Trevor Cook

BULLETIN: (5th Update 12:54 a.m. EDT July 9 U.S.A.) Three individuals have been indicted on multiple criminal charges in Nevada, with a grand jury alleging they were at the helm of a $1.5 billion Ponzi scheme targeted at Japanese victims. The criminal case follows a civil action filed by the SEC in 2013. Charged with […]

“No!” Make that “Hell no!” — or, as Gen. Anthony McAuliffe once famously scribbled at the prompting of Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard during the Battle of the Bulge, after soldiers for the Nazi Third Reich demanded surrender: “Nuts!” At 12:11 a.m. ET today, the PP Blog inexplicably received five duplicate emails from an IP in […]

BULLETIN: Patrick Kiley, a radio host and conspiracy theorist who warned of “massive, massive chaos” and became a pitchman for the $194 million Trevor Cook Forex Ponzi scheme in Minnesota, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Kiley, 75, now becomes the fifth person sentenced to a long prison term in the epic […]

“Talk Radio Takedown” from CNBC’s “American Greed” program is expected to air at 10 p.m. EDT today, after a National Hockey League playoff game concludes. Visit the CNBC site. Watch the teaser (part of which features the taped voice of one of Cook’s radio pitchmen and chief bloviators) . . . The Cook/Kiley Forex fraud […]

UPDATED 9:56 A.M. ET (JAN. 30, U.S.A.) In a heavily redacted complaint, the court-appointed receiver in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme has accused Associated Bank of Green Bay, Wisc., of aiding and abetting the massive caper that has led to jail sentences for Cook and multiple Cook pitchmen. Associated Bank also operates branches in Minnesota, […]

CNBC’s “American Greed” will be in Minneapolis today to begin filming an episode on the massive Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme that was targeted at senior citizens and conservative Christians and rendered some victims penniless, a source told the PP Blog. Cook’s scheme gathered about $194 million. It collapsed in 2009. Money that potentially could go […]

UPDATED 7:52 A.M. ET (U.S.A.) The Star Tribune of Minneapolis/St. Paul is reporting that Jason Bo-Alan Beckman has been sentenced to 30 years in the $194 million Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme and that the sentencing judge scolded Beckman for using the English language as a weapon against investors he harmed. Beckman was Cook’s key rainmaker […]

“The nature and circumstances of this offense and Mr. Beckman’s history and characteristics, viewed together, cry out for a life sentence. With respect to Mr. Beckman, nothing less than a liberty-ending sentence would reflect the seriousness of this offense, promote respect for the law and provide just punishment. But perhaps most importantly, Mr. Beckman must […]

“The fraudsters prey upon vulnerable victims, do not respect local or even state boundaries, and often loot the victims’ life savings.” — Melinda Haag, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Sept. 13, 2012 It featured confidence-boosting names: Millennium Bank, United Trust of Switzerland and Sterling Bank and Trust. But it was a cross-border […]

For starters, Zeek affiliates being approached by upline sponsors and email/website appeals to send in money “to defend Zeek Rewards and all of our independent businesses as per our legal rights of due process” might want to read this July 25 PP Blog post. It’s about how wordplay was used to sanitize HYIP scams. For […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog first became aware of reports about the suicide bid of Russell R. Wasendorf Sr. last night, after being contacted by a reader who was defrauded in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme. Wasendorf apparently sought to take his own life on the sparkling Cedar Falls, Iowa, property of Peregrine Financial Group […]