U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen

UPDATED 9:46 A.M. ET (JAN. 13, U.S.A.) New court filings by the SEC in the Zeek Ponzi scheme case in the Western District of North Carolina strongly suggest that the Zeek probe was under way at least by April 17, 2012. On that date, according to the filings, an IT specialist for the SEC was […]

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 2:34 P.M. ET U.S.A.) The court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case has advised a federal judge that he “has obtained information indicating that large sums of Receivership Assets may have been transferred by net winners to other entities in order to hide or shelter those assets.” The dramatic assertion by […]

“The ZeekRewards scheme has claimed hundreds of thousands of victims who lost hundreds of millions of dollars at the hands of the scheme’s winners who solicited their participation. Now, apparently not appreciating the irony, the lawyer for hundreds of the largest net winners asks the Court to pay him to be an ‘examiner’ or ‘representative […]

“[Zeek operator Paul] Burks is solely responsible for determining the amount of ‘net profits’ to share in the Retail Profit Pool . . . Defendants represent that daily awards are calculated by dividing ‘up to 50%’ of daily net profits by the number of Profit Points outstanding among all Qualified Affiliates. This calculation results in […]

In yet another indicator of the incredible reach of the alleged Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme, the court-appointed receiver has filed court paperwork in Guam. Guam is a U.S. island territory “approximately 3,300 miles West of Hawaii, and 1,500 miles east of the Philippines and south of Japan,” according to the website of Naval Base Guam. […]

BULLETIN: A federal judge has transferred from the Eastern District of Louisiana to the Western District of North Carolina a proposed class-action lawsuit against Rex Venture Group LLC, Zeek Rewards and Paul R. Burks. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier  in New Orleans likely paves the way for Senior U.S. District Judge […]

BULLETIN: An apparent Florida member of the Zeek Rewards “program” who claimed last week that the court-appointed receiver situated in North Carolina had served a subpoena improperly from the Tar Heel state via U.S. Mail now has been served again — this time through a more expensive process that involved certified U.S. Mail, FedEx and […]

A company retained by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case received a prominent mention in the New York Times yesterday. The company, the Kroll investigative firm, uncovered a massive Ponzi fraud at Kabul Bank in Afghanistan in which hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned from depositors to benefit a “narrow […]

UPDATED 5 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) Various members of the Florida-based AdSurfDaily 1-percent-a-day Ponzi scheme advanced various theories that judges, prosecutors and investigators committed various felonies during the course of the probe and follow-up actions in court. The claims were absurd on their face and, when the arguments were rejected, they were replaced by conspiracy theories. […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s this simple: Ponzi = Pain — and even “ordinary” Ponzi schemes often result in extraordinary paper chases. The Zeek case may be setting a new standard for the extraordinary.   The receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case informed a federal judge today that “the Receivership Team is still in the process […]

The PP Blog has received a report that some members of Zeek have received subpoenas issued by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme case. The SEC alleged in August that Zeek was a $600 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme operated by Paul R. Burks and Rex Venture Group LLC. Receiver Kenneth B. […]