Pathway To Prosperity

EDITOR’S NOTE: The ASA Monitor Ponzi forum now has reopened its thread on the MPB Today MLM program — with a warning in red to “Play nice . . .” UPDATED 9:54 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A forum infamous for promoting Ponzi schemes and other criminal pursuits has locked the thread from which the MPB Today […]

“They helped form a series of sham business entities and then promoted fraudulent debt elimination tactics intended for the sole purpose of concealing income from the IRS.” — Victor S. O. Song, chief, IRS Criminal Investigation As the U.S. Department of Agriculture was conducting a “review” of claims made by affiliates of a purported “grocery” […]

UPDATED 7:06 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) TO INCLUDE GRAPHIC OF SEARCH-WARRANT APPLICATION IN THE  U.S. SECRET SERVICE PROBE OF THE REGENESIS 2×2 MATRIX CYCLER PROMOTED AT THE ASAMONITOR FORUM. An MPB Today affiliate is targeting churches in a video animation. MPB Today is a Florida-based multilevel-marketing (MLM) program tied to a grocery business known as Southeastern […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: UPDATED 3:12 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Florida-based MPBToday is one of the programs pitched on Ponzi boards such as ASAMonitor, MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. It also is being pitched via email and on social-media sites such as YouTube. All three of the forums are referenced in court filings — including filings in criminal cases — […]

Yet another HYIP scheme pushed on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums has been outlined by federal prosecutors — this time in Florida. The name of the scheme was Alpha Trade Group (ATG), and web records show that the scheme was pitched on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup beginning on Oct. 7, 2009. Court records, meanwhile, show that […]

A federal judge has extended the freeze on the assets of a website operator accused by the SEC of shilling for a Ponzi schemer and then trying to extort money from the schemer when the fraud was collapsing. Severe restrictions placed on Mazu.com operator Matt Gagnon by U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh of the […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog has covered a number of stories in which U.S. residents living overseas were extradited to the United States to face Ponzi charges. The case against Ronald Paul Shade is another one — and it’s one that demonstrates that an extradition can occur even if a defendant is not charged with […]

UPDATED 4:51 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A convicted felon who emerged from prison and almost immediately launched a $1 million fraud scheme known as PPSN threatened to prosecute and sue a consumer who had filed an online complaint, federal prosecutors said. Although the threat caused the consumer to withdraw the complaint against Philip Pestrichello, Pestrichello’s bid […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: It has become increasingly clear that regulators and the law-enforcement community are rallying around a common theme that web-based promoters are using discussion forums and social-networking sites in bids to sanitize HYIP Ponzi schemes by positioning them as attractive investment opportunities and even a thrilling form of gambling that pays commissions. Today the […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally was published June 30. The PP Blog later encountered a database problem, which caused the site to go down and resulted in the temporary loss of some data. The data now has been retrieved. This story is about a new site known as “WebsiteTester.biz,” but some background is in order. […]

Dear Readers, We have received a few inquiries about a new surfing program called AdPayDaily (APD). Our initial take is that the program is a dressed-up version of AdSurfDaily, AdViewGlobal, BizAdSplash and AdGateWorld and that the operators are persuaded they’ve found a word combination and legal structure that will neutralize critics and law enforcement should […]