Numerous securities regulators have described Profitable Sunrise as a form of affinity fraud targeted at people of faith. At least 35 agencies in the United States and Canada have issued cease-and-desist orders or Investor Alerts against the HYIP “program,” which had a presence on infamous Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
The website of Profitable Sunrise has been missing since at least March 14. On April 1 — the day after Easter Sunday and April Fools Day — the “program” failed to make good on promised payouts from the bizarrely named “Long Haul” plan. The “Long Haul” was purported to pay interest of 2.7 percent a day. Its claims were similar to other collapsed schemes promoted on the Ponzi boards.
On Dec. 30, the PP Blog reported that Profitable Sunrise appeared to be relying on appeals to faith in a bid to attract investors in the wake of the August 2012 collapse of the Zeek Rewards “program.” Zeek, which allegedly planted the seed it paid interest of 1.5 percent a day, also had a presence on the Ponzi boards. In August, the SEC described Zeek as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud.
The PP Blog learned last month that at least one apologist for the NJF Global Group has relied on purported “research” by a notorious cyberstalker known as “MoneyMakingBrain” in an apparent bid to discredit critics of the “program.”
MoneyMakingBrain emerged in 2012 as an apologist for the JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid “program” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann. JSS/JBP purported to pay 2 percent a day. MoneyMakingBrain claimed he’d defend Mann “so help me God.”
JSS/JBP, which appears to have morphed into secondary and tertiary scams (ProfitClicking and ClickPaid) after the August collapse of Zeek, may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement. Mann has compared the U.S. government to the Mafia, claiming that government employees were part of “a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.”
Profitable Sunrise also may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Some “sovereign citizens” have an irrational belief that laws do not apply to them. It is known that the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008 also had ties to “sovereign citizens,” including Kenneth Wayne Leaming. Leaming, a resident of Washington state, was convicted earlier this year of filing false liens for billions of dollars against public officials who had a role in the prosecution of the ASD Ponzi scheme.
ASD operated from Florida, planting the seed it paid a return of 1 percent a day. ASD President Andy Bowdoin — now serving a 78-month prison term — also was associated with a 1-percent-a-day scam known as AdViewGlobal. AVG bizarrely claimed in 2009 that it enjoyed the protections of the U.S. and Florida constitutions while purportedly operating from Uruguay. The scam collapsed during the summer of 2009 — but not before issuing threats to members and critics.
In May 2009, AVG bizarrely announced it had secured the services of an offshore facilitator. The announcement was made on the same day President Obama announced a crackdown on offshore scams.
“It’s gonna blow up; it’s gonna be an ugly blow-up. It’ll probably happen sooner, not later. And it will leave a trail of devastation behind it. And I urge you to not even consider them.” — Comment on Zeek Rewards by Randy Schroeder, president of North America and Europe for Mona Vie, July 16, 2012
Randy Schroeder
UPDATED 7:10 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Randy Schroeder, the president of Mona Vie for North America and Europe, has done what few major figures in multilevel marketing have been willing to do: comment about the menace posed by the Zeek Rewards MLM program.
It was a most unexpected and welcome development, something that speaks well of both Schroeder and Mona Vie. But some Zeek apologists immediately (and predictably) accused Schroeder of meddling in North Carolina-based Zeek’s affairs and defaming the company, which suddenly announced on Memorial Day evening (May 28) that it was closing accounts at two U.S. banks and mysteriously claimed that affiliates had to cash or deposit checks drawn on the banks before June 1 or they would bounce.
Just 22 days earlier — on May 6 — Ponzi-forum huckster “DRdave,” also known as “Ken Russo,” claimed on the TalkGold Ponzi forum that he’d received $34,735 from Zeek since Nov. 14, 2011. The Zeek money, according to the post, was delivered largely if not wholly by AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. Both companies are offshore payment-processing firms linked to fraud scheme after fraud scheme promoted online.
Hucksters such as “Ken Russo” and myriad others use “I Got Paid” posts on the Ponzi forums as a means of creating the appearance a scheme is legitimate. Included in “Ken Russo’s” signature at TalkGold today is a link to a “program” known as “NewGNI,” which purports to pay “up to 6% weekly.”
"Ken Russo," as "DRdave," brags on the TalkGold Ponzi forum about a purported Zeek payout of $2,164.80 from Rex Venture Group LLC while pitching an emerging HYIP known as "NewGNI."
GNI may be a knockoff scam to the collapsed Gold Nugget Invest HYIP Ponzi, which also used the acronym GNI while purporting to pay a Zeek-like 7.5 percent a week. The government of Belize issued a warning about GNI in November 2009. In December 2009 — after the GNI warning by Belize — the “program” nevertheless was pitched (with three others HYIPs) by a member of the “Surf’s Up” forum, which existed to shill for accused AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin.
Any number of Zeek affiliates, including individuals Zeek has described as “empoyees,” hail from the ranks of ASD’s $110 million Ponzi scheme and various other interconnected fraud schemes. Some Zeek affiliates, for example, also are promoting JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid, which purports to pay 2 percent a day and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Zeek promoters also have been associated with a “program” known as OneX, which U.S. federal prosecutors described in April as a “fraudulent scheme” and pyramid cycling money in ASD-like fashion.
In addition to pushing Zeek, ASD, the NewGNI knockoff and a JSS/JBP knockoff known as JSS Tripler 2 that hatched a companion fraud scheme known as Compound150, “Ken Russo” pushed Club Asteria, which purported to provide a Zeek-like payout of between 3 percent and 8 percent a week before promoters came under the lens of CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator.
Amid these ruinous circumstances that are creating monumentally bizarre PR and legal disasters for the MLM trade, what did certain purported MLM experts do?
Why, boo Mona Vie’s Schroeder, of course — for the apparent high crime of trying to protect his own company and affiliates from these interconnected, international cancers.
Here is hoping that other influential MLM executives and trade groups follow Schroeder’s lead, including the Association of Network Marketing Professionals. Its name is being used to sanitize the Zeek scheme — and if it continues to permit that to happen, it risks a future in the dust bin of irrelevance.
While we’re speaking of hope, here’s hoping that Mona Vie will not shy away from Schroeder’s Zeek comments and actually will join him in the remarks, which he says were made as a concerned individual, not as a Mona Vie executive. Mona Vie should back Schroeder to the hilt.
A ‘Messy Fact’
It’s a “messy fact that periodically a company comes along and sweeps people along into a trail that turns into a trail of devastation,” Schroeder said about Zeek Rewards during a July 16 conference call with Mona Vie distributors.
Schroeder, of course, was alluding to Zeek’s AdSurfDaily-like business model that solicits participants to shell out sums up to $10,000, offers a dubious “product” (or a “product” that is just lipstick on a pig), plants the seed that spectacular returns on the order of 500 percent a year are possible and insists participants who buy into the scheme are neither making an investment nor purchasing a security.
“My own opinion is that that company will come to grief, that it will come to grief in the relatively near future, not farther future,” Schroeder said of Zeek.
If history is any guide — and Schroeder, with considerable justification, suggests that it is — Zeek will encounter a regulatory action that will cause it to crater.
But those words and others — including the use by Schroeder of “pyramid” and “Ponzi” in the context of Zeek — did not sit well with MLM Blogger Troy Dooly. (See PP Blog June 10 editorial.)
Dooly Takes Schroeder To The Woodshed
Dooly wrote Thursday that he “started getting the links and downloads of Randy Schroeder’s call” on July 18, took some time to digest the call and to shoot off a text message to MonaVie founder Dallin Larsen about Dooly’s “concerns” about Schroeder’s remarks.
And then Dooly ventured that Rex Venture Group LLC, the purported parent company of Zeek, just might sue Schroeder and perhaps MonaVie itself. Dooly wrote (italics added):
As the leader of a billion dollar multi-national health and nutrition company in the network marketing community, Schroeder should be very careful what he has to say about any other company. Although he made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of MonaVie, as an officer of the company, he places the company and their distributors in jeopardy if Rex Venture Group LLC were to file some form of civil action.
Good grief. The world is facing the greatest white-collar fraud epidemic in history, much of the money is routed through murky businesses and shell companies with accounts at offshore payment processors such as AlertPay and SolidTrustPay and banks that are asleep at the switch because staying awake is bad for fee revenues, many of the corrupt “programs” use MLM or an MLM-like component — and Troy Dooly, apparently with a straight face, is telling Randy Schroeder that he’d better tread lightly on Paul Burks because Zeek just might sue.
In the same column in which he bizarrely took Schroeder to the woodshed for holding a view about Zeek that is wholly responsible and serves the best interest of the MLM community moving forward, Dooly equally bizarrely extended an olive branch to the subject of his fresh scorn. Indeed, Dooly suggested a bunch of legal messiness could be avoided if Schroeder and Dallin Larsen saddled up Mona Vie’s corporate jet and deposited themselves in North Carolina at Zeek’s next Red Carpet event.
While ensconced in North Carolina as Dooly’s guest, they could hear Zeek boss Paul Burks deliver the good word about the company and could get some extra education from the Zeek “team.”
Dooly wrote (italics added):
I challenge Randy and Dallin to take the corporate jet and travel to N.C. next week as my guests to the Red Carpet Day event. I will introduce you to Paul Burks, and his team and let you better understand their drive and mission for the company.
Dooly did not say whether Burks and Zeek would make their Ponzi-board team available to educate the Mona Vie executives on Zeek’s drive and mission. Nor did he say whether Zeek would make “Ken Russo” available to explain the differences between Zeek and, say, NewGNI or Club Asteria or JSS Tripler 2.
We sincerely hope Schroeder and Larsen decline Dooly’s offer to parachute into North Carolina to break bread with the Zeek pope and the “team.”
Dooly is engaging in pandering of the worst sort. It’s also caustically amateur PR because it raises the specter that an aggrieved Zeek might use legal muscle to silence Schroeder, who, like Larsen, is a prominent figure in MLM circles. Zeek’s Stepfordian cheerleaders will love it, of course, because it gives them a new supply of red meat and raises the prospect that, if Schroeder speaks his mind against Zeek and gets sued, the Bloggers and critics may be next.
History An Appropriate Guide
Intimidation campaigns did not work for AdSurfDaily; they will not work for Zeek, either directly or through proxies. Beyond that, Schroeder has the weight of history on his side: the notoriousness of the ASD Ponzi case, Andy Bowdoin’s guilty plea in that case and the guilty plea of Gregory McKnight in the Legisi HYIP Ponzi case. Of course, Schroeder also could point that accused Pathway To Prosperity HYIP operator Nicholas Smirnow is listed as an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. And Schroeder also could point out that Robert Hodgins, an accused international money-launderer for narcotics-traffickers, also has been linked to the HYIP “industry” and also is wanted by INTERPOL.
Just days ago, a federal grand jury returned a 49-count indictment against alleged HYIP purveyor Terrance Osberger, 48, of Genoa, Ohio. In March, a top U.S. Department of Justice official speaking in Mexico City commented on some of the challenges law enforcement is facing in the Internet Age, including bogus libel lawsuits filed to silence critics and protect ventures that engage in organized crime. In May, a top INTERPOL official speaking in Israel said the cost of cybercrime was approaching $1 trillion a year in Europe and that U.S. banks lost $12 billion to cybercrime last year.
Regardless, we have to concede that Zeek/Rex Venture might be stupid enough to try to score points by suing Schroeder and MonaVie. Back in 2008, then-closeted Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of ASD planted the seed that he might just sue “MLM Watchdog” Rod Cook for $40 million. Bowdoin even announced that he’d filled a pot with $750,000 and was going to use it to start suing critics of his 1-percent-a-day “program” back to the Stone Age.
Cook, who is a board member of ANMP and holds the title of chairman emeritus, didn’t blink.
When the Feds noticed the lawsuit threats, they thought them important enough to bring to the attention of a federal judge. They simply called it “GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT 5.”
On Aug. 5, 2008, the U.S. Secret Service raided ASD. What occurred after that from the ASD side left an indelible stain on MLM. Bowdoin compared federal prosecutors and the Secret Service, the agency that guards the life of the President of the United States and has the companion duty of protecting the U.S. financial system from attack, to “Satan.” He further compared the raid to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Over time, the ASD case turned into a symphony of the bizarre. “Sovereign citizens” entered the fray. One of them accused a federal judge of “TREASON.” Another allegedly filed bogus liens against five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service who led the Ponzi investigation.
These episodes were to the utter humiliation of MLMers who value the reputation of the trade. The ruinous PR fallout continues even to this day.
What did Zeek do? Why, it wrapped what effectively is ASD’s 1-percent-a-day compensation model into its payout plan, thus raising the stench of ASD all over again and adding to the stench by effectively paying out an affiliate-reported average of about 1.4 percent a day. Zeek promptly found favor on the Ponzi boards and benefited from promoters of fraud schemes such as ASD and JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid (730 percent a year). It also picked up some hucksters from OneX, a “program” in part responsible for the fact ASD’s Bowdoin is now jailed in the District of Columbia.
There can be no doubt that Zeek also attracted promoters of AdViewGlobal (AVG) into its fold. The Feds now have linked Bowdoin to AVG, a 1-percent-a-day “program” that collapsed in 2009 under circumstances both mysterious and bizarre. Before AVG went missing, its braintrust tried to plant the extortive seed that lawyers were going after the critics and that “program” members themselves were at risk of getting sued for sharing negative information. For good measure, AdViewGlobal tried to plant the extortive seed that it would report its own members to their Internet Service Providers if they continued to question the “program” in public.
‘MoneyMakingBrain’ Reemerges In Bid To Chill Critics
Today on the RealScam.com antiscam forum, a notorious cyberstalker and JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid apologist known as “MoneyMakingBrain” is planting the seed that JSS/JBP is going to use its lawyers to come after critics. “MoneyMakingBrain” previously claimed he’d defend Frederick Mann, JSS/JBP’s purported operator, “so help me God.” And then “MoneyMakingBrain” started attacking Lynn Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates, a California nonprofit entity that works proactively with U.S. law enforcement to educate the public about online financial fraud. Edgington is a longtime contributor to the PP Blog and, like the PP Blog, is a member of RealScam.com, a site that concerns itself with international mass-marketing fraud.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: The PP Blog is providing a link to the RealScam.com thread in which “MoneyMakingBrain” has (for months) been engaging in efforts to intimidate JSS/JBP critics. MoneyMakingBrain has a history of emailing threatening communications to the PP Blog. Among other things, he purports to have an ability to track IP addresses and to be keeping a “dossier” on critics. If these things are true, it could mean that “MoneyMakingBrain” will seek to target you in harassment and intimidation campaigns. [** Caution duly advised. RealScam link. Caution duly advised **])
The PP Blog commends Randy Schroeder for his remarks about Zeek. It encourages Mona Vie to back him. Zeek is awash in the stench of ASD, AVG, JSS/JBP, OneX and the serial scammers who populate the Ponzi boards.
Such “programs” put economic security at risk and thus national security.
Period.
Stories Wouldn’t Sell As Fiction
Thank your lucky stars that Zeek’s apologists and Stepfordians are not the fire department. If they were, they wouldn’t be fighting fires. Instead, they’d be standing in the parking lot, deducing the red glow under the roof of the building to which they’d been dispatched was an optical illusion and that the man on the roof with the gas can wasn’t really there. All the acrid, billowing smoke would be ignored in favor of a theory that smoke doesn’t always mean flame.
“No need to bring out the hoses,” they’d say. “This is nothing.”
And when the cops showed up and observed firefighters standing around watching a blaze and ignoring their duty to put it out, they’d be told to mind their own damned business or get busy hiring a lawyer to defend against a defamation lawsuit.
It wouldn’t sell as fiction — and yet somehow passes the plausibility test with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of individuals who call themselves MLMers.
Bravo to Randy Schroeder for advising the members of his trade to open their eyes and choose to see.
Francis Schaeffer Cox: Guilty in murder plot against public officials.
On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a website registered in the name of purported JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid operator Frederick Mann was publishing links to at least 11 videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox, an Alaska man implicated in an alleged “militia” murder plot against public officials.
These were among the remarks attributed to Mann at BuildFreedom.com — as a drop-down ad for JSS/JBB was displayed on the page.
“To what extent do the people and activities featured so far on this page provide real solutions? How far do they go toward neutralizing the real enemies? What activities need to be added to increase the prospects for freedom?”
The PP Blog almost immediately began to receive threats from “MoneyMakingBrain,” a Mann “defender.”
JSS/JBP purports to provide an investment return of 2 percent a day. It has no known securities registrations. In May, Mann said that government employees were “much worse than the Mafia.”
Government workers, Mann intoned in May, were “part of a criminal gang of robbers, thieves, murderers, liars, imposters.” He also speculated that the web servers of JSS/JBP could be targeted in a “cruise missile” attack.
Cox was convicted yesterday after a jury trial on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. So, too, was Cox associate Lonnie Vernon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog first reported on the arrest in France of alleged international fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin on Aug. 11, 2010. The arrest came as the result of an undercover operation the U.S. Secret Service conducted on online forums.
As the Blog reported at the time, “The arrest of Vladislav Horohorin is notable on a number of levels. First, the arrest in Europe was a result of an online fraud scheme that allegedly crossed international borders and made its way to the United States, where criminal charges were filed. At the same time, the crime allegedly involved the transfer of money though international payment processors. Perhaps more than anything, however, the case against Horohorin demonstrates that the U.S. Secret Service is “plugged into” forums that promote international lawlessness. His arrest is very bad news for credit-card crooks and HYIP and autosurf Ponzi schemers — and their corrupt colleagues.”
Today the PP Blog is reporting that the United States successfully arranged the extradition of Horohorin. His first court appearance was made in the District of Columbia, the venue from which the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case brought by the Secret Service is playing out. The office of U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., which was instrumental in guiding the ASD case, is in charge of certain elements of the Horohorin case.
The office of U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia also is handing elements of the Horohorin prosecution.
The allegations in the case are alarming: “According to the indictment filed in the Northern District of Georgia, Horohorin was one of the lead cashers in an elaborate scheme in which 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards were used to withdraw more than $9 million from over 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide in a span of less than 12 hours,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “Computer hackers broke into a credit card processor located in the Atlanta area, stole debit card account numbers, and raised the balances and withdrawal limits on those accounts while distributing the account numbers and PIN codes to lead cashers, like Hororhorin, around the world.”
** ______________________________________ **
UPDATE: Alleged international credit-card fraudster Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, also known as “BadB,” is in an American jail after an undercover probe on online forums by the U.S. Secret Service and a parallel investigation by the FBI.
Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
“We are pleased that he has been extradited to the United States to face these criminal charges in a District of Columbia courtroom,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District of Columbia. “This prosecution demonstrates that those who try to rip off Americans from behind a computer screen across an ocean will not escape American justice.”
Horohorin, whose age was listed as 27 after his August 2010 arrest in France on U.S. charges, also will be prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
“International cyber criminals who target American citizens and businesses often believe they are untouchable because they are overseas,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates of the Northern District of Georgia. “But as this case demonstrates, we will work relentlessly with our law enforcement partners around the world to charge, find and bring those criminals to justice.”
News of Horohorin’s extradition by France to U.S. soil occurred against the backdrop of claims by an HYIP “program” known as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that members must affirm they are not with the “government” and that the “program” is not located in any “unfriendly political jurisdictions.”
A JSS/JBP “defender” known as “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted in March that “law enforcement agencies don’t pay attention to what’s being said on forums and blogs.” The claim was at odds with various public records that show U.S. law enforcement pays close attention to forums and Blogs and even conducts undercover operations by infiltrating forums.
Among other things, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he’d defend JSS/JBP’s purported operator Frederick Mann “so help me God.” The PP Blog became the subject of threats from “MoneyMakingBrain.” JSS/JBP, which uses offshore payment processors, purports to provide a return of 60 percent a month, has no known securities registrations and may have ties to the “sovereign citizens” movement.
Underscoring the importance of the Horohorin arrest and extradition, Machen and Yates were joined in the announcement by the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and top officials from both the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI.
Horohorin, said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, was “one of the most notorious credit card traffickers in the world.”
“Due to our strong relationships with our international law enforcement partners, we secured his extradition to the United States, where he now faces multiple criminal counts in two separate indictments,” Breuer said. “We will continue to do everything we can to bring cybercriminals to justice, including those who operate beyond our borders.”
A top U.S. Secret Service official, meanwhile, said the agency viewed the alleged Horohorin caper as an “attack” on America’s financial system.
“The Secret Service is committed to identifying and apprehending those individuals that continue to attack American financial institutions and we will continue to work through our international and domestic law enforcement partners in order to accomplish this,” said David J. O’Connor, assistant director of investigations.
In addition to providing security for the President of the United States, the Secret Service is in charge of protecting America’s financial infrastructure. The agency has described AdSurfDaily as a “criminal enterprise,” with the Justice Department asserting that ASD was an example of an “insidious” business that permitted fraud to spread globally.
Just two days after Horohorin’s first appearance in a U.S. courtroom in the District of Columbia, AdSurfDaily members Todd Disner and Dwight Owen Schweitzer claimed that the federal prosecutors who brought the ASD Ponzi case in August 2008 had gone shopping for a “frendly [sic] forum” in which the government could enlist “some of their Washington D.C. operatives to become members of ASD, thereby making them potential witnesses.”
Disner and Schweitzer sued the United States in November 2011 for alleged misdeeds in the ASD case. Among other things, Disner and Schweitzer asserted that undercover agents who joined ASD had a duty to inform ASD management. The Secret Service described ASD as a massive online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million. ASD President Andy Bowdoin pleaded guilty to wire fraud last month, admitting ASD was a Ponzi scheme and that the company never operated legally from its inception in 2006.
Disner and Schweitzer now are affiliates for Zeek Rewards, a “program” that plants the seed it can provide an ASD-like return of 1 percent or more per day without being a pyramid scheme and without constituting an investment opportunity. The payout Zeek plants the seed it can provide is on par with the returns advertised by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, which does not disclose its base of operations.
A top FBI official said the arrest of Horohorin showed that international agencies are working together to divorce criminals from their abilities to use computers to reach across borders to pull off egregious crimes.
“Horohorin’s extradition to the United States demonstrates the FBI’s expertise in conducting long-term investigations into complex criminal computer intrusions, resulting in bringing the most egregious cyber criminals to justice, even from foreign shores,” said Brian D. Lamkin , special agent in charge of the Atlanta division. “The combined efforts of law enforcement agencies to include our international partners around the world will ensure this trend continues.”
Court and other records show that Horohorin, like ASD, had a presence in both the District of Columbia and the Northern District of Georgia.
“In law enforcement, we look into the IP address and whether is real or not (proxy). Then your service provider gives the account information with the customer’s name and address, then a warrant is made, then a police task force is dispatched with agents to raid your home or office, arrests you and seizes all your computers. That’s if you are a terrorist.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 11, 2012, post on RealScam.com
“And Patrick, the day your host is subpoenaed by court determination to provide all the RealScam.com web logs, it will be the beginning of end of your credibility and your PatrickPretty.com blog. I am sorry, but you did to yourself, and you will go down in flames.” — “MoneyMakingBrain,” in March 11, 2012, post on RealScam.com
Amid new suggestions he is in “law enforcement” — and while planting the seed he can cause subpoenas for log files to be served or motivate others to serve them or otherwise nuisance the PP Blog and cause it to “go down in flames” — “MoneyMakingBrain” again has used RealScam.com as a platform to hatch new and deeper conspiracy theories concerning the PP Blog and others.
The latest disturbing developments unfolded within hours of “MoneyMakingBrain’s” arrival Saturday at the PP Blog from a website linked to other harassment bids targeted at the PP Blog and some of its posters. “MoneyMakingBrain” appears to be in search of information — however disingenuous and laden with vulgarity and sexual innuendo — to confirm his own biases.
On Saturday, “MoneyMakingBrain” arrived at the PP Blog from the WorldLawDirect forum — specifically from a page set up by the notorious cyberstalker “unclefesta26” weeks ago in a bid to discredit RealScam.com. “unclefesta26” once videotaped a cartoon representation of himself hectoring the PP Blog by typing the compressed phrase “kissmyarse” into the Blog’s contact form and posting a video of his harassment on YouTube. (See screen shot from “unclefesta26” YouTube video below.)
The notorious cyberstalker "unclefesta26" uses his free platform at YouTube to attack various people, including individuals who post on the PP Blog. "MoneyMakingBrain" also is using a free Google platform — Blogger — to harass the PP Blog and some of its posters.
Known mostly by his principal handle, “unclefesta26″ once posted a video on YouTube that, in cartoon form, depicted Lynn Edgington,” a male reader of the PP Blog and the chairman of a California nonprofit entity that educates the public about scams, as a diaper-wearing pole dancer squeezing his own breasts.
In 2009, “unclefesta26” — posting at the PP Blog as “Pistol” and coming off an unsuccessful bid to register as “Hugh Jorgan” (read: Huge Organ) at a site that once carried news and commentary about the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme — was banned from the PP Blog for chronic harassment and creating maintenance problems.
“unclefesta26” retaliated by adding the PP Blog to his list of hectoring targets at his YouTube site, at one time trying to tie the Blog to the word “anal.” In October 2011, “unclefesta26” sought to overcome his PP Blog ban and post with a different user identity — under the proposed user ID of “lurch” and in a thread in which the Blog reported that Edgington had been quoted by a St. Louis newspaper in a story about steering clear of online fraud schemes.
The October 2011 posting bid appeared to feature a bogus email address entered into the Blog’s Comments form.
“MoneyMakingBrain” now has been attacking Edgington for days. And like “unclefesta26,” MoneyMakingBrain also is carrying out his sordid campaign from a free platform owned by Google.
Edgington has “no escape” from MoneyMakingBrain’s Google-hosted site, MoneyMakingBrain has asserted on RealScam, while suggesting other hectoring campaigns may be under way and the force of it all will destroy Edgington’s marriage.
“I feel sorry for you and your wife actually, who must be putting up with so much crap from anonymous callers, and who knows what else,” MoneyMakingBrain asserted on RealScam.com on March 7. “If you don’t stop being a deceptive person, though, she is gonna divorce you.”
On March 8 on RealScam, “MoneyMakingBrain” appears to have tipped his hand that one of his research sources for purported information on Edgington was “unclefesta26’s” YouTube hectoring site.
“You are not even a funny cartoon of a man to watch, as some people have depicted you,” he ventured.
Among the latest MoneyMakingBrain claims on RealScam are that the PP Blog is “soapboxmom,” one of the administrators of RealScam, and that the PP Blog runs RealScam.
Both claims are false.
“MoneyMakingBrain” also claims the PP Blog posted as scam critic “Lil Ol’ Radical Me” (LORM) on its own Blog on March 10 — and then answered its own post with the PP Blog identity.
Those claims are false.
Meanwhile, “MoneyMakingBrain” claims that the PP Blog also posts as “LORM” and “nomaxim” on RealScam — all while suggesting the PP Blog also posts as “ProfHenryHiggins” and Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates.
Each of those claims is false, as are the claims that the PP Blog posts with a proxy at RealScam and then changes proxies.
The PP Blog does not post with proxies at RealScam — or at any other site. One of the reasons the Blog does not use proxies is that it operates in an environment in which threats are directed at it on a somewhat regular basis, and the Blog needs to be able to demonstrate the threats were targeted at the Blog’s actual Internet Service Provider (ISP) account or hosting connection site (the website IP of the PP Blog).
The Blog uses its ISP account to access the Internet, and its IP account to publish the Blog. Veiled threats against the PP Blog’s ISP account date back to 2009. The Blog’s hosting IP was crippled by waves of DDoS attacks in October and November of 2010. The Blog then had to arrange new hosting, which drove up its monthly publishing costs substantially.
Even under its upgraded hosting and security architecture , the Blog occasionally has been targeted by traffic floods that briefly have collapsed its server. In April 2011, the Blog received a claim of responsibility for the attacks from the HYIP sphere.
Although “MoneyMakingBrain’s” most recent conspiracy theories are getting harder to follow as they conflate one artificial reality after another, he also appears to be suggesting that the PP Blog also posts on RealScam as “Whip” and “laidback.”
Those claims are false. The PP Blogs user ID at RealScam is PPBlog. It is the only name under which the Blog posts at RealScam. The Blog, which is an ordinary member of RealScam — i.e., it has no administrative credentials and no access to RealScam logs — has a total of 23 posts at the RealScam forum.
The PP Blog and RealScam do have posters in common, and the PP Blog is concerned about various bids to chill RealScam.com in the age of white-collar crime and international mass-marketing fraud.
After “MoneyMakingBrain” planted the seed yesterday that he was in law enforcement and could cause subpoenas to be served, some RealScam skeptics questioned his credentials. “MoneyMakingBrain” initially then backed away from the law-enforcement claim.
“And, I never said I was a police agent, you moron,” MoneyMakingBrain claimed to RealScam poster (ProfHenryHiggins) yesterday, while falsely asserting the poster was the PP Blog. “I don’t have to be in law enforcement to detect [a] scumbag like you, Patrick. It doesn’t matter under what user you post: Radical, Whip, Professor, whoever, I know exactly how many users are at anytime in this thread.
“So, go to the hell Patrick, you and this ‘real scam’ forum of yours. There are people who are dying to know who is behind this crackpot forum. Now they know what to do with those web logs from your host.”
“MoneyMakingBrain” did not identify the people purportedly “dying to know who is behind this crackpot forum.” Nor did he explain whether he coached people to “know what to do with web logs” or say precisely how he purportedly had obtained RealScam logs or whether he was distributing logs to the people purportedly “dying” for the information.
In any event, the PP Blog does not own, operate or run RealScam.com. Nor does the Blog share hosting with RealScam. Nor is the Blog acquainted with RealScam’s hosting arrangement.
CAUTION WARRANTED: As the PP Blog previously noted, it may be unwise to click on any link that “MoneyMakingBrain” posts on RealScam. A phishing bid of some sort may be under way.
Although “MoneyMakingBrain” yesterday backed away from his “law enforcement” claim, he asserted it again today, planting the seed that he might be able to put people “behind bars” or dispense fines.
“Maybe I am that guy trying to make a few bucks online with money making programs, or may (sic) I am the developer of IP DETECTOR, maybe I am going to put you behind bars or make you pay a big fine for cyber bullying, or simply expose you to prove the product works, or, maybe I am in law enforcement and you are being monitored, keep guessing,” he posted on RealScam.
“MoneyMakingBrain” started out as a “defender” of Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a “program” that purports to pay a return of 2 percent a day.
Using a proxy to send an email threat to the PP Blog on Feb. 29, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he’d defend Mann “so help me God.” He further suggested he might seek to interfere in an Eagle Research Associates banking relationship, all while asserting that Edgington was the operator of RealScam.
After the Feb. 29 email threats to the PP Blog, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted on RealScam (March 9) that “the MMB is no longer interested in defending Fred Mann, but accusing Lynn Edgington . . .”
Yesterday, though, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted he had “cleared” Edgington from an earlier MoneyMakingBrain allegation that Edgington was “LittleRoundMan,” another RealScam.com administrator.
Visit RealScam.com. (Please take heed that clicking on any link MoneyMakingBrain posts may be unwise.)
Here is an imponderable: Is there any ceiling to the absurdities in the HYIP sphere and the destructive force it exercises around the web?
On Wednesday, the PP Blog received repeated spams from U.S.-based IPs. The spammer used the handle “invest liberty reserve” and targeted two threads, including this one about JSS Tripler 2, a purported “program” that purportedly based its name on JSS Tripler. JSS Tripler is a purported element of JustBeenPaid, an “opportunity” purportedly operated by Frederick Mann that claims it pays a return of 60 percent a month.
Liberty Reserve is an “offshore” payment processor favored by HYIP schemes, including JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. Wednesday’s spam bids used purported email addresses at AOL and Hotmail.
One of the Wednesday spams featured a graphic swiped from PonziNews, once a sister site to the PP Blog. The spammer attempted to use the stolen graphic in his posting bid on the PP Blog.
It was not the first time the Blog’s graphics had been used in a nefarious way online. On Dec. 12, 2010 — in commemoration of its 1,000th post — the PP Blog recounted a July 2010 story that its Breaking News graphic had been swiped and placed inside a promotion for Data Network Affiliates.
DNA was a scam associated with huckster Phil Piccolo. The “opportunity” traded on the names of Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump and advertised a nonexistent cell-phone plan of unlimited talk and text for $10 a month, an offshore “resorts” scheme and a “mortgage-reduction” scheme — all while tying itself to Christianity, the U.S. AMBER Alert system of locating abducted children and a purported bid to end world poverty.
It’s worth noting that some JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters also traded on Winfrey’s name.
In the same December 2010 commemoration post, the Blog reported that Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, had been called names that would peel paint when DHS announced that Walmart had joined the “If you see something, say something” terrorism-awareness campaign. Meanwhile, the Blog reported that some online-fraud schemes had evolved to victimize participants by the tens of thousands — numbers America’s largest sports stadiums could not accommodate.
The PP Blog no longer owns the PonziNews domain. The Blog suspended publication of the site in 2010, after thieves who used international IPs stole the domain’s content verbatim and posted it on other sites they controlled that had a higher Page Rank than Ponzi News.
In short, the net effect of the theft was that the PP Blog was being used to create “free” content for thieves who intercepted the traffic of PonziNews. Such piracy schemes are hurting the publishing industry.
In a separate spam bid on Wednesday, a would-be poster suggesting he represented an HYIP ranking site targeted this PP Blog thread on strange claims associated with “MoneyMakingBrain” in the context of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.
The would-be poster purporting to represent the HYIP ranking site complained that the Blog had used the term “HYIP” in the linked story above “21 times” without explaining the meaning of the term.
“Nice writing job!” the would-be poster jabbed. He provided no comment on the substance of the story.
On RealScam.com yesterday, “MoneyMakingBrain” — who’d emailed threats repeatedly to the PP Blog on Feb. 29 — described the Blog as a “BIG idiot,” a “chicken,” a “deceptive unethical lowlife,” the user of “NONFACTUAL” sources and other names.
Because of the emailed threats and “MoneyMakingBrain’s” subsequent ban from the PP Blog, the Blog will not engage with MoneyMakingBrain on RealScam.com, an antiscam forum that concerns itself with mass-marketing fraud and occasionally has been subjected itself to threats and menacing communications.
“MoneyMakingBrain” has advanced various conspiracy theories about RealScam.com, the PP Blog and and some of their common posters.
What he has not done is explain what his purported “due diligence” into the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program” entailed or how purported operator Frederick Mann could pay an annualized return between 48 and 73 times higher than the purported “returns” of Bernard Madoff.
Yesterday on RealScam, “MoneyMakingBrain” asserted that he has “recently read [about the PP Blog] on some scams forum, that he is a very deceptive reporter, well, that doesn’t surprise the MMB at all.”
It is possible that “MoneyMakingBrain” is referring to this September 2009 thread on Scam.com. The thread was started by a PP Blog poster known as “little joe” who’d been banned for harassment. The poster, who later was banned from Scam.com, claimed the PP Blog would be “scrambling to put out fires” from multiple IPs.
The threats and intimidation campaign from “little joe” began after the summer 2009 collapses of AdViewGlobal (AVG) and Ad-Ventures4U (ADV4U), both of which claimed an ability to provide preposterous returns in the wake of the government seizure of tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case.
Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, has described himself as a promoter for both ASD and ADV4U.
On Aug. 18, 2009, antiscam commentators on the PP Blog were called “idiots” and the PP Blog itself was asked by an ADV4U promoter whether the author was a “fag.” After launching his ad hominem attacks against the PP Blog and its posters, the ADv4U pitchman asserted he was a longtime businessman and that criticism about ADV4U on the PP Blog was about “as unprofessional as it gets people.”
“I’m out of here.You bunch of idiots make me sick!!!” the poster railed.
Less than a year later — in May 2010 — Professor James Byrne, an expert hired by the U.S. government to assess the alleged HYIP Ponzi scheme of Nicholas Smirnow of Pathway To Prosperity — observed that HYIPs were not “noted for their internal consistency.”
One of the inconsistencies that became part of the ADV4U story was the assertion by the “defender” that he was a longtime, professional businessman — while the same “defender” asked the PP Blog if he was a “fag” and declared ADV4U critics who questioned a purported payout rate of 1 percent a day “idiots.”
Both assertions occurred a year after the U.S. Secret Service brought Ponzi allegations against ASD, whose payout scheme was similar to ADV4U’s.
“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.)
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.
“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.
“Either we talk about here, or I talk about somewhere else (that’s not a threat, it’s a promise :)” — ‘MoneyMakingBrain (MMB), in email threat to PP Blog, Feb. 29, 2012, 7:52 a.m. ET
UPDATED 4:22 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) It has happened again: The PP Blog has received yet another threat via email for its reporting on the HYIP sphere, which FINRA described in a 2010 Alert as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.”
Today’s threat came from “MoneyMakingBrain” (MMB) in apparent “defense” of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, an HYIP “program” purportedly operated by self-described former AdSurfDaily and Ad-Ventures4U pitchman Frederick Mann. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid claims it pays a return of 2 percent per day.
ASD operator Andy Bowdoin, 77, is an accused Ponzi schemer under indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. The ASD scheme, which was based in Florida, gathered at least $110 million and created thousands of victims, federal prosecutors have said. Bowdoin’s Ponzi trial has been scheduled for September 2012. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return twice that of ASD.
Among other things, Bowdoin has compared the August 2008 U.S. Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and described it as the work of “Satan.”
MMB’s initial email threat was received at 7:52 a.m. ET. It was followed by another email threat at 11:14 a.m. in which MMB suggested he’d seek to cause banking troubles for a specific PP Blog poster and defend Mann “so help me God.”
“You could be the nicest guy in the world, doing a real public service, but on the matter of Frederick Mann, you’ve made a gross error, and you crossed the line, Mr.,” the second threat read in part. “I am not a passive by-stander Patrick, I am one of those who will come and help an old man from being beaten up by a bully, so help me God.”
The second email also claimed that, “If anything, you’ve brought all this upon yourself.”
On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a site registered to Mann in South Africa at the same street address of JustBeenPaid had at least 11 links to videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox. Cox, 27, is a purported “sovereign citizen.” He is accused in Alaska of a “militia” murder plot against public officials.
Federal prosecutors known to be investigating the ASD scheme in the District of Columbia declined to comment on the Blog’s story, which was published Monday. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors known to be investigating the “sovereign citizen” movement in the Pacific Northwest did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
Today’s disturbing developments began with the Blog’s receipt of the initial threatening email at 7:52 a.m. The initial threat implied that, if the PP Blog did publish a comment submitted by MMB during the overnight hours and respond to the email, MMB would seek to cause harm to the Blog. The PP Blog did not reply to the initial email. Nor did it reply to the follow-up threat.
MMB’s comment already had been published by the PP Blog by the time the initial email threat was received. The comment was submitted at 1:12 a.m. today and approved by the PP Blog at approximately 7:30 a.m., after being temporarily sequestered in a holding queue because of the menacing nature of previous comments submitted by MMB.
An anonymous proxy in Europe was used to send the comment, and a Gmail address was entered on the PP Blog’s Comments form. For the past two days, MMB has been submitting comments that imply he has the power to harm the Blog if the Blog does not submit to his threats. His comments were sent from IPs in the United States and Europe. Today’s email communications from MMB were the first received from MMB.
Because the Blog believes it is important to publish comments that showcase the bizarre and sometimes menacing nature of the HYIP sphere, it has published several comments from MMB since Monday. But because today’s email threats introduced a new form of electronic menacing and implied a PP Blog reader would be subjected to a hectoring campaign, the Blog no longer will publish any additional comments from MMB.
The PP Blog engages in the marketplace of ideas, not the marketplace of threats.
These are among MMB’s menacing assertions yesterday:
“I know you’re reading everything I write and you are scared.”
” But, continue to annoy the MoneyMakingBrain and deviate him from his monitoring duties, and you’ll be the ones to be in the hot water. “
“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.”
“You can delete my comments as much as you like, but take what I said to the bank. In the end, you are going to look like a fool.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea that you stop your charade once and for all and finally cease and desist attacking Mr. Fred Mann, who is innocent until proven guilty. Not going to be repeating myself again.”
“Needless to say that you’ll be needing to look for another ISP because you won’t have internet access at home or your office, wherever. Needless to say that your server host will also shut down your sites down for violation of terms and conditions.”
MMB also advanced a number of conspiracy theories, including one in which he asserts that two different people who post on RealScam.com and the PP Blog are one and the same. RealScam is a forum that concerns itself with mass-marketing fraud.
In November 2011, RealScam was subjected to a bid to chill from Bogdan Fiedur, the operator of AdLandPro, a website whose members routinely promote HYIP schemes and other highly dubious pursuits. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is one of the “programs” promoted on AdLandPro, which also has a presence on Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.
Conspiracy theories are part and parcel to the HYIP landscape, as are threats — direct and veiled. Today”s second MMB email threat also raised the specter of fear.
” . . . it’s clear that you are too scared of me by now,” the second email read in part.
In November 2011, an FBI Terrorism Task Force arrested ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming on charges he filed false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Two months later, a superseding indictment was returned against Leaming that accused him of participating in a scheme to file false liens against two U.S. prison officials, uttering a false “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million and being a convicted felon in possession of firearms.
So-called “sovereign citizens” have been linked to various forms of securities fraud and tax fraud. Because they believe prosecutors and judges have no authority over them, “sovereigns” have been known to target state, local and national officials in plots to file bogus liens and destroy the credit of members of the law-enforcement community and litigation opponents.
Their harassment methods, which feature the use of both postal mail and email and often include direct or veiled threats, have become known as “paper terrorism.”
When arrested, Leaming, the ASD figure and purported “sovereign,” was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas who’d been indicted on charges of duping participants in a home-business scheme of more than $2 million. Those fugitives also have been linked to the “sovereign citizen” movement and filed a series of bizarre pleadings in Arkansas after their arrests with Leaming, who is jailed near Seattle. Both fugitives now are detained at federal facilities in Texas, according to prison records.
After MMB sent today’s initial email threat, he sent another comment to the Blog that included a threat:
“Stop abusing your forum as Lynn does, or I am going to conclude that there is a business relationship between the two of you, and that would be bad a thing (I am afraid to say anything else as you may call it another ‘threat’).
“And yes, this is not a threat: you’re better off having me talking here than somewhere else. I know too much already about both you and Lynn, and I still want to believe that the two of you are men of good (although the tactics of one indicate the otherwise).”
“Lynn” is a reference to Lynn Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates Inc., a 501(c)3 Public Benefit Charitable Corporation based in Mission Viejo, Calif.
The second email implied that MMB would seek to interfere with an Eagle Research banking relationship.
