Pathway To Prosperity

In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice used its Blog to warn about the emerging threat of “mass marketing fraud,” specifically citing the criminal allegations of a $70 million Ponzi fraud against Nicholas Smirnow of Pathway To Prosperity (P2P). P2P was promoted on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forums. A little over a month […]

Two forums listed in federal court documents as places from which Ponzi schemes are promoted have published a series of “I got paid” posts from commentators who say they are members of Club Asteria (CA). The “I got paid” posts on MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold appeared after CA members had complained publicly about not getting paid […]

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro alluded to the agency’s investigation of the alleged Imperia Invest IBC scam in testimony before Congress this morning, a development that may signal more bad news is in the offing for serial scammers online. Without mentioning Imperia by name, Schapiro told members of the House Subcommittee on Financial Services and General […]

The TalkGold Ponzi scheme and criminals’ forum has deleted a “sticky” thread reportedly paid for by InstaForex, a dubious company named a defendant in a registration sweep conducted by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month. The PP Blog reported two days ago that InstaForex was using TalkGold to promote a scheme by which […]

Let’s start with the chaos in Egypt this week. Protesters have streamed into the streets to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down after three decades of autocratic rule. The government initially reacted by shutting down the Internet. As tensions rose, protesters, activists and journalists covering the events were beaten. Some of the protesters were […]

UPDATED 12:04 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) In court filings this week in the AdSurfDaily autosurf Ponzi scheme case, federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia revealed a series of jaw-dropping numbers. The biggest of these is 500,000 — the number of pages of emails gleaned so far in the investigation, which began in July 2008. Because […]

Four egg-themed domain names used to drive business to HYIPs that ended in spectacular flameouts and foreshadowed a warning from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have gone missing. The domains — including one that redirected to an HYIP site known bizarrely as Cash Tanker, which used an image of Jesus Christ to promote a […]

In a bizarre and unsettling development, some members of AdSurfDaily who may be planning to file for restitution through the official claims administrator have received a confusing and threatening email from a “group” of ASD members. The email, which appears to be a compendium that cobbles together communications from the group and asks ASD members to […]

UPDATED 10:56 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The ASA Monitor Ponzi and criminals’ forum now is redirecting to a website operated by CashX.com, a Canadian payment processor that hawks MasterCard debit cards and says it permits customers to withdrawn money to Liberty Reserve. Liberty Reserve is a Ponzi-friendly payment processor purportedly headquartered in Costa Rica after earlier […]

A website known as MyPremierBiz.com was hyped on Ponzi boards last year and videos were produced to drive traffic to a confusing “opportunity” that included both a straight-line and a 2×2 matrix cycler and a hard-to-decipher sales and compensation program. Affiliate links were created for the program, which was purported on the MoneyMakerGroup forum to […]

BULLETIN UPDATED 5:02 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.): The SEC has gone to federal court in Utah to halt the operations of Imperia Invest IBC, alleging a spectacular fraud that fleeced money from thousands of Americans with hearing impairments. Imperia was promoted from the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum — one of the Ponzi forums promoting the MPB Today […]