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Tag: Serious Fraud Office

  • BULLETIN: ‘MooreFund,’ A Ponzi-Board HYIP ‘Program’ Pushed By Achieve Community Huckster, Is Using Unauthorized Security Seal From Norton

    moorefundBULLETIN:  (Updated 8:17 a.m. ET Feb. 25 U.S.A.) An HYIP “program” that operates at MooreFund.com is using a “Norton Secured” seal that is not authorized, Symantec told the PP Blog late this afternoon.

    Symantec, owner of the famous Norton brand, is a software and computer-security company. Its name is misspelled as “Symentec” on the FAQ page of MooreFund in an awkwardly worded passage that plants the seed Symantec and other security firms are providing deposit insurance.

    Under a subhead that reads “How can I be sure that Moore Fund is licensed and safe,” the MooreFund site claims (italics added/verbatim):

    Moore Property Investment Co Limited is registered in United Kingdom and verified by Worlds most popular security insurance company like Symentec-Norton (veriSign), Comodo and TRUSTe. MOORE PROPERTY INVESTMENT CO LIMITED holds a website identity assurance warranty of $1,750,000. This means that you are insured for up to $1,750,000 when relying on the information provided by IdAuthority on this site. US Patent Number 7,603,699.”

    The PP Blog contacted Symantec after observing a YouTube promo today for MooreFund by Achieve Community huckster Rodney Blackburn. The Blog also contacted the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority because MooreFund purports to operate from the United Kingdom through Moore Property Investment Co Ltd. FCA, closed for the evening, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Update 8:17 a.m. ET Feb. 25 U.S.A. Chris Hamilton, a spokesperson for FCA, declined this morning to comment specifically on MooreFund. Hamilton added, however, that “the FCA is one of a number of organisation that does investigate, and prosecute, Ponzi schemes. The other UK authorities include the Police and the Serious Fraud Office.” (Original story continues below . . .)

    “They have insurance to cover . . . so, it helps you to feel, you know, more peace of mind in getting into an investment like this,” Blackburn says in his video for MooreFund. The 13:11 production is dated today and titled, “Moore Fund- Rodney’s Review on this HYIP.”

    Blackburn also advised MooreFund registrants to place banner ads for the “program” on other HYIP sites. In what might be a troubling trend, HYIP schemes recently have been publishing ads for other HYIP schemes, a development that suggests tainted proceeds are circulating among any number of scams.

    Achieve Community, which was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 12 with operating a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered more than $3.8 million, permitted members to place banner ads for other “programs.”

    Like Achieve, MooreFund has a presence on well-known Ponzi-scheme forums such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold. The “program” purports to offer four investment plans. These promise absurd daily interest rates of between 1.5 percent and 3 percent, with “compounding” available on three of the four plans and tiered recruitment commissions offered on all four.

    Investors, according to the website, may send in sums from $15 to $99,999, a circumstance that suggests MooreFund is operating both a micro and macro scam.

    MooreFund claims its accepts Bitcoin. It also claims prospects can send money via Western Union, bank wire and a range of processors, including well-known fraud enablers such as SolidTrustPay, Perfect Money and EgoPay.

    The site includes a number of awkward passages in English such as “Fill up the form to make a new deposit,” “Sometime website is down due to ongoing maintenance work,” “You just have to contact the support department and ask for cancelling your investment” and “MooreFund minimizes risk level by offering deposit insurance system.”

    This is the supposed insurance (italics added/verbatim):

    Plan Beginner – 99.99% of the funds are insured
    Plan Pro – 75% of the funds are insured
    Furthermore, You can cancel and refund your money anytime between first 7 days of your deposit.

    Using a calculator on the MooreFund site, Blackburn asserts that by compounding his $500 deposit over the course of a year, he’ll emerge with $53,721.54.

    “Guys, that is a nice little nest egg right there,” he says.

  • BULLETIN: British Ponzi Schemer Sentenced To 13 Years In Prison; Judge Cites Nicholas David Andrew Levene’s ‘Rank Dishonesty,’ Prosecutors Say

    BULLETIN: Nicholas David Andrew Levene, the 48-year-old London stockbroker and Ponzi schemer, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, the Serious Fraud Office announced.

    His Honor Judge Beddoe ordered the sentence after Levene was convicted in September of 12 counts of fraud, one count of false accounting and one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception, the SFO announced.

    “It was a fraud from the outset, where countless lies were told,” the judge remarked at sentencing, according to the SFO. “It was rank dishonesty. There were separate acts of individual moments of betrayal.”

    Levene “used investors’ monies to finance a lavish personal lifestyle,” case manager Jonathan Midgley said. The scheme operated between January 2005 and October 2009, gathering more than £250 million from investors.

    Losses, according to the SFO, were estimated at more than £32 million — about $51 million (U.S.).

    Read the SFO statement.

    Read a story in The Independent, which reports Levene ripped off some “high-fliers.”

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: KABOOM! Gregory N. McKnight, Legisi HYIP Operator And Ponzi-Forum Darling, Pleads Guilty To Wire Fraud

    This grainy likeness of Gregory N. McKnight is taken from federal court filings in 2008.

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan, the SEC said this afternoon.

    McKnight was charged criminally on Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. His guilty plea followed two days later, the SEC said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. The SEC charged him civilly in May 2008.

    Legisi, which gathered more than $72 million and fleeced more than 3,000 investors in the United States and several other countries, was popularized in part on Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    MoneyMakerGroup is specifically referenced in U.S. court files in the Legisi case.

    Legisi’s Terms of Service resemble those of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a purported “opportunity” currently being flogged on the Ponzi boards even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the actions of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters.

    Promos by Legisi triggered an undercover operation by the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan.

    In addition to the prospect of jail time, McKnight is on the receiving end of a civil judgment and penalties totaling about $6.5 million, the SEC said.

    Legisi members, according to the Terms, had to affirm they were not an “informant, nor associated with any informant” of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others, according to documents filed in federal court.

    The others included “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office and Interpol.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”

    One of Legisi’s payment “programs” advertised a return of .25 (one-quarter) percent per day, according to court filings.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promotes a return of 2 percent a day — eight times higher than Legisi.

    A sentencing date for McKnight will be determined later, the SEC said.

    U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith presided over McKnight’s guilty plea, the SEC said.

    Frederick Mann is the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

     

  • BULLETIN: U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office Charges John Neil Hirst In $16 Million Ponzi Fraud; Brits, French, Americans Allegedly Targeted By Gilher Inc. Of Panama And Seychelles

    BULLETIN: John Neil Hirst has been charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the United Kingdom in a case that alleges he was at the helm of an international Ponzi scheme that targeted British, French and Americans through a company registered in Panama and Seychelles.

    The company was known as Gilher Inc., the SFO said. Hirst operated from Mallorca, investigators said.

    U.K. officials said Hirst, 59, appeared in Bradford Magistrates Court today to face charges of money-laundering and conspiracy to defraud. The scheme is believe to have gathered more than £10m (about $16.2 million U.S.), causing losses of about £6m (nearly $10 million U.S.).

    Investigators said in November 2009 that Gilher hawked a “fund” that offered “a guaranteed return of 20% a year.”

    It was the second major Ponzi case brought in Europe in recent weeks. German Cardona Soler was arrested in Spain last month in a case described as a $300 million Ponzi scheme that affected more than 100,000 investors globally.

    The SFO investigation of Hirst “is still continuing in regards to the involvement of a number of additional individuals,” the SFO said today. Investigators did not name the other individuals or say how many others were under scrutiny.

    “Gilher Inc was a Panama and Seychelles registered company, operated by Hirst, which invested funds on behalf of private clients who were mainly based in the UK and Spain,” SFO said. “The investigation started in November 2009 following complaints made to the SFO by investors and has been investigated with the assistance of West Yorkshire and Surrey Police and overseas law enforcement authorities.”

    SFO did not identify the overseas authorities that assisted in the probe.

    Cardona is a figure in the alleged EMG/Finanzas Forex Ponzi scheme, which has been tied to multiple fraud schemes in Florida and a narcotics probe in Arizona, according to U.S. court filings. Some of the U.S.-based legwork in the alleged caper was performed by members of the same Task Force that brought a $110 million Ponzi prosecution against AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin of Quincy, Fla.

    Cardona’s name also has surfaced in the George Theodule Ponzi scheme in Florida.

    Both EMG/Finanzas and AdSurfDaily were promoted on Ponzi and criminals’ forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    Hirst was ordered to remain at his residence and not to contact prosecution witnesses. He also was ordered to surrender his passport, SFO said.