PatrickPretty.com

Tag: mass-marketing fraud

International Scammer Pleads Guilty In United States To Swindling Retirees In ‘Jamaican Lottery Scheme’; O’Brain J. Lynch Potentially Faces Decades In Federal Prison

“Investigators from [the Social Security Administration] discovered that hundreds of victims throughout the United States were losing their social security benefits and their life savings either because they believed that they had won ‘The Jamaican Lottery’ or because, as part of another telemarketing scheme, they revealed enough information about themselves that allowed the thieves to fraudulently divert their money.” — Office of U.S. Attorney James L. Santelle, Eastern District of Wisconsin, June 7, 2013

For O’Brain J. Lynch, senior citizens receiving retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration and other sources were the perfect targets of a criminal organization operating an international mass-marketing fraud scheme from Jamaica.

The scheme duped people into believing they had won “The Jamaican Lottery.” In reality, authorities said, it was an advance-fee scam designed to drain retirement accounts and to recruit cashers in the United States.

Lynch, 28, of of Montego Bay, Jamaica, now faces up to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud, the office of U.S. Attorney James L. Santelle of the Eastern District of Wisconsin said last week. The case was investigated by SSA, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

“Americans have lost millions of dollars to criminals from countries around the world in foreign lottery scams, said Pete Zegarac, inspector in charge of the Chicago Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. “When one family member is harmed by a foreign lottery scam, the impact is felt by all. Losses can be monumental, sometimes entire life savings are wiped out. ”

From a statement by prosecutors (italics added):

A Jamaican Lottery Scheme is a form of mass-marketing fraud committed via the internet, telemarketing, or mass mailings. Jamaican criminal organizations contact victims and identify themselves as lawyers, government officials, law enforcement agents, or lottery company officials. The potential victims are led to believe they won an international multi-million dollar lottery. The fraudulent telemarketers then inform the victims that in order to receive their winnings the victim needs to pay an advance fee. This fee is usually described as a tax, insurance payment, or customs duty that must be paid to release the winnings. The victims are instructed to send the funds via mail or wire transfer.

The scammers routinely involve victims to help facilitate the laundering of financial transactions by receiving and withdrawing funds from prepaid cards and receiving and sending wire transfers. In an attempt to conceal and layer the proceeds from the lottery scams, the scammers direct victims to send funds, knowingly and unknowingly, to other victims and associates of the scammers within the United States. These victims and co-conspirators then transfer the proceeds of this fraud to the scammers in Jamaica by wire transfers. The Jamaican criminal organizations have modified the lottery scam into other variations of telemarketing schemes to include redirecting individuals Social Security Administration (SSA) benefits, direct deposit, automatic debit, re-routing schemes and other identity theft schemes.

According to documents filed in court, in March 2012, the SSA learned that a social security recipient, from Glendale, Wisconsin, was receiving social security benefits in the name of other recipients and cashing in these benefits. Special Agents from the SSA – Office of Inspector General (OIG) discovered the recipient was sending this money to Jamaica because he believed he had won “The Jamaican Lottery.” He said he was contacted by an official from Global International who informed him that he won $2.5 million and two (2) Mercedes Benz vehicles in a sweepstakes. He was then advised that in order for him to collect the money and the cars, he had to pay taxes, customs duty, and other fees. He initially sent his own money to Jamaica, and, once he had depleted his own assets, he was directed, by telephone, to accept checks, Direct Express cards, and other cash value cards in the names of other people (who were also victims), cash them out and then send the money to Jamaica. As a result, numerous victims did not receive their social security benefits, and instead they were mailed to Jamaica. Investigators from SSA discovered that hundreds of victims throughout the United States were losing their social security benefits and their life savings either because they believed that they had won “The Jamaican Lottery” or because, as part of another telemarketing scheme, they revealed enough information about themselves that allowed the thieves to fraudulently divert their money.

Prosecutors said they believed Lynch was the first Jamaican national charged in the United States with this type of fraud.

“We will continue to work with our partners in Jamaica and other law enforcement agencies to put these criminal enterprises out of business,” said Gary Hartwig, special-agent-in charge of HSI’s Chicago Division.

The Journal Sentinel newspaper (Milwaukee) reported last week that Lynch also is known as “Jake Dinero.”

International mass-marketing fraud takes many forms. In 2010, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alleged that the Pathway To Prosperity HYIP scheme gathered about $70 million and affected 40,000 investors in 120 countries. P2P was a Ponzi-board “program” that in part gained a head of steam on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup fraud forums.

The alleged $600 million Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid scheme followed P2P as a favored “program” on the Ponzi boards, as did the alleged Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme. Profitable Sunrise may have collected tens of millions of dollars, the SEC said in April 2013, after bringing fraud charges against Zeek Rewards in August 2012.

Reload scams have been targeted at both Zeek and Profitable Sunrise victims, authorities said.

On May 9, the PP Blog reported that an emerging scam that is seeking to tie itself to the Catholic Church is engaging in a spam campaign and seeking to lure Profitable Sunrise victims into a new trap. The scam is using the name of “ALL SAINTS CATHOLIC CHURCH LOAN FIRM” and many other names, some of which are published in the Comments thread in the story linked in the first sentence of this paragraph.

Jun 11, 2013
RealScam.com, Antiscam Site, Is Under DDoS Attack

UPDATED 11:39 A.M. EDT (MARCH 21, U.S.A.) RealScam.com reports that the DDoS attack is continuing, but that measures have been taken to restore accessibility. The site is back online. Here, below, our earlier story . . .

RealScam.com, a site that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud, is experiencing a DDoS attack, a source told the PP Blog this afternoon.

“We’re seeing what we can do about it,” the source said.

On the plus side, the source noted, the DDoS attack suggests RealScam is meeting its mission of informing the public about scams.

The attack is occurring against the backdrop of government actions against the Profitable Sunrise HYIP “program.” RealScam posters have been following Profitable Sunrise developments closely. Forum posters also are monitoring developments concerning “Banners Broker,” another mysterious online “program.”

Precisely why RealScam.com has been targeted is unclear. At least one purported member of Profitable Sunrise — writing on another site on Saturday — said he wished the hacker’s group “Anonymous” was paying attention to negative coverage of Profitable Sunrise on the web. The poster did not reference RealScam.com in his apparent call for a DDoS attack. Instead, he referenced another site carrying negative news about Profitable Sunrise.

The attack against RealScam.com also occurs against the backdrop of remarks in Washington today by Michael J. Bresnick, executive director of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. In an address to the Exchequer Club of Washington, D.C., Bresnick referenced mass-marketing fraud.

“. . . the Consumer Protection Working Group has prioritized the role of financial institutions in mass marketing fraud schemes — including deceptive payday loans, false offers of debt relief, fraudulent health care discount cards, and phony government grants, among other things — that cause billions of dollars in consumer losses and financially destroy some of our most vulnerable citizens,” Bresnick said. “The Working Group also is investigating the businesses that process payments on behalf of the fraudulent merchants — financial intermediaries referred to as third-party payment processors.”

Both Profitable Sunrise and Banners Broker — like many purported “opportunites” before them — have relied on banks and payment processors to keep cash flowing to the schemes. Bresnick did not mention either company in his remarks.

“The reason that we are focused on financial institutions and payment processors is because they are the so-called bottlenecks, or choke-points, in the fraud committed by so many merchants that victimize consumers and launder their illegal proceeds,” Bresnick said. “For example, third-party payment processors are frequently the means by which fraudulent merchants are able to get paid. They provide the scammers with access to the national banking system and facilitate the movement of money from the victim of the fraud to the scam artist. And financial institutions through which these fraudulent proceeds flow, we have seen, are not always blind to the fraud. In fact, we have observed that some financial institutions actually have been complicit in these schemes, ignoring their BSA/AML obligations, and either know about — or are willfully blind to — the fraudulent proceeds flowing through their institutions.”

Despite the absurd payout advertised by Profitable Sunrise (and claims that Banners Broker doubles money), some Profitable Sunrise members have complained on forums about credit unions in North Carolina and Alberta that have raised serious questions about Profitable Sunrise, a “program” that advertised a “Long Haul” plan purported to pay 2.7 percent interest a day.

Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described in August 2012 as a $600 million Ponzi and pyramd scheme operating online, complained on its own Blog about credit unions raising questions about the Zeek “program.”

The SEC later said that Zeek scammed hundreds of thousands of people by duping participants into believing that the “program’s” payout of about 1.5 percent a day came from legitimate means.

Mar 20, 2013
KABOOM! Money-Services Firm That Turned A Blind Eye To International Scammers Will Forfeit $100 Million After Probe By U.S. Postal Inspection Service

“MoneyGram knowingly turned a blind eye to scam artists and money launderers who used the company to perpetrate fraudulent schemes targeting the elderly and other vulnerable victims.” — Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Nov. 9, 2012

BULLETIN: The price of willful blindness just went up if you’re a money-services business that facilitates international mass-marketing fraud.

A Dallas-based company that turned a blind eye to scammers using its money-transfer system will forfeit $100 million and has admitted “to criminally aiding and abetting wire fraud and failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program,” the U.S. Department of Justice said this morning.

MoneyGram International Inc. and the Justice Department also have entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement in which the company will adopt “a worldwide anti-fraud and anti-money laundering standard” and implement other changes, the agency said.

The case against MoneyGram was brought by federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Pennsylvania after a probe by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

MoneyGram’s “broken corporate culture led the company to privilege profits over everything else,” said Lanny A. Breuer, assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“Thousands of citizens in Pennsylvania and other states suffered heartbreaking financial losses for years because of these international telemarketing schemes which depended on MoneyGram’s facilities to give them an electronic highway to move their illegal profits quickly out of the country,” said U.S. Attorney Peter Smith. “The determined work of U.S. Postal Inspectors and federal prosecutors disrupted and closed that electronic highway, hopefully for good.”

A top postal inspector said that scammers who took advantage of MoneyGram’s laxity targeted “the most vulnerable in our society.”

“Businesses are supposed to provide their customers with fair and honest services,” said Karen V. Higgins, inspector in charge of the Philadelphia Division.

From the Justice Department statement (italics added):

According to court documents, starting in 2004 and continuing until 2009, MoneyGram violated U.S. law by processing thousands of transactions for MoneyGram agents known to be involved in an international scheme to defraud members of the U.S. public. MoneyGram profited from the scheme by collecting fees and other revenues on the fraudulent transactions.

The scams – which generally targeted the elderly and other vulnerable groups – included posing as victims’ relatives in urgent need of money and falsely promising victims large cash prizes, various high-ticket items for sale over the Internet at deeply discounted prices or employment opportunities as “secret shoppers.” In each case, the perpetrators required the victims to send them funds through MoneyGram’s money transfer system.

Despite thousands of complaints by customers who were victims of fraud, MoneyGram failed to terminate agents that it knew were involved in scams. As early as 2003, MoneyGram’s fraud department would identify specific MoneyGram agents believed to be involved in fraud schemes and recommended termination of those agents to senior management. These termination recommendations were rarely accepted because they were not approved by executives in the sales department and, as a result, fraudulent activity grew from 1,575 reported instances of fraud by customers in the United States and Canada in 2004 to 19,614 reported instances in 2008. Cumulatively, from 2004 through 2009, MoneyGram customers reported instances of fraud totaling at least $100 million.

“In addition to forfeiting $100 million, which will be used to compensate victims, MoneyGram must for the next five years retain a corporate monitor who will report regularly to the Justice Department,” Breuer said.

Nov 9, 2012
INTERPOL PRESIDENT: Transnational Criminals Working For ‘Common . . . Boss’ In Asia Gathered Billions; Suspects Caught At Airport In ‘Nick Of Time’; Cybercrime Costs In Europe Now Approaching $1 TRILLION A Year; U.S. Banks Lost $12 Billion To Cyber Criminals In 2011

“[Eighty] per cent of crime committed online is now connected to organized gangs operating across borders. Criminal gangs now find that transnational and cybercrime are far more rewarding and profitable than other riskier forms of making money.” — INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui at 41st European Regional Conference held in Tel Aviv, citing study from London Metropolitan University, May 8, 2012

INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui at the 41st European Regional Conference in Tel Aviv. Source: INTERPOL.

EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIPs, autosurfs, money-cyclers, and other “programs” are part of the cyber menace, which increasingly is being advanced by criminal gang members who reach across national borders and line their pockets with money stolen from their targets.

In June 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described the amount of money being stolen online as “staggering.”

The thefts, Holder said, have “the potential to threaten not only the security of our nation — but the integrity of our government, the stability of our economy, and the safety of our people.”

In Tel Aviv yesterday, INTERPOL cited some truly alarming numbers . . .

How big is the criminal menace becoming in the age of cross-border fraud on the Internet?

In jaw-dropping remarks yesterday in Israel, INTERPOL President Khoo Boon Hui said Malaysian police last month arrested 137 “gang members” from China and Taiwan who were running an online gambling scam that had gathered the staggering sum of $1.3 billion in “profits.” (NOTE: This sum is quoted in U.S. dollars.)

The scammers, Hui said, were part of a cross-border criminal syndicate that was operating from “six luxury homes equipped with call centres, computers and even training rooms in a gated community which was also home to a former prime minister.”

If that weren’t enough, Malaysian police — just two days after taking down that scam — encountered another one that had resulted in criminal profits in the billions. The second scam again involved gang members from China and Taiwan. It resulted in 83 arrests, Hui said.

“They cheated victims in China and Taiwan through online scams involving a range of modus operandi from impersonating the authorities to phoney credit card and bank charges,” Hui said. “They were on the verge of fleeing the country, having closed down their operational base and some had even made it to the airport where they were detained in the nick of time. They had been in Malaysia for just eight months when they were arrested.”

Early information suggests that the fraud “originated from Macau and had operated from other countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand,” Hui said.

The story of the arrests, however, appears to have an ending that could be described as unfinished. Indeed, Hui said he grew “perturbed” when he found out that the subjects of the arrests were deported because “thousands of victims were out of Malaysian Police jurisdiction.”

“I was perturbed by this course of action and asked the Malaysian Police Chief for more details when I met him last Friday,” Hui said. “It turned out that though the two syndicates were unknown to each other, they were controlled by a common Taiwanese boss. This was why the second syndicate had been alerted to pack up. Fortunately, the Taiwanese Police, which as we all know is not an INTERPOL member, was able to fully cooperate with its Chinese and Malaysian counterparts and had alerted them of what was happening from its own close monitoring. The Malaysian Police chief was confident that the gang members would get their just dues back in their homeland.”

In relating the story of scammers who allegedly stole billions of dollars while operating inside the borders of another nation, Hui said the incident highlights some of the problems law enforcement encounters in the age of the Internet.

“This case illustrates how organized crime is now able to recruit members from countries without diplomatic ties to commit crimes overseas operating from temporary safe bases in third countries equipped with the latest technology,” Hui said. “It also shows that there are links between syndicates that operate scams and those which promote illegal betting and presumably match fixing using sophisticated MOs. In this case, exceptional international police cooperation within the region thwarted them.”

And cybercrime hardly is limited to Asia, Hui said, noting that the menace and its economic costs come in more than one form.

“Here in Israel alone, a reported number of over 1,000 cyber?attacks take place every minute,” Hui said. “Experts have estimated that the cost of cybercrime is larger than the combined costs of cocaine, marijuana and heroin trafficking. In Europe, the cost of cybercrime has apparently reached 750 billion Euros [US$971 billion] a year. Likewise, we have seen global financial institutions suffer from major cyber?attacks on their networks and servers with US banks purportedly losing $900 million to bank robbers but $12 billion to cyber criminals last year.”

May 9, 2012
AdLandPro, Site Whose HYIP Shills Touted AdSurfDaily, Finanzas Forex And JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, Renews Attack Against RealScam.com — As ALP Swaps In Images Of Its Own Members Alongside Ad For ‘Escort’ Service

This ad for a purported Thailand escort service appears today in the United States on AdLandPro, a site whose operator is threatening a class-action lawsuit against RealScam.com, an antiscam forum. The PP Blog captured this screen shot today and edited it to remove the images of EIGHT AdLandPro members whose photographs were displayed in the left sidebar and created the appearance that the AdLandPro members also were members of (or approved of) the escort service. When the Blog reloaded the ad, the page displayed the images of EIGHT other AdLandPro members. A third reload served up an image of an entire family, including three young children who appear to reside in the South Central United States.

In November 2011, the PP Blog reported that Bogdan Fiedur of AdLandPro had threatened antiscam site RealScam.com with litigation. The bid to chill RealScam in the age of international mass-marketing fraud featured the registration of a domain styled RealScamClassActionSuit.com.

With Fiedur trolling for suckers and hoping to make his intellectual dishonesty go viral, RealScam did not buckle at his obvious bid to chill it.

Good for you, RealScam!

It’s hard to condense all the AdLandPro absurdities that followed over the next several weeks, but we’ll summarize them as such: A sampling of Stepfordian shills and mindless apologists stepped up to the plate for Fiedur, “fake” law students purportedly from a major American university entered the fray to add to the bid to chill — and the matter devolved into Threatre of the Absurd in that Internet-only sort of way.

By the end of December, the chill bid appeared to end: Content on the purported class-action site went missing, and the site began to resolve to an AdLandPro page.

We would be remiss if we did not point out that, in addition to being solicited to register for HYIP scams such as AdSurfDaily, Finanzas Forex and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid (730 percent a year) by purported “Christians” on AdLandPro over the past few years, American visitors (and others) also were solicited for cross-border sales of pharmaceuticals.

If drugs weren’t on their purchase list, AdLandPro visitors were told how to find used underwear and arrange — umm, how should we put this? — the temporary services of scantily clad women in various nations from India eastward after demonstrating a way to pay?

At least some of the risqué ads have gone missing, but their URLs remain. When they’re clicked, they resolve to pages that show the faces of AdLandPro members who had nothing to do with the placing of the ads. Did we mention that AdLandPro purports to be a great guardian of privacy and the interest of its members?

And did we mention that not all of the risqué ads have gone missing — and that, when they’re clicked, they load images of AdLandPro members who had nothing to do with placing the ads and that AdLandPro wants members to believe it was a sort of Facebook before Facebook became the craze?

“The most exclusive, classic and attractive companions in Bangkok are here waiting to join you, at your hotel, apartment, or villa,” one ad on AdLandPro reads today. “All our princesses are hand picked by our management for their beauty, demeanour and friendly attitude.”

The ad is on the “community” subdomain of the AdLandPro.domain. When the PP Blog viewed the ad earlier today, the photographs of EIGHT AdLandPro members showed up in a sidebar only inches to the left. The headline above the sidebar read, “Our Members.” Less than an inch away, a photo of a presumptive “escort” wearing a pink-lace bra and a pink-lace wrap over her genital area appeared. The photo appeared to display two red telephones, with the woman posing seductively on what appeared to be a bed or mat.

When the PP Blog reloaded the page, the images of eight different AdLandPro members were displayed. A third reload resulted in the display of images of an AdLandPro family whose matriarch identified herself in her AdLandPro profile as a mother and grandmother from the South Central United States.

Two adults in the photo were holding young children, one of whom appeared to be an infant. A third child also appeared in the photo. Below that photo, the full-face image of a lone AdLandPro member — a woman — appeared. Below the woman’s photo, an ad for “OneX” appeared.

OneX is a program accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily said he was using to raise funds to pay for his criminal defense.

“I believe that God has brought us OneX to provide the necessary funds to win this case,” Bowdoin said in an October 2011 pitch.

So, if you’re an AdLandPro member and had nothing whatsoever to do with the placement of the escort ad and do not endorse Thailand “princesses” purportedly “hand picked by . . . management,” say, because you oppose human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women, AdLandPro is making it appear as though you’re on board the Thailand escort train.

A link prompt below the photos of the eight AdLandPro members reads, “See All 185753 Members.” The URL points to the AdLandPro membership directory.

By coincidence, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today that Marcus Choice Williams, 36, of Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison followed by 30 years of supervised release for various felony offenses related to a conspiracy to traffic women for prostitution.

“The court’s sentence clearly reflects the seriousness of these awful sex trafficking crimes,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The victims suffered physical assaults, sexual abuse and daily degradation all because of this defendant’s greed and callous disregard for them as individuals. We are committed to prosecuting sex traffickers and vindicating victims’ rights, as they were vindicated today.”

Williams, prosecutors said, operated “adult escort web sites” as part of a human-trafficking scheme that also included money-laundering.

He “recruited vulnerable women, specifically single mothers from troubled backgrounds, and, in some cases used a combination of deception, fraud, coercion, threats and physical violence to compel the women to engage in prostitution, requiring each young woman to secure a daily quota of money, and if operating out of town, to wire the funds to him,” prosecutors said.

Crazier By The Moment

Just when one began to believe that AdLandPro had abandoned its absurd litigation threat against RealScam, guess what’s back? (You’d be right if you guessed the class-action site.)

And if ads on AdLandPro from “Christian” HYIP peddlers and purveyors of used underwear and illegal, cross-border pharmaceutical sales (after Google had agreed in August 2011 to pay the United States $500 million to settle claims of illegal cross-border solicitations for pharmaceuticals) were not enough, Fiedur’s purported class-action site is quoting a notorious YouTube cyberstalker and raunchy Internet gadfly, positioning him as an authoritative critic of RealScam.com.

It’s enough to make decent people from all corners of the world cringe as they contemplate whether intellectual corruption as practiced on the web has gained the upper hand.

Mar 19, 2012
EDITORIAL: Top Justice Department Official Speaks On Transnational Organized Crime, References Bogus ‘Libel’ Actions Brought Against ‘Individuals Who Expose . . . Criminal Activities’
EDITOR’S NOTE: A top U.S. official — speaking today in Mexico City at the High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime hosted by the Mexican government under the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS) — addressed the challenges the world law-enforcement community is confronting in the Internet Age.

In remarks apt to cause unease within the HYIP and organized-crime spheres, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole noted that the government was wise to efforts by criminals to chill efforts to expose crimes by filing libel lawsuits. (A link to Cole’s full prepared remarks appears at the bottom of this story.)

Some recent Ponzi cases in the United States involving incredible sums of money — and the corresponding behavior of some of the participants — help prove the point . . .

Now-convicted racketeer Scott Rothstein threatened libel lawsuits when his $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme was on the verge of imploding.

AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, named a defendant in a 2009 civil case that alleged racketeering, issued “slander” lawsuit threats prior to the August 2008 intervention by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD scheme. The threats were issued not long after Bowdoin had returned from a trip arranged by a lawyer in which the ASD patriarch had ventured to Panama and Costa Rica, according to court filings.

Bowdoin later was indicted, amid allegations he was presiding over an international Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Robert Hodgins, who was referenced in 2007 ads for ASD, is an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. The United States accused Hodgins of laundering proceeds for narcotics traffickers in Colombia.

In advance of today’s High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza noted that such crime “is the principal continental source of activities such as drug trafficking, the illicit trafficking of firearms and immigrants, human trafficking, money laundering, corruption, kidnapping, and cybercrimes.”

Befitting its importance, the hemispheric meeting was hosted by Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico.

Among others things, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole said this at the meeting:

“The advance of globalization and the internet, while hugely beneficial to people everywhere, has also created unparalleled opportunities for criminals to expand their operations and use the facilities of global communication and commerce to carry out their criminal activities across national borders.”

Although Cole did not use the term “HYIP” in his remarks, it is clear that the U.S. government is well aware of the dangers online fraud schemes pose as they reach across borders to accumulate tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars — sometimes through a single fraud scheme.

As the PP Blog read the text of Cole’s remarks, another thing leaped off the page. Indeed, Cole said this (emphasis added):

“Because of the sophistication of the world economy, organized crime groups have developed an ability to exploit legitimate actors and their skills in order to further the criminal enterprises. For example, transnational organized criminal groups often rely on lawyers to facilitate illicit transactions. These lawyers create shell companies, open offshore bank accounts in the names of those shell companies, and launder criminal proceeds through trust accounts. Other lawyers working for organized crime figures bring frivolous libel cases against individuals who expose their criminal activities.“

Cole, of course, wasn’t talking specifically about the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and ASD’s preposterous claims that Bowdoin had found a legitimate way to pay interest of 1 percent a day on the tens of millions of dollars sent in by participants and that ASD would create 100,000 millionaires in three years.

Even so, the words Cole uttered in Mexico City today have deep relevance to the HYIP sphere. Indeed, ASD reached across international borders and relied on an international sales force.

Here is how ASD worked: It relied on “legitimate actors” of the sort Cole described — in ASD’s case, a lawyer who allegedly scrubbed the “opportunity” to ensure compliance, and Moms and Pops and entrepreneurs (and people down on their luck) who signed up and became the friendly faces to their prospect bases. The salespeople were paid 10 percent for recruiting a friend with money and 5 percent more if the friend could recruit a friend with money — on top of “surfing” earnings of 1 percent a day and even more through the purported miracle of “compounding.”

The current HYIP scheme of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has the same type of payout schemes that ASD foisted on the marketplace. One big difference is the JSS/JBP says it can provide twice the daily payout of ASD.

JSS/JBP’s purported operator is Frederick Mann, a former ASD pitchman.

In September 2011, the U.S. Secret Service described ASD as a “criminal enterprise.”

You’ll note above that Cole today used the same phrase to describe one of the inherent threats of transnational organized crime. And, as noted above, he also spoke about bids to chill critics through the filing of libel lawsuits.

Those same types of threats were made in the ASD case, beginning in the summer of 2008. In fact, federal prosecutors even included an evidence exhibit in case filings that alluded to one such alleged threat. Unmentioned in the initial ASD case filings were the bids to chill reporters in at least two states and a newspaper in Georgia.

If you’ve been following the HYIP sphere for any length of time, you know that threats to sue members of the antiscam community are part of the landscape — so much so, that it has become an HYIP cliche. The bids to chill are not limited to threats to sue for libel and “slander,” however.

It also is becoming an HYIP cliche that the operators and apologists for brazen HYIPs threaten to file complaints with the ISPs of members of the antiscam community — i.e., if you report about us we’ll take down your Internet connection and/or sue you for copyright/trademark infringement.

These things are transparent bids to chill speech. They also are designed to have a secondary “benefit”: to make the marks — who may consist in part of people who are otherwise “legitimate actors” — believe that harm will come to them if they ever complain, that there are severe consequences to those who complain.

These nefarious methods have surfaced in scheme after scheme after scheme, as have various assertions about “offshore” venues and the purported “safety” the “offshore” venues provide. Longtime observers know the claims are part and parcel to the HYIP sphere — and that claims that someone is a successful businessman who has presided over multiple companies almost certainly will be incorporated into the sales pitch for an “opportunity.”

The FBI, for just one example, has been warning for years about securities fraud, the “shadow banking system” and the use of shell companies to disguise fraud proceeds. The director has testified repeatedly on Capitol Hill about the subject, while simultaneously warning about debit cards that are being used in nefarious ways and the dangers posed by lone wolves and “home-grown, violent extremists.”

All of these things are or may be in play in the HYIP sphere. Here are some things you should know:
- It is likely that the scheme’s operator is trading on the credibility you have with loved ones and friends within your immediate sphere of influence to drive dollars to the scam. It is equally likely that you are being denied the sort of information that would empower you to make an informed purchasing decision and highly likely you are being asked to participate in a venture that could result in prosecutions under both civil and criminal law, possibly even the RICO statute.
- The rate of return will be preposterous in any real-world context and the math will be fuzzy and confusing, if not downright impossible.
- Your sponsor will lie to you or pass on GIGO that is part of the company line because the company line is more convenient than the uncomfortable truth. It will be garbage coming in, and garbage going out.
- You will be subjected to a direct or indirect threat or a bid to chill, especially if you ask uncomfortable questions or raise any doubts.
- There is a chance you’ll be working for a racketeer or an international criminal, perhaps even a “sovereign citizen” who has hatched a construction by which nothing is a crime, that all conduct is lawful in the name of freedom and free markets. If your sentiment is against the government or “big business” because of your personal financial situation or your political or philosophical views, an extremist may try to exploit your sentiment for personal profit.
Just some things to think about in the age of the HYIP, the age of terrorism and the age of transnational organized crime as practiced on the Internet . . .

Read the full remarks of Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole here.
Mar 1, 2012
DISTURBING: JSS Tripler-Related Domain Listed In CONSOB Action Is Based In United States — But Suddenly Starts Redirecting To ‘JustBeenPaid’ Site In The Netherlands; Claim That ‘We’re Not Located In Any Unfriendly Political Jurisdictions’ Exposed As Rank Deception

On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, made public an action against promoters of JSS Tripler, a “program” that advertises an annualized return of 730 percent. The claim alone would be enough to make Bernard Madoff or Charles Ponzi himself blush.

Or projectile-vomit.

But if the CONSOB action were not trouble enough, one of the JSS Tripler-related domains listed in the agency’s action is hosted in Utah, according to domain records. The domain, which forms its root with a hyphen splitting the proper name of JSS Tripler — i.e., JSS-Tripler.com — continued to serve pages from Utah for several days after CONSOB’s Jan. 23 announcement. The domain, for instance, published daily updates on the number of days JSS Tripler itself purportedly had been in action.

Among the graphics on the Utah-hosted landing page was an image of a JSS Tripler pitchwoman who appeared to be Asian in descent. Assuming the woman actually exists, her nationality remains a mystery. At a time uncertain between Feb. 2 and Feb. 3, however, the site stopped serving content and instead began to redirect to a JustBeenPaid subdomain styled “marketing” that is hosted in the Netherlands.

Whether a U.S. resident or citizen of another country who reached across international borders applied the redirection is unclear. What is clear is that the United States could join Italy in exercising jurisdiction over JSS Tripler and its promoters if it chose to do so. The site also is accessible through individual U.S. states, meaning regulators at the state level also could exercise jurisdiction.

A state’s choice to exercise jurisdiction over the sale of unregistered securities is hardly unusual in the HYIP sphere. Florida, for example, exercised jurisdiction over AdSurfDaily and operator Andy Bowdoin. North Dakota exercised jurisdiction over Pathway to Prosperity and operator Nicholas Smirnow. Oregon exercised jurisdiction over an abomination known as “I Need Cash,” a cycler operated by Kristopher K. Keeney.

JustBeenPaid and Frederick Mann, a murky figure who once claimed to be an ASD promoter, are the purported operators of JSS Tripler. The Netherlands subdomain shows an image of a man at the top of the page. That man is described on the site as “Louis Paquette, JBP Affiliate Sales & Marketing Director.”

The redirection, which occurs in Utah, according to server data, is virtually immediate — meaning that the previous content and photo of the woman of Asian descent no longer load and that the traffic is switched to the Netherlands page that shows the purported image of Paquette.

Among other things, this development raises questions about who caused the Utah server to redirect to the Netherlands domain and precisely why the change was made on the heels of the CONSOB action. Whether JustBeenPaid or JSS Tripler themselves had control over the Utah domain is unknown.

At a minimum, though, the presence of the Utah domain may be evidence that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler not only sold unregistered securities to U.S. citizens, but did so from inside the United States with a U.S. promoter or a promoter from another country with access to the Utah server at the helm. And because the redirect to the JustBeenPaid subdomain in the Netherlands occurs from inside the United States, it exposes a JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler lie that the “opportunity” protects itself and promoters from investigation and/or prosecution.

Even if the redirection were not occurring in the United States, the CONSOB action destroys the myth that the “opportunity” is outside the reach of law enforcement. So does the simple fact that any regulator in the world could take action against the “opportunity” and its promoters. Indeed, the cross-border nature of the scheme puts investors in virtually all jurisdictions at risk. Individual promoters could be targeted for investigation/prosecution in multiple jurisdictions — and if actions such as those begin to occur, the access of Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler to cash sources could dry up.

A claim by a MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi-forum promoter that Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler has paid out more than $10 million to investors may demonstrate the vast reach of the “opportunity” and its ability to tap funding sources while siphoning undisclosed sums for itself. Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler may be no Madoff, but $10 million still is a massive sum, one that should raise eyebrows in the worldwide law-enforcement community.

Content accessible from the Netherlands-based JustBeenPaid subdomain — marketing.justbeenpaid.com — raises other troubling concerns. This statement (next paragraph) appears at the bottom of a “login” page in the JustBeenPaid root domain. The statement is accessible through the “marketing” subdomain. (Indent/italics added):

Secure Offshore Servers
— Our servers are in a strategic location.
We pay special attention to security.
Our servers are organized so upgrading and expansion are very easy.

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

As a practical matter, the mere fact the page is accessible through a redirect that occurs in the United States may destroy any claims that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler protects members against “unfriendly political jurisdictions.” Any transaction that occurred or occurs through the Utah domain necessarily involves wires in the United States.

Regardless of the domain or email address through which business is conducted, any U.S.-based promoter of JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is using wires inside the United States, a situation that brings wire fraud into play — in addition to the securities issues.

A more troubling question, perhaps, is why JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler even would have the need to make such a claim if its international business is above-board. The same enterprise also claims to have a U.S. patent, a specious claim in the context of securities because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does not regulate the securities markets of the United States or any other country.

Is JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler The BCCI Of The HYIP World?

In the early 1990s, a corrupt international banking enterprise known as Bank of Credit and Commerce International created a worldwide financial scandal. The bank perhaps was best known by its acronym — BCCI — and purportedly was designed to be “offshore everywhere.”

JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is making the same sorts of claims associated with BCCI, a spectacularly bright red flag if ever there was one.

But if that bright red flag were not enough, other content accessible through the “marketing” subdomain of JustBeenPaid sends signals that positively glow of danger. Indeed, a “Member Agreement” link accessible through the site includes this language. (Indent/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.

Any political jurisdiction in any part of the world easily could construe those words as an invitation extended by JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler to investors to join an international conspiracy engaging in organized crime and mass-marketing fraud.

The same type of claim became an element of the Legisi HYIP prosecution in the United States. The Legisi prosecution, which ultimately involved the SEC, began as an undercover operation between the U.S. government and the state government of Michigan.

Even more land mines emerge when one considers that JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler is being promoted on Ponzi boards such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold, both of which are referenced in U.S. federal court files as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.

Veteran forum and social-network hucksters are promoting JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler, including promoters linked to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case in the United States and CONSOB’s earlier action involving Club Asteria, another Ponzi forum darling.

Depending upon how the universe lines up, JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler could find itself starving for cash in very short order. It is a program that is thumbing its nose at law enforcement across the globe — and its willfully blind promoters could find themselves named in individual actions just about anywhere.

It is the very definition of an international financial conspiracy of the most dangerous sort, a sort of emerging BCCI of the HYIP world.

BEFORE

This is the top of the page at the JSS-Tripler.com domain as it existed on Jan. 30, 2012.

AFTER

This is the top of the "marketing" subdomain of JustBeenPaid.com as it exists today. Prospects who visit the Utah-based JSS-Tripler domain referenced in the "BEFORE" screen shot above now are redirected to the Netherlands-based "marketing" subdomain of JustBeenPaid. The switch occurs in Utah, according to server data.

Feb 4, 2012
As Promos On Ponzi Forums Continue And Members Claim IRS Recognition, Club Asteria Acknowledges That Its Members Used PayPal ‘To Cheat Fellow Members’; Says Fraudsters Were Turned Over To Unidentified ‘Authorities’; Existing Members Of Virginia-Based Firm Told To Use Offshore Processors

This May 1 promo for Club Asteria describes its as an "investment company" and instructs prospects that "you will not again anything unless you invest." The promo advertises returns of up to 7 percent a week. "I am happy because even if I am not doing anything I still manage to earn from it," the promo claims.

In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice used its Blog to warn about the emerging threat of “mass marketing fraud,” specifically citing the criminal allegations of a $70 million Ponzi fraud against Nicholas Smirnow of Pathway To Prosperity (P2P).

P2P was promoted on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums.

A little over a month later, in July 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) described the HYIP sphere as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet” and issued a fraud alert. FINRA also referenced the P2P case. At the same time, it pointed to the collapsed Genius Funds Ponzi, believed to have consumed $400 million.

Genius Funds also was promoted on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

In December 2010, the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force led by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder specifically warned the public to be wary of social-networking sites and chat forums. The warning was part of “Operation Broken Trust,” a law-enforcement initiative in which investigators described more than $10 billion in losses from recent fraud cases.

One of the cases described was the SEC’s action against Imperia Invest IBC, a murky offshore business accused of stealing millions of dollars from the deaf.

Imperia Invest also was promoted on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

Last week, promoters of a Virginia-based company known as Club Asteria (CA) announced on the Ponzi boards that PayPal had frozen CA’s funds and blocked its access to the PayPal system. Although CA has been presented as a wholesome “opportunity” recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit organization (see graphic below), the CA promoter who announced the PayPal news last week on MoneyMakerGroup simultaneously was promoting two “programs” that purportedly pay 60 percent a month.

Some CA promoters claim CA pays 520 percent a year. Even jailed Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff would blush at such advertised rates of return.

MoneyMakerGroup is referenced in federal court filings as a place from which Ponzi schemes are promoted. So is TalkGold, another well-known forum in the HYIP world.

This morning — also on the MoneyMakerGroup — a different CA promoter announced that CA’s Andrea Lucas had responded to last week’s PayPal news. Even as the CA member was announcing on a known Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forum that Lucas had issued a statement on the PayPal matter, he simultaneously was promoting two HYIPs and something called One Dollar Riches.

“OneDollarRiches allows you to parlay a small investment of just one dollar into a constant stream of cash, day in and day out!” according to its ad. “You can make 100 times your investment in just a few days by following our simple step by step instructions.”

The mere presence of CA promotions on the Ponzi boards leads to questions about whether the firm’s receipts are polluted by Ponzi proceeds. Paying members from such proceeds would put CA members in possession of tainted money — and banks into which they deposited those proceeds also would be in possession of tainted money.

Lucas, according to the CA website, now has publicly acknowledged last week’s actions by PayPal. Details, though, were spartan. CA did not say how much money PayPal had frozen. Meanwhile, the firm instructed members to fund their accounts by using offshore processors.

At the same time, CA urged members not to spread bad news about the company on forums. Members who shared negative information were subject to having their CA accounts revoked, according to the company.

“Members shall not publically (sic) disparage, demean or attack Club Asteria, its members, services or charitable activities,” CA remarks attributed to Lucas on the CA website read. The remarks were dated May 16 and appeared in the “News” section of the site.

In the same announcement, Lucas acknowledged that a “small group” of CA members “used their PayPal accounts to cheat fellow members.”

The company claimed it had turned the members “over to the authorities,” but did not identify the authorities or say whether they were based in the United States or elsewhere.

CA, which said PayPal was “acting with integrity,” then counseled its members to rely on offshore processors.

“First, if you have been paying for your membership through PayPal, please discontinue your subscription with PayPal immediately and start using one of the other approved payment processors AlertPay, Towah or CashX to ensure that your membership stays current,” the remarks attributed to Lucas read.

“Second, Do NOT use online forums, websites or social networks to lodge blame or complaints about PayPal or your Club Asteria team,” the remarks continued. “There is no benefit or purpose in this, and it only serves to create discord and spread rumors. Not only that, doing so is a direct violation of Code of Ethics & Conduct, Rule 8 and can result in immediate revocation of your membership.”

CA’s bizarre announcement occurred against the backdrop of thousands of bizarre promos for the firm that appear online. Some promos claim $20 spent with CA monthly turns into a lifetime income of $1,600 a month. Others claim CA is a “passive” investment opportunity, which raises questions about whether CA — whose members claim the program typically pays out about 3 percent to 4 percent a week or up to 208 percent a year — is selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.

Lucas has been referred to in promos as a former “chairman” and “vice president” of the World Bank. Several promos have described her as a Christian “saint.”

CA’s claims that only a “small group” of members is causing problems may be dubious. Wild claims have been made in promo after promo for the firm, which says it is not in the investment business.

This promo for CA contains a link that resolves to an active CA affiliate site. The affiliate site has a low affiliate ID number, suggesting the affiliate was one of CA's earliest members. The promo claims CA is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization recognized by the IRS.

May 17, 2011