Nicholas Smirnow, the operator of the Pathway To Prosperity Ponzi-board “program” charged with fraud by U.S. authorities in 2010, has been sentenced in Canada to seven years in prison.
INTERPOL’s wanted notice for Smirnow is still active. It lists his age as 59 and says he faces charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud and money-laundering in the United States.
In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice pointed to P2P as an example of international mass-marketing fraud that occurs on the Internet. The “program” was a Ponzi-forum darling. MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are referenced in P2P-related filings in the United States as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
Ponzi forums and social media continue to drive traffic to hideous schemes. Recent examples of Ponzi-board programs include Traffic Monsoon, Zeek Rewards and TelexFree. There are many more.
NOTE: Thanks to a reader for the heads-up on Smirnow’s sentencing in Canada.
UPDATED 7:41 P.M. EDT U.S.A. If the office of U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Wigginton of the Southern District of Illinois gets its way, Canada will turn over accused international Ponzi schemer Nicholas Smirnow to the United States.
An “extradition request has been submitted to the government of Canada for the extradition of SMIRNOW to the United States,” according to a March 20 update to the Smirnow victims’ site maintained by Wigginton’s office.
Ontario Provincial Police notified Wigginton’s office of the Smirnow arrest in December, according to the victims’ site. U.S. federal prosecutors and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service accused Smirnow in 2010 of operating “Pathway To Prosperity,” a $70 million Ponzi-board swindle that flowed across six continents into 120 countries and affected tens of thousands of participants.
P2P, as the scheme was known in shorthand, allegedly created victims in 48 of the 50 U.S. states and in 18 of the 38 counties that comprise the Southern District of Illinois. The concentration in the district may suggest a major P2P promoter was operating in the area.
Many HYIP schemes offer promoters commissions to round up participants. Prosecutors have described the interest rates offered by P2P as absurd.
U.S. prosecutors said this in 2010 (italics added):
According to the complaint, investors were offered their choice of seven, fifteen, thirty, and sixty day “plans.” At the daily interest rates promised by SMIRNOW, a seven day plan supposedly produced an annual return of 546% and a sixty day plan supposedly was returning an annual return of 720%. Fifteen and thirty day plans supposedly returned equally spectacular rates of return. If an investor reinvested both his original investment and the supposed earnings that Pathway to Prosperity promised on a seven day program, for instance, at the daily interest rate quoted by SMIRNOW, the annual return would have been approximately 17,000%.
Smirnow initially slipped out of Canada to the Philippines, where he ended up in jail, according to court filings. Although the United States sought to extradite him from the Philippines nearly five years ago, the process reportedly was canceled, resulting in Smirnow eventually heading back to Canada.
U.S. filings from 2010 identified him as a resident of Baysville, Ontario. Precisely why the earlier process was canceled is unclear.
What is clear is that the United States has now asked Canada to turn him over.
As “Achieve Community” promoter Kristen Jennifer shows her back office in the “Unison Wealth” program, ads for other “programs” appear, including some “programs” on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In litigation related to Zeek Rewards, a Ponzi-board “program,” court-appointed receiver Kenneth D. Bell has raised a concern that network-marketers may be proceeding from one fraud scheme to another. Bell has asked a federal judge to take “judicial notice” of certain YouTube videos.
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UPDATED 10:07 P.M. ET U.S.A. “Unison Wealth” is a “program” on MoneyMakerGroup from which a promoter claims “Turn $35 One-Time Into $1545.” It’s also on TalkGold. Both MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are forums listed in U.S. federal court files as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted.
One such reference to the forums is in the context of Nicholas Smirnow, the operator of the Pathway To Prosperity HYIP fraud who was arrested in Canada this month after being charged by the United States in 2010 and spending time in the Philippines.
Pathway To Prosperity allegedly plucked people from 120 countries for $72 million. An affidavit by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in the Smirnow case specifically references MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. The affidavit has been available online for more than four years and is published by the office of Stephen R. Wigginton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois.
A “program’s” presence on the Ponzi boards is a crimson-red flag that a scam is occurring. Thousands of promoters of Zeek Rewards, a Ponzi-board “program” alleged to gave gathered on the order of $897 million, now face litigation aimed at clawing back their “winnings” from Zeek. At least one payment vendor for Zeek claims it was rendered insolvent through its business relationship with North Carolina-based Zeek.
On another Ponzi-board front, promoters and vendors of TelexFree — an alleged $1.2 billion fraud — also are facing Zeek-like litigation nightmares.
Like Pathway To Prosperity, Zeek and TelexFree, “Achieve Community” also has a Ponzi-board presence. This potentially sets the stage for new HYIP litigation nightmares from law-enforcement, receivers mandated by court order to round up fraud proceeds and class-action lawyers. And because some Achieve Community promoters are simultaneously promoting other Ponzi-board “programs,” any litigation that emerges could be amplified across multiple courts. Achieve, for example, appears to be operating in Michigan and Colorado.
In theory, an Achieve promoter living in, say, Florida (or any other state) could be compelled by court order to appear in a federal court in another state to produce documents, sales materials, promos and business records.
Back-Office Tour By Achieve Promoter Is Revealing
Promoting Achieve is bad enough. But some Achieve promoters now are pitching other Ponzi-board “programs.” One YouTube promo dated Dec. 20 for Unison Wealth by an Achieve promoter takes prospects inside the Unison Wealth back office.
Remarkably — and without comment from Achieve/Unison promoter Kristen Jennifer — the promo shows one ad after another for HYIP schemes loading in the Unison back office. (The ads load as Kristen pitches Unison.)
The first of these is “MyTrafficValue.” As Kristen tries to sell viewers on Unison, a banner ad for MyTrafficValue claims “invest to earn 110% within 4 days or daily payments until 125%.”
Who placed the ad is unknown, but the mere presence of the ad shows that Unison is driving traffic to a Ponzi-board “program” with a 141-page thread at MoneyMakerGroup.
Lo and behold, an ad for Cycles 24/7 also appears in the Unison back office of Achieve promoter Kristen. (BehindMLM.com has a report dated today on Cycles 24/7.)
What obviously is occurring is that one scam is giving synergy to another. It hardly ends with Cycles 24/7.
Indeed, even as Achieve promoter Kristen is narrating her ad for Unison, ads for other Ponzi-board “programs” load on the screen. Ads for each of these “programs” (and others) appear:
BitcoinCycler.
TrinityLines.
OneTenMethod. (URL appears to be OwnMatrix.com, with “OWN” an acronym for Online Wealth Network.)
HeavenPaid. (“THIS DONT [sic] SUCK” is among the claims.)
MyAdvertisingPays.
ClickAdPays.
Super 2×7 Matrix.
EveryoneCycles.
During the same 13:18 YouTube promo by Achieve member Kristen for Unison, ads for other “programs” appear on the screen. (In some cases, these may include descriptors, rather than the actual “program” name.) This lineup includes Auto Mass Traffic, Dollar Funnel, $20 Quality AdPack, AdBoardMarketing, Private Cycler, Seven Save In Gold & Silver from $25 (edited Jan. 5, 2015), NetPennyStocks.com (” . . . Makes You Earn 101,970.75 And Get Paid Weekly”).
A couple of ads for what appear to be “leads” program also appear. Some other names that appear in the ad are too fuzzy to be recognizable.
Regulators have been warning for years about scams spreading on social media.
In the Unison Wealth video, Kristen says, “I’m gonna keep you posted on this, but I have to be mindful of YouTube because YouTube doesn’t really like me posting result videos for some reason.”
There are other instances, including the eAdGear case in which the SEC contacted YouTube owner Google for information. The eAdGear case speaks to the issue of a scam trying to sanitize itself by touting supposed links to legitimate companies. Achieve promoters are doing the same thing when they assert Achieve couldn’t possibly be a scam because certain well-known financial vendors do business with it.
Think of Enron, a colossal fraud. That famous financial firms did business with it was immaterial to the issue that Enron itself was a huge scam.
Kristen also ventures there may be certain tax advantages when one joins Unison Wealth. Veteran MLM huckster Phil Piccolo of TextCashNetwork, DataNetworkAffiliates and OWOW — disasters one and all — is infamous for making such claims.
Is there any doubt that network marketers are falling off one cliff after another and, in one “program” after another, putting on blindfolds? These scams are gathering billions of dollars.
Friends, Kristen very well could be one of the nicest, most sincere people you’d ever want to meet. But she is grossly misinformed about Achieve and Unison Wealth.
The Zeek and TelexFree litigation alone offers compelling examples of decidedly unpleasant things that can happen when HYIP “programs” crater or attract regulatory scrutiny. For promoters to ignore these cases is to ignore peril.
Achieve promoters currently are explaining away criticism as the tool of “haters.” Zeek and TelexFree promoters did the same thing.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (6th update 9:35 p.m. ET U.S.A.) Nicholas Smirnow, still listed by INTERPOL as a person wanted by the United States in the alleged Pathway To Prosperity (P2P) HYIP Ponzi scheme that affected people in 120 countries, has been arrested at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Canadian media outlets are reporting.
U.S. federal prosecutors charged Smirnow, believed now to be 56 or 57, in 2010. He has been listed by INTERPOL since that time.
P2P was an instance of international mass-marketing fraud, U.S. authorities said in 2010. Though large for its time in the 2008 to 2010 time frame after allegedly gathering more than $70 million and affecting 40,000 investors, P2P since has been eclipsed in dollar volume and victims count by other mass-marketing fraud schemes such as Zeek Rewards and TelexFree.
Professor James E. Byrne, an HYIP expert consulted by the U.S. government in the P2P case, said in 2010 that “the investment scheme described in the materials that I have reviewed are not legitimate but resemble and are classic instances of so-called high yield frauds and fraudulent pyramid schemes. The proposed returns are excessive for even the most risky legitimate investments and are simply preposterous for investments whose principal is supposedly guaranteed.”
From Byrne’s P2P analyis (italics added):
The funds are turned over to the investment and “earn” returns that range from 1.5% daily for a 7 day plan Plus the return of the initial investment to 2.67% daily for a 60 day plan or 160.2% plus the return of the initial investment. The weekly returns on the 7 day investment would amount to approximately 540% per year without taking into account the principal and the 60 day plan would return approximately 950% annualized.
Like many HYIP schemes before and after, P2P had a presence on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. Both forums are referenced in P2P-related court filings. TalkGold got a mention last week in the Liberty Reserve money-laundering case.
Like current schemes with a Ponzi-board presence such as “Achieve Community,” the P2P tentacles spread far and wide and sucked in vulnerable people such as senior citizens. From a PP Blog story on May 31, 2010 (italics/bolding added):
The scheme was almost unimaginably widespread, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said in an affidavit.
“Financial records of payment processors utilized by P-2-P to collect investment funds from investors show that approximately 40,000 investors in 120 countries established accounts with P-2-P,” a postal inspector said. “Despite the fact that the investment was supposedly ‘guaranteed, investors lost approximately $70 million as a result of [Smirnow’s] actions.”
The probe began when the U.S. government received a referral from the Illinois Securities Department “concerning an elderly Southern District of Illinois resident who had made a substantial investment in P-2-P,” the postal inspector said in the affidavit.
“In addition to P-2-P’s own website, I discovered that P-2-P’s investment scheme was marketed on other websites, including High Yield Investment Program forums, which I was able to access directly through the internet,” the inspector said.
Before long, the inspector determined that the scheme cost investors losses in 48 of the 50 U.S. states, and 18 of the 38 counties that comprise the Southern District of Illinois, prosecutors said.
Such penetration in Illinois may suggest Smirnow had a promotional arm in the state. The complaint spells out a case against conspirators “known and unknown,” and the complaint notes that family members told other family members about the scheme.
“When P-2-P’s funds were depleted and when investors did not receive a return of their funds as they had been promised, [Smirnow] caused a posting on P-2-P’s private forum warning investors not to complain to payment processors about P-2-P’s failure to return their money or they would find themselves ‘on the outside looking in,’” prosecutors charged.
The postal inspector has spoken to “hundreds of P-2-P investors” during the course of the investigation, according to court filings.
“Hundreds [of people] sent me copies of printouts they had made of P-2-P’s website, postings that had been made on the P-2-P’s members forum, and internet sites touting high yield investment programs which contained postings related to P-2-P,” the postal inspector said.
With “Achieve Community,” promoters claim that $50 turns into $400 in three months or less. Participants are encouraged to roll over profits.
Achieve Community promoters have published extrapolations that show “earnings” in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even the millions of dollars.
The purported TataAgro entity had a presence on the Ponzi boards and appears to have used trading screens to dupe the worldwide investing public. Image source: Google cache.
BULLETIN: (3rd Update 8:32 a.m. ET, Feb. 20 U.S.A.) The Tata Group, a global conglomerate based in India, says its name has been stolen by an HYIP Ponzi scheme. The fraud scheme is associated with a domain styled TataAgro.com and has a presence on the MoneyMakerGroup, TalkGold and DreamTeamMoney Ponzi forums, according to search results.
Like the recently exposed WCM777 fraud scheme, the TataAgro scam claims a business presence in the British Virgin Islands. WCM777 also traded on the names of famous companies, including Siemens, the German conglomerate. Siemens issued statements warning the public about WCM777. Tata now has done the same thing with the purported TataAgro entity.
The TataAgro website “claims that ‘Tata Agro Holding is a subsidiary of the globally known Tata group, [and is] one of the top 10 agro investment players in Asia’s financial market,’” the real Tata says. “It goes on to offer a wide range of investment plans with a monthly profitability of up to 100%.
“Members of the public are hereby cautioned that the information provided on the website is absolutely false, misleading and intended to defraud innocent and unwary members of the public,” the real Tata says. “Neither Tata Sons nor any other Tata company has any connection whatsoever with the aforesaid Tata Agro Holding. Tata Sons is initiating appropriate action in the matter.”
PonziTracker.com was among the first outlets to report the news of the Tata warning.
The TataAgro site appears not to be loading.
It is somewhat common for fraud schemes to try to steal the identities of major figures on the world financial stage. CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, regularly publishes information on purported “opportunities” that adopt the names of legitimate firms to create confusion and fleece the masses.
A post dated Dec. 3, 2013, at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum claims the purported TataAgro entity pays “1.9-3.1% daily for 15-90 days” and accepts Perfect Money, BitCoin, EgoPay and Qiwi.
Meanwhile, a post dated Dec. 17 at the DreamTeamMoney Ponzi forum makes this claim (italics added):
Tata Agro is an agricultural investment company founded in 2012 in British Virgin Islands. We are a subsidiary of transcontinental conglomerate Tata Group that has been established in India back in 1868 and now boasts the combined market capitalization of $96 bln.
We have retained only the best things from a rich and long experience of our ancestor: the unique corporate culture, client-oriented and customized approach, and understanding of the market through retrospective analysis. Our fundamental aim is to help you grow your capital.
We work with assets like barley, soya, soya oil and meat, corn, wheat, and livestock and currently operate in CME Group, TOCOM, and MGEX exchange houses.
We are eager to offer you four investment plans with the daily ROI of 1.9% to 3.1% and investment term of 15 to 120 days. You can invest from 5 to 10,000 USD. Apart from that, we offer you a profitable referral program that lets you earn more and work side by side with your family and friends.
A post dated Dec. 17 at the TalkGold Ponzi forum makes these claims (italics added):
Invest 5 to 100$ for 15 days and earn 1.9% ROI daily;
Invest 100 to 1000$ for 30 days and earn 2.3% ROI daily;
Invest 1000 to 5000$ for 60 days and earn 2.5% ROI daily;
Invest 5000 to 10,000$ for 120 days and earn 3.1% ROI daily.
Collapsed fraud schemes such as Zeek Rewards, AdSurfDaily, Legisi, Pathway to Prosperity, Profitable Sunrise, Imperia Invest IBC and many more also had a presence on the Ponzi boards.
The TelexFree “program” currently has a presence on the Ponzi boards.
BULLETIN: On the heels of the apparent shutdown of Costa Rica-based Liberty Reserve as part of an international money-laundering investigation, “PerfectMoney” says it is banning users from the United States. Perfect Money purportedly operates from Panama. (More below.)
In an announcement dated today on its website, Perfect Money says that “due to changes in our policy we forbid new registrations from individuals or companies based in the United States of America. This includes US citizens residing overseas. If you fall under the above mentioned category, please do not register an account with us.”
How PerfectMoney intends to treat existing U.S. users was not immediately clear, and the firm did not explain why it suddenly had changed its policy. The company is favored by criminals and HYIP scammers and has a history of advertising on behalf of purported Forex “opportunities” that have been the subjects of sweeping court actions in the United States.
In January 2013, the Superintendency of the Securities Market of the Republic of Panama (SMV) warned that Perfect Money “has not been granted any kind of license by the SMV, nor has been authorized to carry on activities of intermediation, administration, or advisory in securities, financial instruments or forex, in or from the Republic of Panama, within the scope of the Securities Law.
“PERFECT MONEY FINANCE CORP. does not have [its] own offices in Panama, the office and its P.O. Box claim in its website [deleted by PP Blog], belong to the companies Azuero Business Center, Inc. and Panama Net Buy, which provides online shopping services,” SMV said.
In 2011, the PP Blog reported that an individual referenced as a Perfect Money contact person is referenced in federal court filings that tie money from the alleged EMG/Finanzas Forex fraud scheme to an international narcotics probe that led to the seizure of at least 59 bank accounts in the United States and the companion seizure of 294 bars of gold and at least seven luxury vehicles.
PerfectMoney’s name also is referenced in case filings from the SEC’s 2010 fraud complaint against Imperia Invest IBC, a scam purportedly operating offshore. Deaf people lost millions of dollars to Imperia, the SEC said.
A quick check today by the PPBlog showed dozens of HYIP sites that claim to accept PerfectMoney. Many of the same sites also claimed to accept LibertyReserve. How the “programs” — all of which advertise preposterous returns — will contend with the absence of LibertyReserve and the new restrictions imposed by PerfectMoney was not immediately clear.
Liberty Reserve operator Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk is reported to be under arrest in Spain as part of a probe by authorities in Costa Rica and the United States.
Based on U.S. court files and certain extrapolations, murky HYIPs may be raking in billions of dollars. In August 2012, the SEC alleged that the Zeek Rewards “program” gathered at least $600 million. Legisi, another HYIP scam, gathered at least $72 million before its 2008 collapse. Pathway To Prosperity appears to have churned at least $70 million prior to its 2010 collapse. The 2008 AdSurfDaily scheme gathered at least $119 million, according to federal prosecutors.
Zeek and ASD — at least — did business with AlertPay and SolidTrustPay, processors based in Canada.
In April 2013, the SEC alleged that a murky “program” known as Profitable Sunrise may have gathered tens of millions of dollars. Profitable Sunrise is the subject of regulatory actions or Investor Alerts in at least five countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy and New Zealand.
Profitable Sunrise pitchmen may not even have known for whom they were working to glean commissions, the SEC alleged.
There may be hundreds or perhaps thousands of HYIP scams operating online at any given point in time. Some of them — like Profitable Sunrise — even advertise they accept bank wires. HYIP scams often have promoters in common, a situation that sets the stage for banks to come into possession of funds tainted by a revolving door of fraud schemes.
In recent weeks, the PP Blog has reported on a number of reload scams aimed at victims of the Profitable Sunrise scheme. Virtually all of the schemes accepted PerfectMoney, LibertyReserve or both. Some also advertised they accepted SolidTrustPay and EgoPay.
These schemes included BiwakoBank Limited, SuperWithdraw, Whos12, Fairy Funds, Roxili, OptiEarn, AVVGlobal, ProForexUnion, MajestiCrown and TelexFree.
Sentencing for Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme pitchman Matthew John Gagnon has been rescheduled for June 18. Gagnon initially was scheduled to be sentenced yesterday, federal prosecutors said earlier this month.
Gagnon pleaded guilty to not disclosing he’d been paid more than $1 million by Legisi and operator Gregory N. McKnight to tout the “program” online. McKnight is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 6, federal prosecutors said.
Legisi, a Ponzi-forum darling, collapsed in 2008. It triggered a civil probe by the SEC and a criminal investigation by the U.S. Secret Service. Michigan securities regulators also were involved in the probe.
Other recent Ponzi-board “programs” that became the subjects of major investigations include Pathway To Prosperity, Imperia Invest IBC, AdSurfDaily, Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise. All of the “programs” claimed absurd rates of return.
The name of MoneyMakerGroup, a forum listed in U.S. court filings as a place from which Ponzi schemes are promoted, appears in an evidence exhibit in the Legisi case. Also included in the exhibit is Legisi’s bizarre Terms of Service, which required investors to avow they were not an “informant” for government agencies such as the CIA, FBI, SEC, “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain and the Serious Fraud Office, among others.
Like McKnight, Gagnon also faces millions of dollars in civil judgments for hawking the Legisi scheme.
In a plea agreement in the criminal case, Gagnon admitted he’d caused more than $7 million in losses to more than 50 Legisi investors.
Delays in sentencing dates may be due in part to the difficulty the court-appointed receiver in the Legisi case has encountered in deposing a potential Legisi witness jailed in Alabama in a second scam.
Sentencing for Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme purveyor Gregory N. McKnight has been delayed again — this time until Aug. 6 at 1:30 p.m. McKnight had been scheduled to be sentenced today in the Eastern District of Michigan. The postponement marks at least the fifth in the case.
Legisi, which had a presence on infamous Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup and became the subject of both civil (SEC) and criminal (U.S. Secret Service) probes prior to its 2008 collapse, was a fraud that gathered about $72 million. McKnight pleaded guilty to wire fraud in February 2012. Prosecutors have asked for a sentence of 15 years, describing McKnight’s wordplay when trying to sanitize his HYIP scheme as “semantic obfuscation.”
Meanwhile, sentencing for Legisi pitchman Matthew John Gagnon has been moved from today until May 21 at 1:30 p.m. Gagnon pleaded guilty to not disclosing he’d been paid more than $1 million by Legisi and McKnight to tout the “program” online. Gagnon pushed the “program” on Mazu.com.
The name of MoneyMakerGroup appears in an evidence exhibit in the Legisi case. Also included in the exhibit is Legisi’s bizarre Terms of Service, which required investors to avow they were not an “informant” for government agencies such as the CIA, FBI, SEC, “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain and the Serious Fraud Office, among others.
Other recent Ponzi-board “programs” that became the subjects of major investigations include Pathway To Prosperity, Imperia Invest IBC, AdSurfDaily, Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise. All of the “programs” claimed absurd rates of return.
The SEC said last month that Profitable Sunrise was operating from a “mail drop” in England and that pitchmen may not even have known for whom they were working when touting the “opportunity,” which may have gathered tens of millions of dollars.
ASD was a $119 million Ponzi scheme. Zeek, according to the SEC, was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud. Imperia targeted thousands of deaf investors and consumed more than $7 million. Pathway to Prosperity gathered about $70 million, according to court filings.
ASD’s Andy Bowdoin — now serving a prison term of 78 months — also engaged in semantic obfuscation, prosecutors said. ASD, a massive Ponzi scheme, purported to pay 1 percent a day. That’s about a third of the purported payout of the Profitable Sunrise “Long Haul” plan, which promoters said paid 2.7 percent a day.
Like Legisi, Profitable Sunrise claimed to be in the “loan” business.
EDITOR’S NOTE: One way to read a report filed yesterday by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme case is as a warning manual that brings to life the kind of vexing problems HYIP schemes create for operators, vendors and participants — including “insiders.” Kenneth D. Bell’s report to Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen of North Carolina strongly hints that the receivership has identified “key insiders.” Their names have not been published in court filings . . .
UPDATED 4 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Although early filings last year in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case suggested that offshore payment processors Alert Pay (Payza) and Solid Trust Pay held more than $40 million connected to Zeek, the court-appointed receiver has advised a federal judge that the two processors may hold even more than originally believed.
Both AlertPay and SolidTrustPay operate from Canada. Their names appear constantly in Ponzi-board promos for fraud schemes. The companies’ names also have appeared in court filings related to various HYIP schemes, including the alleged $72 million Pathway To Prosperity fraud in 2010 and the $119 million AdSurfDaily fraud in 2008.
In 2009, while the ASD case was still in the courts, some members of AdSurfDaily received mysterious “final refunds” from SolidTrustPay through an STP-connected email address of oceannamusic@xplornet.com. The purported pro rata refunds led to questions about whether some ASD members were benefiting at the expense of others while the case still was in the U.S. courts and whether ASD actually had money in SolidTrustPay under the name of a different company or a user other than President Andy Bowdoin. (See July 2009 post by PP Blog guest columnist Gregg Evans here.)
Later, an emerging scam known as JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid purportedly operated by former ASD pitchman Frederick Mann began to use the offshore processors — amid claims from JSS/JPB pitchmen that they not only were recruiting for JSS/JBP, but also managing both the JSS/JBP accounts of their sign-ups and the payment-processor accounts of the sign-ups.
Because HYIP schemes proliferate in part through the willful blindness of promoters and serial con artists, a situation has evolved over the years in which fraudulent proceeds circulate between and among scams and their individual promoters. “Alan Chapman,” a Zeek pitchman, also was promoting JSS/JPB and a follow-up scam known as “ProfitClicking,” for instance. Serial huckster “Ken Russo” also promoted Zeek and JSS/JBP — and many more schemes, including ASD and Profitable Sunrise, which the SEC described last month as a scam that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars.
But a new filing by Kenneth D. Bell, the Zeek receiver, suggests that the receivership may seek to foreclose any after-the-fact opportunities for offshore processors to duck their responsibilities to the receivership estate and for holders of the offshore accounts to benefit from Zeek after the SEC brought spectacular allegations of Ponzi- and pyramid fraud against Zeek in August 2012.
Zeek, the SEC said last year, was a $600 million fraud scheme that used at least 15 foreign and domestic financial institutions.
A forensic accounting has led Bell to believe that “both Payza and SolidTrustPay may have additional Receivership assets.”
In a report to Senior U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen, Bell said he is working “to investigate and seize these funds.”
And, Bell advised Mullen, “[t]o the extent these entities allowed affiliates to withdraw funds after receiving notice of the Receivership, the Receiver may seek reimbursement of indemnification for the funds from the payment service providers.”
If Bell somehow is able to foreclose chicanery involving serial Ponzi pitchmen and the scamming insiders with offshore accounts, it could go a long way toward minimizing the spread of fraud schemes over the Internet.
Bell’s April 30 filing also reveals that the receivership has recovered $291,000 from a “merchant services account reserve” that had been held by American Express for Rex Venture Group, Zeek’s parent company. At the same time, it reveals that Bell — to date — has recovered $36,000 from Zeek net winners in prelitigation settlements. That number may grow. The deadline to enter into negotiations for a prelitigation settlement is May 31.
More than anything, though, Bell’s report to the court showcases the enormous problems created by HYIP schemes. Among the problems outlined in the filing:
Potentially costly and time-consuming litigation disputes for all parties. Zeek operator Paul Burks is claiming privilege on certain matters. Some Zeek “winners” have filed motions that could slow down the refund process for Zeek victims at large.
Taxes: Zeek appears to have misclassified certain employees as independent contractors, which has tax ramifications.
Incomplete records. Because of poor records at Zeek, some members who received 1099 tax forms from the receivership received forms that showed earnings either higher or lower than actual earnings. The receivership has prepared amended 1099s for certain Zeek members.
Possible disputes with vendors. Bell’s report noted that USHBB Inc. asserted it was owed $878,856 by Zeek. USHBB produced video promos for Zeek. In September 2012, the PP Blog reported that Zeek once listed USHBB executive OH Brown as an employee. Meanwhile, USHBB once produced videos for a collapsed MLM scheme known as Narc That Car.)
Clawback litigation: In the absence of settlements, the receiver potentially could file actions that involve thousands of Zeek affiliates in possession of ill-gotten gains from the scheme.
The Associated Press is reporting that Zeek Rewards operator Paul R. Burks claims that he is not at fault and that Zeek participants are to blame if they lost money.
From the AP (via Yahoo News/italics added):
“I never told anyone to invest more money than they could afford,” Burks snapped. “I didn’t tell them to do that. Never.”
He said if they lost money, “it’s their fault. Not mine. Don’t blame me.”
Zeek rose in part through promotions on well-known Ponzi scheme forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup. In August, the SEC alleged that Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme operating from Lexington, N.C. Court records suggest the SEC’s Zeek probe began at least in April 2012.
Serial hucksters on the Ponzi boards often rationalize Ponzi train wrecks by claiming that no one advised participants to spend more than they could afford to lose.
Convicted Ponzi schemer Dennis Bolze — one of the original so-called “mini-Madoffs” — tried a version of the “don’t invest more than you can afford to lose” rationalization in an unsuccessful bid to reduce his 27-year prison sentence for his brick-and-mortar scheme. A judge applied a sentencing enhancement in the Bolze case because senior citizens were among the victims.
Bolze used a similar argument for a sentencing reduction, asserting that his victims invested only “discretionary money.”
He further argued that age alone was not sufficient to justify the enhancement “and that the present poor financial condition of his victims is not relevant to whether they were unusually vulnerable at the time they invested their money with him,” according to the 6th Circuit.
Meanwhile, Bolze “denied that he forced anyone to invest” and claimed “that he did not know” certain investors “because his associate dealt with them.”
The panel rejected each of those arguments.
Burks, 66, has not been charged criminally. The SEC sued Burks and Zeek parent Rex Venture Group LLC last year.
Ponzi-board hucksters have promoted numerous Internet-aided scams. AdSurfDaily, a $119 million Ponzi scheme opearting from Florida, had a presence on the boards. So did Legisi, a $72 million Ponzi scheme operating from Michigan. So did Pathway to Prosperity, a $70 million scam alleged to have penetrated 120 countries. So did Imperia Invest IBC, a shadowy entity that stole millions of dollars by targeting people with hearing impairments.
The most recent Ponzi-board scam to make major news is Profitable Sunrise, another shadowy entity purportedly operated by “Roman Novak.” Profitable Sunrise purported to pay interest of 2.7 percent a day through its bizarrely named “Long Haul” plan targeted at Christians. Members were due a purported “Easter gift” on Monday, April Fool’s Day.
The Profitable Sunrise website has been missing for more than two weeks. At least 34 U.S. states or provinces in Canada have issued Investor Alerts or cease-and-desist orders against Profitable Sunrise. The United Kingdom and New Zealand also have issued warnings.
Research shows that Profitable Sunrise had members in common with ASD and Zeek.
“HYIPs use an array of websites and social media — including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook — to lure investors, fabricating a ‘buzz’ and creating the illusion of social consensus, which is a common persuasion tactic fraudsters use to suggest that ‘everyone is investing in HYIPs, so they must be legitimate.’” — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), July 15, 2010
FINRA issued a warning back in 2010 against HYIP schemes, pointing out that they often trade through social-media sites such as forums, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The warning came on the heels of the collapse of the Genius Funds “program” ($400 million) and the filing of criminal charges in the United States against Nicholas Smirnow, an alleged former bank robber in Canada who allegedly was running the Pathway To Prosperity (P2P) Ponzi scheme. P2P is alleged to have gathered more than $70 million.
P2P even got a mention on the U.S. Department of Justice Blog. That mention came in the form of a warning about international mass-marketing fraud.
Nearly three years later, Smirnow, 55, is still listed by INTERPOL as an international fugitive.
So is Robert Hodgins, 68. Hodgins, a Canadian supplier of debit cards to HYIP schemes, is charged in a money-laundering case in the United States. It is alleged that cards Hodgins supplied were used by narcotics traffickers to offload millions of dollars in “profits” at ATMs in Medellin, Colombia.
Speaking of Colombia . . . well, it was one of the staging grounds of the infamous D.M.G. Group (DMG) multilevel-marketing pyramid scheme of David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzman (David Murcia). Murcia, too, was tied to narcotics traffickers. His collapsed pyramid scheme gathered hundreds of millions of dollars. The anger spilled out onto the streets.
Just about all of these schemes made absurd claims. Genius Funds, for example, promised a payout of 6.5 percent a week. Compare that absurd claim to the Profitable Sunrise claim of 2.7 percent a day through its bizarrely named “Long Haul” plan with a purported payout timed to coincide with Easter. A scheme bizarrely known as Cash Tanker was operating at the same time as Genius Funds. Like Profitable Sunrise, Cash Tanker purported to be a Christian enterprise. It’s gone now, too. So is Profitable Sunrise. Their members were cast into the sea like so much chum.
Enter the Facebook boat-sharks and the contemptible “lifelines” they’re tossing toward the people struggling to stay afloat in rough seas . . .
Despite all the warnings — despite all the publicity surrounding HYIP schemes — opportunists are descending on Facebook today to recruit Profitable Sunrise members (the people struggling in the water) into new scams. The same thing has happened repeatedly, perhaps most prominently in August 2012, after the SEC described the Zeek Rewards “program” as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.)
Boat-sharks posting on a Profitable Sunrise Facebook site today are promoting schemes such as “SuperWithdraw,” “Whos12,” Maxi-Cash,” “FairyFunds,” “Roxilia,” “OptiEarn,” “AVVGlobal,” “ProForexUnion” and “MajestiCrown.” Some of the emerging schemes promise to pay even more than Profitable Sunrise.
