PatrickPretty.com

Tag: President Trump

  • Famed Prosecutor Who Tied HYIP Scheme To Terrorist Financier Fired By Trump Administration

    Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Source: Southern District of New York.

    EDITORIAL: Ponzi schemers, Wall Street fraudsters and corrupt politicians must be taking comfort in the reported abrupt firing by the Trump administration of Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

    There is no question that President Trump had the power to ask Bharara and dozens of other U.S. Attorneys who were holdovers from the Obama administration to go. But Bharara expected to stay, especially since Trump asked him to do so.

    Bharara’s name has appeared on the PP Blog many times. In fact, something he once said became a source of great (and ongoing) editorial inspiration for peeling back layers of the HYIP onion.

    You see, back in 2009, Bharara tied an HYIP scheme to a case of terrorism financing. This was the case against Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as Michael Mixon. He was accused of operating an investment fraud known as FEDI and moving money with the belief he was purchasing night-vision goggles and other equipment for a terrorist camp in Afghanistan.

    It turned out that online marketers interested in commissions pushed FEDI to Americans, Canadians and others, not knowing its operator was interested in helping dark forces kill people en masse.

    How many other schemes could be sponsoring terrorism or fueling organized crime remains an open question. There are thousands of dark possibilities to mull, some of them (like FEDI and Profitable Sunrise) cloaked in light. HYIP schemes are ground zero for fake news.

    Knowing Preet Bharara was on the job always was a comforting thought. He brought FEDI to justice and, for example, made sure Liberty Reserve could not continue to launder billions of dollars for HYIP fraudsters and other criminals. (Did you know that one of the Liberty Reserve figures prosecuted by Bharara was a shill on the TalkGold Ponzi forum?)

    Bharara’s work, of course, was hardly limited to unmasking financial fraudsters.

    It is disheartening to think that the Trump administration is bemoaning “fake news” in one breath and firing the exposer of FEDI’s fake news in the next.

    Lots of purveyors of FEDI-like “programs” are online right now. They are delivering fake news through millions of column-inches and through terabytes of video.

    Some of them even have declared Trump their champion.

    The public owes a debt of gratitude to Preet Bharara. The President should have left him in place to continue the good fight.




  • REPORTS: Traffic Monsoon Pitchman Who Urged ‘RIOT’ And Called Receiver ‘Lying Cow’ Later Accused Of Kicking Woman ‘To The Head’

    Some promoters of Traffic Monsoon have engaged in heated rhetoric. This is a screen shot of a hijacked image that depicts President Trump as a supporter of the “program” the SEC has called a massive Ponzi scheme.

    UPDATED 1:36 P.M. ET U.S.A. Jose Nunes, the Traffic Monsoon pitchman who last fall used a slogan of “RIOT” to support the company and called the receiver in the SEC’s Ponzi case a “lying cow,” later reportedly was involved in domestic-violence incidents in November and January.

    A Feb. 6 report in the North Wales (U.K.) Daily Post says Nunes, 42, of Llanrug, was accused of carrying out “repeated acts of violence” against the woman, including kicking her “to the head” in front of their daughter.

    The most recent attacks reportedly marked at least the third time Nunes had been accused of assaulting the woman. According to the Daily Post, Nunes pleaded guilty to assaulting her in 2011.

    A purported “Revenue Shares Matter” campaign backed in September by Nunes featured a flaming graphic with the word “RIOT” in all-caps. By October, Nunes was calling Utah attorney Peggy Hunt — the receiver in the July 2016 Traffic Monsoon case — “Piggy,” a “[b . . . h” and a “Lying cow.”

    Attacks against his former girlfriend allegedly followed in November and January. The newspaper account of Nunes’ most recent alleged assaults does not report specific reasons or dates on which they occurred, but stress has been high in some Traffic Monsoon circles.

    Some supporters of Traffic Monsoon have been awaiting impatiently since November for key rulings from U.S. District Judge Jill N. Parrish.

    Rhetoric among some supporters of the “program” has been over-the-top. One effort in support of Traffic Monsoon on a Facebook site featured a hijacked photo of President Trump displaying a bogus executive order shutting down the SEC and declaring the agency “full of shit” and “useless.”

    The SEC alleged that Traffic Monsoon’s claim that it was a successful advertising business was “merely an illusion” and that 99 percent of the “program’s” revenue was derived from new investor funds.

    Traffic Monsoon operator Charles Scoville — who once appeared in a promotional photograph with Nunes — contends no Ponzi existed. He has asked Parrish to shut down the receivership and to dismiss the charges.




  • BRIEF: Feds Tweet Photo Of $20 Million Allegedly Found In Box Spring And Tied To TelexFree

    Federal prosecutors have Tweeted a photo of $20 million allegedly found stuffed in a box spring and linked to the massive TelexFree Ponzi- and pyramid caper.

    The cash was found Jan. 4 by the Homeland Security Investigations branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    Agents seized the cash and arrested Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, 28, of Brazil. He remains jailed.

    In other HYIP news, apparent supporters of the Traffic Monsoon “program” have been using Twitter in the past 24 hours to ask President Trump to intervene in the SEC’s fraud case brought in July 2016.

    Traffic Monsoon was pitched as an “advertising” program. The SEC alleged the program operated as a Ponzi scheme.