Panama

A grand jury has returned an indictment against a suburban Philadelphia man, accusing him of operating a Ponzi scheme that gathered at least $95 million and fleeced investors of more than $25 million. Charged criminally with mail fraud and money-laundering was Donald Anthony Young, who also has been sued by the SEC. Meanwhile, Matthew Pizzolato […]

It’s starting to read like Ian Fleming fare, something straight out of James Bond and “Octopussy.” R.J. Zayed, the receiver in the alleged Trevor Cook/Pat Kiley Ponzi scheme in Minnesota, says he did not find Cook’s collection of Faberge eggs when, armed with a court order, he searched Cook’s home in Apple Valley. The precise […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: HYIP or autosurf promoter? Can’t say no to the commissions from recruiting people into scheme after scheme? Position yourself as an “expert” on Internet forums — even though you don’t have a clue about the motivations of the program owners and may not even know their names? Find yourself promoting programs that reference […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This list summarizes several programs pushed by members of AdSurfDaily, a Florida company implicated in an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme. In some cases, the programs were pushed prior to the seizure by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008 of 15 bank accounts linked to ASD or Golden Panda Ad Builder, one […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Finding the United States an unfriendly environment, the so called autosurf and HYIP “industries” increasingly are relying on offshore money-exchange businesses and debit cards to entice participants, advising them that the offshore locations are “safe” havens that “shelter” U.S. residents from regulators and law-enforcement agencies. In August 2009, we reported that a Dallas-based […]

A Minnesota man accused of operating a Ponzi scheme with Christian radio host Pat Kiley is not cooperating with the court-appointed receiver in the case and might have spent $30,000 on “gift cards” after the SEC and CFTC brought twin actions last month, according to the receiver. The receiver, R. J. Zayed, described efforts to […]

A Utah man arrested in Panama on Ponzi charges, brought back to the United States to stand trial and later implicated in a murder-for-hire plot owned so many cars and motorcycles that the U.S. Marshal’s Service has been given permission to sell them prior to the trial. Jeffrey Lane Mowen had acquired more than 200 […]

You’ve seen the ads or heard the pitches trying to persuade you to put money in “offshore” ventures such as the AdViewGlobal, AdGateWorld and MegaLido autosurfs. You’ve been told they were safe. You’ve been told the people who run them are out of the reach of U.S. securities regulators and law-enforcement agencies. And you’ve been […]

You’ve heard about the Ponzi mansions. You’ve heard about the luxury automobiles — Scott Rothstein’s $1.6 million Bugatti and the $350,000 Rolls-Royces he and suspects in other Ponzi schemes enjoyed. Now comes word that Trevor Cook, implicated in Minnesota with radio talk-show host Pat Kiley in an alleged Ponzi scheme involving at least $194 million, […]

A man imprisoned between 1996 and 2001 after being convicted in Texas of two financial felonies emerged from the penitentiary and targeted Greater Oklahoma City’s ethnic Chinese in a Ponzi scheme, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said. Kenneth W. Lee also had a $3 million civil judgment placed against him in the 1990s […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: In August, a poster here who defended autosurf Ponzi schemes demanded readers to “show me one time where the [U.S. government] has even started a lawsuit or ‘gone after’ a company off shore.” The post concerned the AdVentures4U (ADV4U) autosurf, which, like a number of autosurfs, claimed legal ties to Panama. Promoters said […]