BULLETIN: The operator of an alleged HYIP fraud known as Eagle Trades LTD has been indicted on 49 Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud and money-laundering after a probe by the IRS, federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Ohio said.
Terrance Osberger, 48, of Genoa, Ohio, has been charged with one count of wire fraud and 48 counts of money-laundering, the office of U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach said.
Records show that the “program,” which allegedly offered returns in the hundreds of percent over 190 days, was promoted in 2009 on the TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums. Separately, records show that state securities regulators in Massachusetts filed civil charges against Eagle Trades in 2011, alleging that two investors in the state were instructed by Osberger to send “their joint $103,000 investment through SolidTrustPay.”
SolidTrustPay is a Canadian payment processor favored by HYIP scammers.
The money sent through SolidTrustPay appears to have made its way into an Eagle Trades’ bank account in Ohio “over the course of several successive days,” according to the Massachusetts filing. But due to the “high volume of transactions and the intermingling of funds” in the account, Massachusetts investigators said they were “unable to definitely determine the ultimate destination of the $103,000 investment.”
Another Massachusetts investor was instructed by Osberger to wire $50,500 to a Cyprus entity known as F.B.M.E. Bank Ltd. That transaction proved to be difficult to reverse-engineer because of international red tape, according to the Massachusetts complaint.
The Massachusetts filings speak to the recovery difficulties investors may encounter when doing business with murky enterprises that may have one or more offshore arms, the ability to send and receive money via offshore payment processors and a corresponding ability to dump the money into domestic or international bank accounts — before moving it again.
Eagle Trades, according to an evidence exhibit prepared by Massachusetts investigators, told investors that they “will quickly notice that we have reengineered the mold regarding High Yield Investment Programs [HYIPs], making it easier than ever for you to be more informed regarding your investment options and earn a realistic, yet sustainable investment return.”
Current HYIPs such as JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid are making similar claims about purported sustainability and reengineered platforms while also luring prospects by advertising returns that correspond to annualized returns in the hundreds of percent — and all while using SolidTrustPay and other offshore processors.
JSS/JBP purportedly is operated by Frederick Mann, a former pitchman for the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which also had a presence on the Ponzi boards, also used SolidTrustPay and also planted the seed that annualized returns in the hundreds of percent were possible.
ASD President Andy Bowdoin, 77, is jailed in the District of Columbia. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May and acknowledged ASD was a Ponzi scheme that never operated legally from its 2006 inception.
Over time, Eagle Trades told Massachusetts investors waiting for their payouts that it had been targeted in a”massive, seven-figure fraud” and provided a series of excuses about why investors were not getting paid. But federal prosecutors in Ohio now say Osberger was using Eagles Trades to defraud customers.
He potentially faces decades in prison.
“Osberger misused investor funds for his own personal use,” federal prosecutors said. “In other cases, he misused investor proceeds to repay earlier investors in what is commonly known as a Ponzi scheme, according to the indictment.”
And, federal prosecutors said, “Osberger listed Eagle as a subsidiary of Falcon Financial Group Limited, with addresses in Belize and the Commonwealth of Dominica and utilitzed Aurum Capital Holdings, which maintained several offshore bank accounts during the scheme, according to the indictment.
