid says this on its website (italics added):

“Our business operations are geographically decentralized. We don’t have any central office. We’re not located in any ‘unfriendly political jurisdictions.’”

It is difficult to conceive how JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid could send any brighter signals of a scam in progress, given its absurd advertised rate of return and a public proclamation that it is not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”

In 2008, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, identified himself as an ASD pitchman. On Jan. 23, 2012 — six weeks ago today — the Italian securities regulator CONSOB announced it had opened a JSS Tripler-related probe and issued a 90-day suspension order.

During a March 1 conference call for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a caller informed Mann that a member of his second-level downline had informed him that the member’s bid to advertise the “opportunity” had been blocked in Holland amid concerns of legality.

“Tell him not to advertise in any particular country,” Mann replied.

In a Feb. 23 conference call, Mann declined to identify JSS Tripler with a nation-state, asserting that the opportunity was “not located in any specific part of the world. We’re all over the planet.”

Mar 5, 2012
BULLETIN: Already Under Scrutiny, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid May Be Using ‘Regional Reps’ To Increase Ponzi Reach Over National Borders

Redacted screen shot of "regional representatives" claim today on the website of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

BULLETIN: The PP Blog has learned that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is publishing a page in which it advertises the availability of “regional representatives” in various parts of the world, including Italy.

On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, took action against certain JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliaties. Despite the CONSOB action, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is openly advertising that it has at least two affiliates who speak Italian and that the affiliates are available to “assist you with ALL aspects of the program IN YOUR LANGUAGE.”

The page also touts the native-language talents of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliates to assist members in Hong Hong, Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States (to assist people who speak English or Japanese), Germany, Lithuania, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, France, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Spain.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid described its outreach via regional reps as “AMAZING!”

“The people on this page have been thoroughly trained in all the workings of JustBeenPaid’s programs, and are happy to assist you TODAY!” the murky entity crowed.

In a Feb. 23 conference call, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, declined to say precisely where the “opportunity” itself was located.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, Mann asserted to an audience of Americans and at least one person who claimed to be a resident of Canada, was “not located in any specific part of the world.

“We’re all over the planet,” he said, speaking with an English accent that appeared to be native to South Africa.

The assertion led to questions about whether Mann was running the “program” in a fashion reminiscent of a sort of small-scale Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). BCCI deliberately structured itself in murky fashion to ward off oversight by regulators. Its collapse created one of the great business scandals of the 1990s, prompting the Wall Street Journal (Europe) to observe that BCCI had been set up to be “offshore everywhere.”

BCCI’s collapse also triggered Congressional probes in the United States, along with both civil and criminal prosecutions.

The CONSOB probe in Italy, which the agency announced nearly six weeks ago, was not referenced on the “representatives” page on the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid website.

Incongruously, the “representatives” page included a link to an “agreement” page in which JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.”

Moreover, the registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.”

The collapsed Legis HYIP published similar terms. (More on the Legisi prosecution below.)

How long the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid regional reps have been in place was not immediately clear. Also unclear was whether each of the reps had a physical presence in the respective countries or were using the Internet to reach over borders and perform customer service and recruit downlines in the respective nations.

The U.S. government and other governments of the world have become increasingly concerned about cross-border fraud. Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, met with top officials in Canada to discuss the problem.

Perhaps aghast over JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid developments, a poster on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum declared today that having regional reps for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is an “insane idea.”

“Forget about the matrix spots and payouts,” the MoneyMakerGroup poster wrote today. “[W]hy is 200,000 + members not enough and why arent (sic) we off the radar and private and not opening ourselves up to potential problems ? Regional reps is an insane idea, Im (sic) sorry but the admin needs to protect us and wakeup (sic) to the reality that you cant (sic) get this huge and expect nothing bad to happen.”

The poster did not explain his apparent belief that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid had a duty to go “private” and to get “off the radar” of regulators. Nor did he say precisely what constituted something “bad.”

HYIPs have been the subject of both civil and criminal litigation in various jurisdictions.

It is common for HYIP purveyors to tout purported “offshore” operating venues and to claim such venues insulate an “opportunity” from prosecution. It also is common for HYIPs to announce they are “private” programs and therefore not subject to government oversight. At the same time, it is common for HYIPs to try to structure a Terms of Service or Member Agreement that purports either that the “opportunity” is not selling securities or is not subject to regulatory oversight.

Some HYIPs, including JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, have preemptively denied they are Ponzi schemes.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return of 2 percent. On an annualized basis, the sum is between 48 and 73 times the purported returns of imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. It is EIGHT times the daily return touted by Gregory McKnight, who pleaded guilty last month in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan for his operation of the Legisi HYIP scheme.

The purported returns of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid are somewhat on par with the returns of Nicholas Smirnow of the alleged Pathway To Prosperity HYIP Ponzi scheme. Smirnow is listed as “Wanted” by INTERPOL.

On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a website linked to Mann displayed videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, an American and purported “sovereign citizen” under indictment in Alaska in an alleged murder plot against public officials.

Separately, a YouTube promo for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid dated yesterday asserted that “[a]ll you have to do is wait for your money to increase!!!”

A Blog post dated today, meanwhile, makes this assertion (italics added):

“The JSS Tripler new site is one month old. It has been a month of phenomenal growth, but it’s nothing compared to what’s in the future. Some ‘Big Things’ are on the horizon that will enable many of the members to become millionaires, some could even become billionaires.”

Neither the March 3 Blog post nor the March 2 YouTube video referenced the CONSOB probe.

In 2008, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin asserted that ASD had a plan to create 100,000 millionaires in three years. On Dec. 1, 2010, the U.S. government announced that Bowdoin had been indicted on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

About 16 days later — on Dec. 17, 2010 — U.S. federal prosecutors announced they had filed forfeiture litigation against at least two ASD affiliates. One of the alleged affiliates was purported ASD “trainer” Erma Seabaugh.

Seabaugh also was an affiliate of an enterprise known as Ad-Ventures4U (ADV4u), which crashed in 2009 amid allegations that its operator had been threatened by members.

In web promos, Mann has described himself as a promoter for both ASD and ADV4U. Some affiliates have described him as a “genius,” the same description accorded Bowdoin before the August 2008 raid on ASD headquarters by the U.S. Secret Service.

After the event — and facing both civil prosecution and a criminal investigation — Bowdoin told ASD members that the raid was the work of “Satan.”

It is a descriptor completely contrary to the typical view Americans have of the Secret Service, which has the twin duties of protecting the nation’s financial infrastructure and the life of the President of the United States.

Most Americans believe the Secret Service consists of heroes who place themselves in harm’s way every day to keep the United States safe, doing everything from making sure U.S. grandparents have safe places to deposit their Social Security checks to making sure that the President is well-protected and accessible to the American people.

Kenneth Wayne Leaming, an ASD member and purported “sovereign citizen,” allegedly filed a bogus lien against the Secret Service agent who led the ASD investigation in 2008, the FBI said in November 2011 court filings.

Leaming also allegedly filed bogus liens against a federal judge and three federal prosecutors involved in the ASD case, according to court filings by the FBI. He is jailed near Seattle awaiting trial on those charges, along with charges of filing false liens against other public officials, concealing two federal fugitives wanted in a home-business caper in Arkansas, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a bogus “Bonded Primissory Note” for $1 million.

Court filings suggest Leaming was conducting financial research on John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States and the head judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, while hatching a scheme to serve papers on Roberts through a school attended by the distinguished jurist’s children.

Mar 3, 2012
WILLFUL BLINDNESS: With Legisi Operator Now Convicted Of Wire Fraud, HYIP Colleague And Fellow Ponzi-Forum Darling Nicholas Smirnow Of Pathway To Prosperity Listed As ‘Wanted’ By INTERPOL; Meanwhile, Cheerleading For JSS Tripler Continues

Nicholas A. Smirnow. Source: Interpol "Wanted" notice.

After the news broke yesterday that Gregory N. McKnight, the accused operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a $72 million caper, things only got worse for the serial Ponzi-forum cheerleaders — not that they’re likely to abandon their practice of willful blindness while reaching across oceans to pick the pockets of any person with cash and a pulse.

Nicholas Smirnow, a convicted robber, burglar and drug dealer before he became an HYIP operator and darling of the TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and ASAMonitor Ponzi forums, is listed as wanted by INTERPOL.

How long Smirnow has been on INTERPOL’s wanted list and the circumstances under which he was placed on the list were not immediately clear. An email yesterday by the PP Blog seeking comment from federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Illinois on the status of Smirnow and the case against him was not immediately returned.

Smirnow, 54, also is known as Nicolay Smirnow, Alexander Judizcev, Nicholas Kachura and Jeff Prozorowiczm. He was charged in the Southern District of Illinois with fraud and money laundering-related crimes in May 2010 for his alleged operation of the Pathway To Prosperity (P2P) Ponzi scheme.

When the charges against Smirnow were announced approaching two years ago, U.S. federal prosecutors said they intended to ask the government of the Philippines to extradite Smirnow to the United States. Whether Smirnow had been jailed in the Philippines and somehow later was set free after the U.S. arrest warrant was issued could not immediately be determined.

What is clear is that INTERPOL is publishing a “Wanted” listing with the following physical details about Smirnow:

Height: 1.76 meter
Weight: 76 Kg
Colour of hair: Brown
Colour of eyes: Green

The INTERPOL poster for Smirnow was up even as the SEC was announcing the McKnight conviction. (See “Wanted” poster, which is active at the time of this post.)

A U.S. Postal Inspection Service affidavit in the Smirnow case references TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and ASAMonitor, which is now defunct. The affidavit also references AlertPay and SolidTrustPay, Canada-based processors often used by HYIP hucksters. The Smirnow criminal complaint also references the Canadian processors.

The P2P scheme was almost unimaginably widespread, a postal inspector said in the 2010 affidavit.

“Financial records of payment processors utilized by P-2-P to collect investment funds from investors show that approximately 40,000 investors in 120 countries established accounts with P-2-P,” the postal inspector said. “Despite the fact that the investment was supposedly ‘guaranteed, investors lost approximately $70 million as a result of [Smirnow’s] actions.”

Ponzi-forum cheerleaders yesterday appeared either to be unaware of (or to have to ignored) the news about the guilty plea of Legisi’s McKnight and corresponding civil judgments against him totaling about $6.5 million.

Some of them continued to focus on their efforts to promote JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that also uses AlertPay and SolidTrustPay.

AlertPay and SolidTrustPay also are referenced in court filings in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case. A 2008 promo for ASD attributed to Mann asserted that Mann was an ASD promoter. ASD operator Andy Bowdoin faces a criminal trial in September 2012 on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid asserts it pays a daily return of twice what ASD offered. ASD figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming has been linked to the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement and is jailed near Seattle on federal charges of filing false liens against public officials involved in the ASD case.

McKnight’s base program in Legisi offered a return of .25 percent (one quarter of 1 percent) per day, according to a 2008 SEC filing.

Mann’s purported base program offers eight times that return on a daily basis, according to JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promos. On an annualized basis, the “program” offers a return that is between 48 and 73 times higher than the returns of imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.

Madoff is serving a U.S. prison term of 150 years. McKnight faces up to 20 years, the SEC said yesterday.

A promo for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that appeared yesterday on a forum known as CariGold made this claim. (Italics added):

JSS-Tripler now has 213,884 members —
continuing to grow by over 3,000 new
members a day. (If it hadn’t been for
yesterday’s downtime, the number would
have been “over 4,000.”) Thank you to
our many promoters for doing such a
great job!

Purchases of new JSS-Tripler positions
are on track for a new all-time record,
today.

More than a month ago — on Jan. 23 — the Italian securities regulator CONSOB announced that JSS Tripler promoters were under investigation. Ponzi-forum promoters pooh-poohed the news.

Feb 25, 2012
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: KABOOM! Gregory N. McKnight, Legisi HYIP Operator And Ponzi-Forum Darling, Pleads Guilty To Wire Fraud

This grainy likeness of Gregory N. McKnight is taken from federal court filings in 2008.

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan, the SEC said this afternoon.

McKnight was charged criminally on Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. His guilty plea followed two days later, the SEC said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. The SEC charged him civilly in May 2008.

Legisi, which gathered more than $72 million and fleeced more than 3,000 investors in the United States and several other countries, was popularized in part on Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

MoneyMakerGroup is specifically referenced in U.S. court files in the Legisi case.

Legisi’s Terms of Service resemble those of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a purported “opportunity” currently being flogged on the Ponzi boards even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the actions of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters.

Promos by Legisi triggered an undercover operation by the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan.

In addition to the prospect of jail time, McKnight is on the receiving end of a civil judgment and penalties totaling about $6.5 million, the SEC said.

Legisi members, according to the Terms, had to affirm they were not an “informant, nor associated with any informant” of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others, according to documents filed in federal court.

The others included “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office and Interpol.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”

One of Legisi’s payment “programs” advertised a return of .25 (one-quarter) percent per day, according to court filings.

JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promotes a return of 2 percent a day — eight times higher than Legisi.

A sentencing date for McKnight will be determined later, the SEC said.

U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith presided over McKnight’s guilty plea, the SEC said.

Frederick Mann is the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

Feb 24, 2012