Steve Labriola

“Because that’s where the money is.” — Classic rejoinder attributed to Brooklyn-born criminal Willie Sutton, reportedly after he was asked why he robbed banks. The often-quoted line may or may not be apocryphal. (Also see “Sutton’s Law” on the need to consider the obvious and “When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras.”) UPDATED […]

BULLETIN: The government of Colombia appears to be seizing assets linked to four Colombians with alleged ties to TelexFree, which authorities in the United States have described as a massive cross-border pyramid- and Ponzi scheme. La Superintendencia de Sociedades, Colombia’s Superintendency of Companies, has published notices of the action. (See link to document (Spanish) below.) […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (5th update 7:33 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) In a defense filing in the SEC’s securities fraud case against him, former TelexFree interim CFO Joseph Craft says he concluded TelexFree was a Ponzi scheme selling unregistered securities. The acknowledgement, which appears to be the first concession from the TelexFree inner circle that […]

Longtime HYIP huckster and TelexFree figure Faith Sloan has been banned by Illinois from selling securities. The prohibition order is dated June 9. It was issued by the Securities Department of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. The state found that Sloan, an Illinois resident, operated a TelexFree-related website and acted as an unregistered securities […]

In February 2014, the PP Blog reported that TelexFree had planned a purported “international convention” in Spain in early March. The pitch for the convention, hosted in Madrid, was voiced by Sann Rogrigues, whom the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission successfully had sued in 2006 amid allegations he was operating a pyramid scheme and engaging […]

UPDATED 10:48 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A plaintiff bringing a prospective class-action lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court has accused 10 TelexFree figures of committing crimes and — as a group — committing racketeering violations through an “association-in-fact enterprise.” Unlike other prospective TelexFree-related class-actions, this one names neither attorneys nor banks nor TelexFree itself defendants. Rather, it […]

MLM attorney Gerald Nehra, his law partner Richard Waak and their law firm are now lawyered up in the TelexFree bankruptcy case. Groups of TelexFree members have sued them in bankruptcy court, alleging violations of the federal racketeering (RICO) statute and violations of federal securities laws. TelexFree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on a […]

UPDATED 8:55 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Veteran HYIP huckster Faith Sloan told a federal judge presiding over the SEC’s TelexFree case that she is a victim of the company and was duped by TelexFree executives James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler and Steve Labriola. And, the former Noobing, Zeek Rewards and Profitable Sunrise pitchwoman asserted, she also was […]

Politicians appear to have spared themselves some embarrassment, but MLM had another La-La Land PR train wreck today. iG (Brazil) is reporting that an effort to honor accused TelexFree pitchman and two-time SEC defendant Sann Rodrigues in a Brazilian Senate hall today was thwarted. The effort to fete Rodrigues appears to have been staged by […]

BULLETIN: (8th update 9:10 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) In an amended complaint in the SEC’s pyramid- and Ponzi case against TelexFree, the agency says alleged TelexFree fugitive Carlos Wanzeler was using investors’ money to build a “small real estate empire” that consisted of 34 properties in Massachusetts and Florida. Wanzeler, 45, also allegedly acquired a 40-foot […]

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Litigation Release No. 22992 / May 13, 2014 Securities and Exchange Commission v. TelexFree, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:14-cv-11858-DJC (United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts) United States v. Carlos Nataniel Wanzeler and James Matthew Merrill, Case No. 14-MJ-4172-DHH (United States District Court for the District […]