UPDATED 3:44 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A man the U.S. Secret Service identified as the “driving force” behind the Regenesis 2×2 matrix was released from prison Jan. 13, stole money from clients in a previous securities scheme and was on federal probation for money-laundering, records show.
A domain name the Regenesis matrix uses was registered privately in the Netherlands Jan. 21, just eight days after Jeffrey William Snyder’s release. Less than a month after release, Snyder’s probation was transferred from Nevada to Washington, where he had resettled.
Records show that Snyder, 40, had been on probation only days when Regenesis began to pursue customers, aided by web-based promoters who endorsed the $325 program that promised payouts with no work.
Regenesis now is part of a criminal probe involving at least five agencies.
Snyder, who lives in Snoqualmie, Wash., created The Vanguard Financial Foundation and the Topeka Crescent International Foundation in 2003, soliciting more than $200,000 from 16 different investors, according to his plea agreement in the case.
Snyder, according to the plea agreement, laundered the funds through a third company he “caused” to be set up: Envision Health and Nutrition. Investigators said Snyder used Envision to “conceal his identity and his control over the investor’s funds.”
Parts of the 2006 plea agreement read as though prosecutors were describing an early, small-scale Bernard Madoff.
Snyder provided “investors with false statements of account that purported to show their invested funds and accrued interest,” federal prosecutors said.
“[Snyder] converted the majority of these funds to his own personal use,” prosecutors said.
The case was investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Snyder was arrested in Las Vegas, according to records. Investigators determined that he had deposited investors’ money in a bank account in Encinitas, Calif., and then wired it to an account in Incline Village, Nev.
Part of the scheme was to compose “a solicitation containing materially false information to induce investors to invest money with him,” prosecutors said.
Among other things, Snyder claimed he could produce returns of 10 percent or greater per month, but never told investors he was not registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Snyder signed the plea agreement Sept. 26, 2006, agreeing with the prosecution’s assertions against him. He was sentenced to a year and one day in prison — followed by three years’ supervised probation — on Dec. 11, 2007. He reported to prison in January 2008 and was released on Jan. 13, 2009.
The Secret Service began to investigate Snyder and others in the Seattle area about seven weeks ago, amid assertions that Regenesis was a Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $1.5 million from customers and used an elaborate network of banks and companies to pull off the fraud.
Agents kept Regenesis under surveillance for five weeks. They observed complaint letters directed at the firm being discarded into a Dumpster that was kept under constant surveillance, according to court filings.
Also found in the Dumpster were copies of checks sent in by customers, other documents that included customers’ names and information to identify them personally, complaint faxes sent by customers and a letter from a law firm complaining about false, misleading and deceptive advertising, according to court filings.