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Tag: U.S. Secret Service

  • BULLETIN: Already Under Scrutiny, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid May Be Using ‘Regional Reps’ To Increase Ponzi Reach Over National Borders

    Redacted screen shot of "regional representatives" claim today on the website of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

    BULLETIN: The PP Blog has learned that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is publishing a page in which it advertises the availability of “regional representatives” in various parts of the world, including Italy.

    On Jan. 23, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, took action against certain JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliaties. Despite the CONSOB action, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is openly advertising that it has at least two affiliates who speak Italian and that the affiliates are available to “assist you with ALL aspects of the program IN YOUR LANGUAGE.”

    The page also touts the native-language talents of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid affiliates to assist members in Hong Hong, Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States (to assist people who speak English or Japanese), Germany, Lithuania, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, France, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Spain.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid described its outreach via regional reps as “AMAZING!”

    “The people on this page have been thoroughly trained in all the workings of JustBeenPaid’s programs, and are happy to assist you TODAY!” the murky entity crowed.

    In a Feb. 23 conference call, Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, declined to say precisely where the “opportunity” itself was located.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, Mann asserted to an audience of Americans and at least one person who claimed to be a resident of Canada, was “not located in any specific part of the world.

    “We’re all over the planet,” he said, speaking with an English accent that appeared to be native to South Africa.

    The assertion led to questions about whether Mann was running the “program” in a fashion reminiscent of a sort of small-scale Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). BCCI deliberately structured itself in murky fashion to ward off oversight by regulators. Its collapse created one of the great business scandals of the 1990s, prompting the Wall Street Journal (Europe) to observe that BCCI had been set up to be “offshore everywhere.”

    BCCI’s collapse also triggered Congressional probes in the United States, along with both civil and criminal prosecutions.

    The CONSOB probe in Italy, which the agency announced nearly six weeks ago, was not referenced on the “representatives” page on the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid website.

    Incongruously, the “representatives” page included a link to an “agreement” page in which JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee or official of any government agency, nor am I acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency.”

    Moreover, the registrants and/or prospects were informed they must affirm “that I am not an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company, and I am not reading any of the JBP pages in order to collect information for someone else.”

    The collapsed Legis HYIP published similar terms. (More on the Legisi prosecution below.)

    How long the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid regional reps have been in place was not immediately clear. Also unclear was whether each of the reps had a physical presence in the respective countries or were using the Internet to reach over borders and perform customer service and recruit downlines in the respective nations.

    The U.S. government and other governments of the world have become increasingly concerned about cross-border fraud. Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, met with top officials in Canada to discuss the problem.

    Perhaps aghast over JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid developments, a poster on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum declared today that having regional reps for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is an “insane idea.”

    “Forget about the matrix spots and payouts,” the MoneyMakerGroup poster wrote today. “[W]hy is 200,000 + members not enough and why arent (sic) we off the radar and private and not opening ourselves up to potential problems ? Regional reps is an insane idea, Im (sic) sorry but the admin needs to protect us and wakeup (sic) to the reality that you cant (sic) get this huge and expect nothing bad to happen.”

    The poster did not explain his apparent belief that JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid had a duty to go “private” and to get “off the radar” of regulators. Nor did he say precisely what constituted something “bad.”

    HYIPs have been the subject of both civil and criminal litigation in various jurisdictions.

    It is common for HYIP purveyors to tout purported “offshore” operating venues and to claim such venues insulate an “opportunity” from prosecution. It also is common for HYIPs to announce they are “private” programs and therefore not subject to government oversight. At the same time, it is common for HYIPs to try to structure a Terms of Service or Member Agreement that purports either that the “opportunity” is not selling securities or is not subject to regulatory oversight.

    Some HYIPs, including JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, have preemptively denied they are Ponzi schemes.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return of 2 percent. On an annualized basis, the sum is between 48 and 73 times the purported returns of imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. It is EIGHT times the daily return touted by Gregory McKnight, who pleaded guilty last month in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan for his operation of the Legisi HYIP scheme.

    The purported returns of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid are somewhat on par with the returns of Nicholas Smirnow of the alleged Pathway To Prosperity HYIP Ponzi scheme. Smirnow is listed as “Wanted” by INTERPOL.

    On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a website linked to Mann displayed videos of Francis Schaeffer Cox, an American and purported “sovereign citizen” under indictment in Alaska in an alleged murder plot against public officials.

    Separately, a YouTube promo for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid dated yesterday asserted that “[a]ll you have to do is wait for your money to increase!!!”

    A Blog post dated today, meanwhile, makes this assertion (italics added):

    “The JSS Tripler new site is one month old. It has been a month of phenomenal growth, but it’s nothing compared to what’s in the future. Some ‘Big Things’ are on the horizon that will enable many of the members to become millionaires, some could even become billionaires.”

    Neither the March 3 Blog post nor the March 2 YouTube video referenced the CONSOB probe.

    In 2008, AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin asserted that ASD had a plan to create 100,000 millionaires in three years. On Dec. 1, 2010, the U.S. government announced that Bowdoin had been indicted on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    About 16 days later — on Dec. 17, 2010 — U.S. federal prosecutors announced they had filed forfeiture litigation against at least two ASD affiliates. One of the alleged affiliates was purported ASD “trainer” Erma Seabaugh.

    Seabaugh also was an affiliate of an enterprise known as Ad-Ventures4U (ADV4u), which crashed in 2009 amid allegations that its operator had been threatened by members.

    In web promos, Mann has described himself as a promoter for both ASD and ADV4U. Some affiliates have described him as a “genius,” the same description accorded Bowdoin before the August 2008 raid on ASD headquarters by the U.S. Secret Service.

    After the event — and facing both civil prosecution and a criminal investigation — Bowdoin told ASD members that the raid was the work of “Satan.”

    It is a descriptor completely contrary to the typical view Americans have of the Secret Service, which has the twin duties of protecting the nation’s financial infrastructure and the life of the President of the United States.

    Most Americans believe the Secret Service consists of heroes who place themselves in harm’s way every day to keep the United States safe, doing everything from making sure U.S. grandparents have safe places to deposit their Social Security checks to making sure that the President is well-protected and accessible to the American people.

    Kenneth Wayne Leaming, an ASD member and purported “sovereign citizen,” allegedly filed a bogus lien against the Secret Service agent who led the ASD investigation in 2008, the FBI said in November 2011 court filings.

    Leaming also allegedly filed bogus liens against a federal judge and three federal prosecutors involved in the ASD case, according to court filings by the FBI. He is jailed near Seattle awaiting trial on those charges, along with charges of filing false liens against other public officials, concealing two federal fugitives wanted in a home-business caper in Arkansas, being a felon in possession of firearms and uttering a bogus “Bonded Primissory Note” for $1 million.

    Court filings suggest Leaming was conducting financial research on John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States and the head judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, while hatching a scheme to serve papers on Roberts through a school attended by the distinguished jurist’s children.

  • EDITORIAL: Top Justice Department Official Speaks On Transnational Organized Crime, References Bogus ‘Libel’ Actions Brought Against ‘Individuals Who Expose . . . Criminal Activities’

    EDITOR’S NOTE: A top U.S. official — speaking today in Mexico City at the High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime hosted by the Mexican government under the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS) — addressed the challenges the world law-enforcement community is confronting in the Internet Age.

    In remarks apt to cause unease within the HYIP and organized-crime spheres, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole noted that the government was wise to efforts by criminals to chill efforts to expose crimes by filing libel lawsuits. (A link to Cole’s full prepared remarks appears at the bottom of this story.)

    Some recent Ponzi cases in the United States involving incredible sums of money — and the corresponding behavior of some of the participants — help prove the point . . .

    Now-convicted racketeer Scott Rothstein threatened libel lawsuits when his $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme was on the verge of imploding.

    AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin, named a defendant in a 2009 civil case that alleged racketeering,  issued “slander” lawsuit threats prior to the August 2008 intervention by the U.S. Secret Service in the ASD scheme. The threats were issued not long after Bowdoin had returned from a trip arranged by a lawyer in which the ASD patriarch had ventured to Panama and Costa Rica, according to court filings.

    Bowdoin later was indicted, amid allegations he was presiding over an international  Ponzi scheme that had gathered at least $110 million. Robert Hodgins, who was referenced in 2007 ads for ASD, is an international fugitive wanted by INTERPOL. The United States accused Hodgins of laundering proceeds for narcotics traffickers in Colombia.

    In advance of today’s High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza noted that such crime “is the principal continental source of activities such as drug trafficking, the illicit trafficking of firearms and immigrants, human trafficking, money laundering, corruption, kidnapping, and cybercrimes.”

    Befitting its importance, the hemispheric meeting was hosted by Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico.

    Among others things, Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole said this at the meeting:

    “The advance of globalization and the internet, while hugely beneficial to people everywhere, has also created unparalleled opportunities for criminals to expand their operations and use the facilities of global communication and commerce to carry out their criminal activities across national borders.”

    Although Cole did not use the term “HYIP” in his remarks, it is clear that the U.S. government is well aware of the dangers online fraud schemes pose as they reach across borders to accumulate tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars — sometimes through a single fraud scheme.

    As the PP Blog read the text of Cole’s remarks, another thing leaped off the page. Indeed, Cole said this (emphasis added):

    “Because of the sophistication of the world economy, organized crime groups have developed an ability to exploit legitimate actors and their skills in order to further the criminal enterprises. For example, transnational organized criminal groups often rely on lawyers to facilitate illicit transactions. These lawyers create shell companies, open offshore bank accounts in the names of those shell companies, and launder criminal proceeds through trust accounts. Other lawyers working for organized crime figures bring frivolous libel cases against individuals who expose their criminal activities.“

    Cole, of course, wasn’t talking specifically about the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case and ASD’s preposterous claims that Bowdoin had found a legitimate way to pay interest of 1 percent a day on the tens of millions of dollars sent in by participants and that ASD would create 100,000 millionaires in three years.

    Even so, the words Cole uttered in Mexico City today have deep relevance to the HYIP sphere. Indeed, ASD reached across international borders and relied on an international sales force.

    Here is how ASD worked: It relied on “legitimate actors” of the sort Cole described — in ASD’s case, a lawyer who allegedly scrubbed the “opportunity” to ensure compliance, and Moms and Pops and entrepreneurs (and people down on their luck) who signed up and became the friendly faces to their prospect bases. The salespeople were paid 10 percent for recruiting a friend with money and 5 percent more if the friend could recruit a friend with money — on top of “surfing” earnings of 1 percent a day and even more through the purported miracle of “compounding.”

    The current HYIP scheme of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid has the same type of payout schemes that ASD foisted on the marketplace. One big difference is the JSS/JBP says it can provide twice the daily payout of ASD.

    JSS/JBP’s purported operator is Frederick Mann, a former ASD pitchman.

    In September 2011, the U.S. Secret Service described ASD as a “criminal enterprise.”

    You’ll note above that Cole today used the same phrase to describe one of the inherent threats of transnational organized crime. And, as noted above, he also spoke about bids to chill critics through the filing of libel lawsuits.

    Those same types of threats were made in the ASD case, beginning in the summer of 2008. In fact, federal prosecutors even included an evidence exhibit in case filings that alluded to one such alleged threat. Unmentioned in the initial ASD case filings were the bids to chill reporters in at least two states and a newspaper in Georgia.

    If you’ve been following the HYIP sphere for any length of time, you know that threats to sue members of the antiscam community are part of the landscape — so much so, that it has become an HYIP cliche. The bids to chill are not limited to threats to sue for libel and “slander,” however.

    It also is becoming an HYIP cliche that the operators and apologists for brazen HYIPs threaten to file complaints with the ISPs of members of the antiscam community — i.e., if you report about us we’ll take down your Internet connection and/or sue you for copyright/trademark infringement.

    These things are transparent bids to chill speech. They also are designed to have a secondary “benefit”: to make the marks — who may consist in part of people who are otherwise “legitimate actors” — believe that harm will come to them if they ever complain, that there are severe consequences to those who complain.

    These nefarious methods have surfaced in scheme after scheme after scheme, as have various assertions about “offshore” venues and the purported “safety” the “offshore” venues provide. Longtime observers know the claims are part and parcel to the HYIP sphere — and that claims that someone is a successful businessman who has presided over multiple companies almost certainly will be incorporated into the sales pitch for an “opportunity.”

    The FBI, for just one example, has been warning for years about securities fraud, the “shadow banking system” and the use of shell companies to disguise fraud proceeds. The director has testified repeatedly on Capitol Hill  about the subject, while simultaneously warning about debit cards that are being used in nefarious ways and the dangers posed by lone wolves and “home-grown, violent extremists.”

    All of these things are or may be in play in the HYIP sphere. Here are some things you should know:

    • It is likely that the scheme’s operator is trading on the credibility you have with loved ones and friends within your immediate sphere of influence to drive dollars to the scam. It is equally likely that you are being denied the sort of information that would empower you to make an informed purchasing decision and highly likely you are being asked to participate in a venture that could result in prosecutions under both civil and criminal law, possibly even the RICO statute.
    • The rate of return will be preposterous in any real-world context and the math will be fuzzy and confusing, if not downright impossible.
    • Your sponsor will lie to you or pass on GIGO that is part of the company line because the company line is more convenient than the uncomfortable truth. It will be garbage coming in, and garbage going out.
    • You will be subjected to a direct or indirect threat or a bid to chill, especially if you ask uncomfortable questions or raise any doubts.
    • There  is a chance you’ll be working for a racketeer or an international criminal, perhaps even a “sovereign citizen” who has hatched a construction by which nothing is a crime, that all conduct is lawful in the name of freedom and free markets. If your sentiment is against the government or “big business” because of your personal financial situation or your political or philosophical views, an extremist may try to exploit your sentiment for personal profit.

    Just some things to think about in the age of the HYIP, the age of terrorism and the age of transnational organized crime as practiced on the Internet . . .

    Read the full remarks of Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole here.

  • ‘MoneyMakingBrain,’ Advocate For JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, Emails Threats To PP Blog; ‘That’s Not A Threat, It’s A Promise,’ First Email Claims; Second Suggests He’ll Create Banking Trouble For Blog Poster And Defend JSS Tripler Operator ‘So Help Me God’

    “Either we talk about here, or I talk about somewhere else (that’s not a threat, it’s a promise :)” — ‘MoneyMakingBrain (MMB), in email threat to PP Blog, Feb. 29, 2012, 7:52 a.m. ET

    UPDATED 4:22 P.M. ET (U.S.A.) It has happened again: The PP Blog has received yet another threat via email for its reporting on the HYIP sphere, which FINRA described in a 2010 Alert as a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.”

    Today’s threat came from “MoneyMakingBrain” (MMB) in apparent “defense” of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, an HYIP “program” purportedly operated by self-described former AdSurfDaily and Ad-Ventures4U pitchman Frederick Mann. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid claims it pays a return of 2 percent per day.

    ASD operator Andy Bowdoin, 77, is an accused Ponzi schemer under indictment for wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. The ASD scheme, which was based in Florida,  gathered at least $110 million and created thousands of victims, federal prosecutors have said. Bowdoin’s Ponzi trial has been scheduled for September 2012. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid purports to pay a daily return twice that of ASD.

    Among other things, Bowdoin has compared the August 2008 U.S. Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and described it as the work of “Satan.”

    MMB’s initial email threat was received at 7:52 a.m. ET. It was followed by another email threat at 11:14 a.m. in which MMB suggested he’d seek to cause banking troubles for a specific PP Blog poster and defend Mann “so help me God.”

    “You could be the nicest guy in the world, doing a real public service, but on the matter of Frederick Mann, you’ve made a gross error, and you crossed the line, Mr.,” the second threat read in part. “I am not a passive by-stander Patrick, I am one of those who will come and help an old man from being beaten up by a bully, so help me God.”

    The second email also claimed that, “If anything, you’ve brought all this upon yourself.”

    On Feb. 27, the PP Blog reported that a site registered to Mann in South Africa at the same street address of JustBeenPaid had at least 11 links to videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox. Cox, 27,  is a purported “sovereign citizen.” He is accused in Alaska of a “militia” murder plot against public officials.

    Federal prosecutors known to be investigating the ASD scheme in the District of Columbia declined to comment on the Blog’s story, which was published Monday. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors known to be investigating the “sovereign citizen” movement in the Pacific Northwest did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

    Today’s disturbing developments began with the Blog’s receipt of the initial threatening email at 7:52 a.m. The initial threat implied that, if the PP Blog did publish a comment submitted by MMB during the overnight hours and respond to the email, MMB would seek to cause harm to the Blog. The PP Blog did not reply to the initial email. Nor did it reply to the follow-up threat.

    MMB’s comment already had been published by the PP Blog by the time the initial email threat was received. The comment was submitted at 1:12 a.m. today and approved by the PP Blog at approximately 7:30 a.m., after being temporarily sequestered in a holding queue because of the menacing nature of previous comments submitted by MMB.

    An anonymous proxy in Europe was used to send the comment, and a Gmail address was entered on the PP Blog’s Comments form. For the past two days, MMB has been submitting comments that imply he has the power to harm the Blog if the Blog does not submit to his threats. His comments were sent from IPs in the United States and Europe. Today’s email communications from MMB were the first received from MMB.

    Because the Blog believes it is important to publish comments that showcase the bizarre and sometimes menacing nature of the HYIP sphere, it has published several comments from MMB since Monday. But because today’s email threats introduced a new form of electronic menacing and implied a PP Blog reader would be subjected to a hectoring campaign,  the Blog no longer will publish any additional comments from MMB.

    The PP Blog engages in the marketplace of ideas, not the marketplace of threats.

    These are among MMB’s menacing assertions yesterday:

    • “I know you’re reading everything I write and you are scared.”
    • ” But, continue to annoy the MoneyMakingBrain and deviate him from his monitoring duties, and you’ll be the ones to be in the hot water. “
    • “no one is invisible to the MoneyMakingBrain and you need to stop doing what you’re doing against this man immediately. Because if you don’t, I am going to make a formal complain (sic) to the very authorities you purport are coming after scam sites and send all the evidence I’ve gathered so far from posting on your site and the realscam site. I don’t like witch hunts and I am sure Fred Mann can whip your ass in court for your highly suggestive, provocative, highly contentious and flat-out defamatory commentaries against his character on your sites.”
    • “You can delete my comments as much as you like, but take what I said to the bank. In the end, you are going to look like a fool.”
    • “Maybe it’s a good idea that you stop your charade once and for all and finally cease and desist attacking Mr. Fred Mann, who is innocent until proven guilty. Not going to be repeating myself again.”
    • “Needless to say that you’ll be needing to look for another ISP because you won’t have internet access at home or your office, wherever. Needless to say that your server host will also shut down your sites down for violation of terms and conditions.”

    MMB also advanced a number of conspiracy theories, including one in which he asserts that two different people who post on RealScam.com and the PP Blog are one and the same. RealScam is a forum that concerns itself with mass-marketing fraud.

    In November 2011, RealScam  was subjected to a bid to chill from Bogdan Fiedur, the operator of AdLandPro, a website whose members routinely promote HYIP schemes and other highly dubious pursuits. JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid is one of the “programs” promoted on AdLandPro, which also has a presence on Ponzi forums such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    Conspiracy theories are part and parcel to the HYIP landscape, as are threats — direct and veiled. Today”s second MMB email threat also raised the specter of fear.

    ” . . . it’s clear that you are too scared of me by now,” the second email read in part.

    In November 2011, an FBI Terrorism Task Force arrested ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming on charges he filed false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD Ponzi case. Two months later, a superseding indictment was returned against Leaming that accused him of participating in a scheme to file false liens against two U.S. prison officials, uttering a false “Bonded Promissory Note” for $1 million and being a convicted felon in possession of firearms.

    So-called “sovereign citizens” have been linked to various forms of securities fraud and tax fraud. Because they believe prosecutors and judges have no authority over them, “sovereigns” have been known to target state, local and national officials in plots to file bogus liens and destroy the credit of members of the law-enforcement community and litigation opponents.

    Their harassment methods, which feature the use of both postal mail and email and often include direct or veiled threats, have become known as “paper terrorism.”

    When arrested, Leaming, the ASD figure and purported “sovereign,”  was found with two federal fugitives from Arkansas who’d been indicted on charges of duping participants in a home-business scheme of more than $2 million. Those fugitives also have been linked to the “sovereign citizen” movement and filed a series of bizarre pleadings in Arkansas after their arrests with Leaming, who is jailed near Seattle. Both fugitives now are detained at federal facilities in Texas, according to prison records.

    After MMB sent today’s initial email threat, he sent another comment to the Blog that included a threat:

    “Stop abusing your forum as Lynn does, or I am going to conclude that there is a business relationship between the two of you, and that would be bad a thing (I am afraid to say anything else as you may call it another ‘threat’).

    “And yes, this is not a threat: you’re better off having me talking here than somewhere else. I know too much already about both you and Lynn, and I still want to believe that the two of you are men of good (although the tactics of one indicate the otherwise).”

    “Lynn” is a reference to Lynn Edgington, the chairman of Eagle Research Associates Inc., a 501(c)3 Public Benefit Charitable Corporation based in Mission Viejo, Calif.

    The second email implied that MMB would seek to interfere with an Eagle Research banking relationship.

    See related story and Comments thread.

  • SPECIAL REPORT: Domain Registered To Purported JSS Tripler Operator Features Videos Of ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Accused In Alleged Alaska Murder Plot Against Public Officials; Meanwhile, Americans Listen To ‘Frederick Mann’ Tell Them That Even A ‘1-Year-Old’ Can Have An Account And That Adults Can Open Accounts For Others; Separate Sites Have Links To Antitax Screeds And Debt-Elimination Schemes

    From grainy "BigBooster" YouTube video dated June 6, 2007. "Hi, Frederick Mann here," the video begins — with Mann speaking in what may be British or South African English. Mann, who identified himself in 2008 as an AdSurfDaily promoter three months before the U.S. Secret Service conducted a raid on ASD's Florida headquarters, was the featured guest in a conference call last week for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. He is the purported operator of the "program."

    Visitors to BuildFreedom.com are greeted by a drop-down ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that encourages them to register with a free Gmail address from Google for the outlandish “program” and its purported return of 2 percent a day.

    At least 11 videos featuring Francis Schaeffer Cox are accessible on the BuildFreedom page, which features remarks attributed to Frederick Mann and others.

    Mann is the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid. Here is part of what he relates in written form on BuildFreedom in the context of Cox and others:

    “To what extent do the people and activities featured so far on this page provide real solutions? How far do they go toward neutralizing the real enemies? What activities need to be added to increase the prospects for freedom?”

    The remarks appear to have been written prior to the arrest of Cox and others in an alleged “militia” plot on U.S. soil.

    In 2011, Cox, 27, was arrested on charges of plotting the murders of state and federal officials in Alaska. In January 2012, a superseding federal grand-jury indictment was returned against Cox and two alleged accomplices.

    Based on its research, the PP Blog is reporting today that BuildFreedom.com is registered to Frederick Mann at an address in South Africa. At least two other sites registered to Mann at the same address — JustBeenPaid.com and BigBooster.com — have been used to drive traffic to the JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid “program.”

    The BigBooster website uses the same drop-down ad for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid that appears on the BuildFreedom domain.

    As the PP Blog reported in October 2011, the BigBooster domain was used in 2008 to drive traffic to AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service described as an online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million. In November 2011, ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming of Spanaway, Wash., was arrested by an FBI Terrorism Task Force on charges of filing false liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case.

    In December 2010, ASD President Andy Bowdoin was charged criminally with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. Bowdoin’s program advertised a payout rate half of that advertised by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

    The Conference Call

    Separately, the PP Blog is reporting today that Frederick Mann was the featured guest on a conference call for JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid last week. The Feb. 23 call appears to have been hosted by an American — and Americans and persons from at least one other country (Canada) appear to have quizzed Mann on the investment scheme after joining the “program.”

    Whether the conference-call participants were aware of the BuildFreedom domain and Mann’s written comments on Cox and “neutralizing the real enemies” is not known.

    The American (likely) who served as the call host was a woman who appeared to speak U.S. English. She described Mann as a “mathematical genius,” but did not say whether JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was authorized to sell securities to U.S. citizens. Nor did she say whether she was a registered broker-dealer or whether others promoting the “program” were required to be registered in the United States and other jurisdictions.

    Mann also did not speak to any issues concerning securities, including whether the “program” was properly registered in all jurisdictions in which it conducts business and whether individual promoters needed to be registered.

    The first person who asked Mann questions during the call identified himself as “Randy” from “South Dakota.” Another caller who identified himself as “Chester” from “North Carolina” also quizzed Mann, who appears to speak British or South African English — or perhaps English from a different part of the world.

    The call was conducted one month to the day after CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, announced that the actions of certain JSS Tripler promoters were under investigation. The CONSOB action was not addressed in the call, which also featured commentary or questions from “Michael” from “San Francisco” and others.

    During the call, Mann asserted — among other things — that there was no “age discrimination” in JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

    “So, theoretically,” he intoned, “even a one-year person” can participate.

    And, he noted, adults were permitted to open accounts in the names of other adults and that registrants could send money to JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid via AlertPay, SolidTrustPay, LibertyReserve and Perfect Money.

    All four of the processors are referenced in U.S. court filings as processors for alleged or proven fraud schemes.

    In response to a question from “Edward” (nationality unclear) about whether JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid had a “contingency plan” in case problems with payment processors developed or if government “harassed” them, Mann suggested that LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney were part of a fail-safe strategy.

    “Even if AlertPay and Solid  Trust Pay get shut down, that won’t stop” the program, Mann said.

    In response to a question from “Potato” from “California,” Mann also suggested it was possible to open accounts without a Social Security number that that members could open accounts for others, including teen-aged grandchildren in another U.S. state — even if a grandparent didn’t know the Social Security numbers of their grandchildren and the grandchildrens’ parents did not give permission to open the accounts.

    Who would be responsible for the tax consequences of opening accounts in the names of others was not discussed.

    The call appears not to have been limited to participation by Americans. A person who identified himself as “Mark(?)” from “Alberta” also was on the call.

    At least one of the persons on the call complained that the “program” was confusing. Even so, he ventured that this is “quite a deal.”

    In response to a question about where the “program” was located, Mann claimed JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid was “not located in any specific part of the world. We’re all over the planet.”

    “Oh, OK, cool,” the caller who asked the question replied to Mann.

    It was unclear from the call whether all participants who listened in or asked questions understood that the governments of various jurisdictions have acted forcefully against similar “programs” over the years, bringing both civil and criminal prosecutions.

    Other Domains That Reference Frederick Mann

    On a domain styled Mind-Trek.com, Fredrick Mann is quoted as writing, “In order to legally and safely beat the IRS it is necessary for you to adopt a certain frame of mind. You need to have a certain independence of mind. You need to be able to read the U.S. Constitution for yourself. You need to be able to recognize how the Supreme Court ‘judges’ and other politicians routinely violate the Constitution. You need to realize that practically all lawyers and accountants are handmaidens of the ‘terrocrats’ – terrorist bureaucrats or coercive government agents.”

    Similar antitax screeds appear elsewhere on the domain. Although the domain data lists a company that uses the word “Freeman” as part of its name and a contact address in Arizona, the address appears to be nonexistent in the state. Based on the registration data, the actual address of the purported owner may be in the area of Fort Smith, Ark.

    Arkansas business records show data on similarly named business entities in the state, but it is far from clear whether the “Freeman” entity listed in the domain-registration data was one of those firms.

    Based on its research, the PP Blog also is reporting today that a second domain that uses the Arizona address of Mind-Trek.com exists. That domain, which also appears to confuse Arkansas and Arizona in registration data, is styled TerrorCrat.com. “TerrorCrat” is a phrase Mann has used in his writings. The domain currently resolves to a parked page that beams advertisements.

    Meanwhile, this Twitter account purportedly for BigBooster suggests that Mann is an “Internet entrepreneur” from Arizona.

    The PP Blog initially learned about the BuildFreedom domain through a URL that appears under Mann’s name on the BigBooster site. That URL resolved to the BuildFreedom domain. When accessed, it loads the landing page of the BuildFreedom domain, the drop-down ad for JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid and two videos and 11 links pertaining to Francis Schaeffer Cox, the purported Alaska “sovereign” indicted in the alleged murder plot.

    Also during the course of its research, the PP Blog observed writings attributed to Mann on a domain that sought to attract customers for debt-elimination schemes. Such schemes also have been advanced by so-called “sovereign citizens.”

    A domain that lists Mann as the author of an introductory piece makes a reference to a purported “Indian” tribe. Although it is possible that the tribe is legitimate, some “sovereign citizens” who have no Indian heritage and no standing either as “Indians” or courtroom litigants have married debt-elimination schemes to purported tribal membership in bizarre bids to hamstring prosecutions and target litigation opponents and public officials with vexatious lawsuits.

    Some AdSurfDaily members have been linked to the same kind of vexatious legal filings, which sometimes included threats to arrest judges and attorneys that represent banks in collections-related litigation.

  • URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: KABOOM! Gregory N. McKnight, Legisi HYIP Operator And Ponzi-Forum Darling, Pleads Guilty To Wire Fraud

    This grainy likeness of Gregory N. McKnight is taken from federal court filings in 2008.

    URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan, the SEC said this afternoon.

    McKnight was charged criminally on Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day. His guilty plea followed two days later, the SEC said. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. The SEC charged him civilly in May 2008.

    Legisi, which gathered more than $72 million and fleeced more than 3,000 investors in the United States and several other countries, was popularized in part on Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    MoneyMakerGroup is specifically referenced in U.S. court files in the Legisi case.

    Legisi’s Terms of Service resemble those of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid, a purported “opportunity” currently being flogged on the Ponzi boards even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, has opened a probe into the actions of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoters.

    Promos by Legisi triggered an undercover operation by the U.S. Secret Service and state regulators in Michigan.

    In addition to the prospect of jail time, McKnight is on the receiving end of a civil judgment and penalties totaling about $6.5 million, the SEC said.

    Legisi members, according to the Terms, had to affirm they were not an “informant, nor associated with any informant” of the IRS, FBI, CIA and the SEC, among others, according to documents filed in federal court.

    The others included “Her Majesty’s Police,” the Intelligence Services of Great Britain, the Serious Fraud Office and Interpol.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”

    One of Legisi’s payment “programs” advertised a return of .25 (one-quarter) percent per day, according to court filings.

    JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promotes a return of 2 percent a day — eight times higher than Legisi.

    A sentencing date for McKnight will be determined later, the SEC said.

    U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith presided over McKnight’s guilty plea, the SEC said.

    Frederick Mann is the purported operator of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid.

     

  • With CONSOB Probe Under Way In Italy And Certain U.S. Affiliate Sites Offline, JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid Members Say AlertPay Is Sending Them Debit Cards: ‘Now I Can Start Using AP In Other Programs,’ MoneyMakerGroup Promoter Announces

    “You can only load money from your Alertpay account onto it. So, now I can start using AP in other programs & have an easy way to get my money to spend, by loading funds from my AP account onto the card. Then I can use the card like a regular debit card in stores, online & even withdraw the money off of the card via an ATM machine.” — MoneyMakerGroup post by JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid promoter, Feb. 16, 2012

    There’s none so blind as those who will not see.

    Only a little more than eight months ago — on June 3, 2011 — the U.S. Secret Service advised a federal judge in Maryland that HYIP schemes spread in part through coordinated posts on “discussion boards.” One of the boards referenced in a Secret Service affidavit aimed at seizing tens of millions of dollars in “criminal proceeds” linked to HYIP hucksters and other scammers was TalkGold.

    Yes, that TalkGold, the Ponzi cesspit, the same TalkGold to which promoters of JSS Tripler/JustBeenPaid race to fire up “I got paid” posts to help sustain a scam that advertises an annualized return of 730 percent on top of two-tier downline commissions totaling 15 percent — more, if members choose to “compound” their “earnings” by leaving them in the system.

    JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid promoters are doing this on the Ponzi forums even after CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, announced a JSS Tripler-related action late last month and certain promoters’ websites in the United States suddenly have gone missing this month. Frederick Mann is the purported operator of the scheme.

    It was not the first time TalkGold’s name had been referenced as a place from which massive fraud schemes were promoted. The board was referenced in 2010 filings by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in the Pathway to Prosperity (P2) case. So was MoneyMakerGroup, another Ponzi and fraud cesspit.  P2P operator Nicholas Smirnow was charged criminally, and investigators described P2P as an HYIP scheme that had spread to at least 120 countries and created as many as 40,000 victims. The alleged P2P haul: about $70 million.

    Courtroom references by the Secret Service to TalkGold in the context of fraud schemes date back at least to 2007.

    Here is how the Secret Service affidavit from June 2011 described the activities that occur on TalkGold and elsewhere. (Italics added):

    “Most of the individual posts to the boards are from those who invest in the pyramid schemes and those who operate and promote the illegal investment scams.”

    Based on the Secret Service affidavit and voluminous evidence culled in the aftermath of the 2007 E-Gold investigation that had led to 2008 guilty pleas on charges related to unlicensed money-transmitting and money-laundering, the judge authorized the seizure of tens of millions of dollars from the E-Gold accounts of alleged scammers who’d set up shop through E-Gold to fleece the masses.

    On June 20, 2011, U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander ordered the money “arrested.” The forfeiture is pending, and the final sum seized is unclear. But the website of a court-appointed claims administrator includes this notation. (Emphasis added):  “Approximately $90 million has been seized and/or restrained from the sale of e-metal held in accounts at E-Gold.”

    These things are exceptionally noteworthy in the context of the forfeiture case:

    • E-Gold is assisting investigators in ridding itself of corrupt proceeds warehoused as a result of the money-laundering allegations in 2007. It has cooperated with prosecutors in identifying accounts linked to HYIP scammers and other hucksters.
    • The Secret Service agent who filed the affidavit is the same agent who led the 2008 AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme investigation, which resulted in the forfeiture of at least $80 million and criminal charges against ASD operator Andy Bowdoin.
    • Even though the agent allegedly has been targeted with false liens by so-called “sovereign citizens” for his work in the ASD Ponzi case, he continues to serve in a capacity that is vital to the security of the United States. He has conducted numerous investigations involving money-laundering and other crimes. These cases, according to court filings, have resulted in the seizure of more than $300 million in “criminally derived proceeds.” That is more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The agent and his colleagues have worked with a Task Force whose members reverse-engineer fantastically complex financial crimes.
    • The court-appointed administrator handing the claims process is the same company that handled a similar process in the ASD Ponzi case.

    E-Gold has done the right thing in cooperating with investigators.

    Coming Soon To An ATM Near You

    Any person who spends so little as five minutes on the Ponzi boards knows that Canada-based AlertPay is conducting business with serial promoters of outrageous frauds — frauds that have grave consequences to individual pocketbooks and frauds that have grave ramifications to national and international security.

    And now, according to posts that originate on forums referenced in multiple U.S. court filings about massive international fraud schemes, AlertPay is sending debit cards to the scammers.

    “Thanks Mann & Co.,” the excited poster announcing her coup on MoneyMakerGroup said, adding five smilies to accent her glee after her earlier reference to ATMs and stores that now could be used to offload profits from a scheme that advertises a return of 2 percent a day.

    In an earlier post, the MoneyMakerGroup member said she received the AlertPay debit card in her mailbox in North Carolina.

    “Now I’m able 2 get my money out FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!” she roared.

    Below her post was a link to a “program” known as “Expert Invest Group” that purports to pay “up to 20000% After 30 days.” The company says its accepts AlertPay, Perfect Money and “Liberty Reserver (sic).”

    A (Brief) Pictorial Study In Contrasts

    1.

    MoneyMakerGroup post from Feb. 16 by promoter of JSSTripler/JustBeenPaid. The post highlights the utilty of AlertPay debit cards in joining other "programs" and offloading profits at ATMs and retail outlets.

    2.

    From Paragraph 55 of a U.S. Secret Service affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland on June 3, 2011.

  • DEVELOPING STORY: U.S.-Based Website Listed In JSS Tripler-Related Action In Italy Suddenly Will Not Resolve To Server; Redirect To The Netherlands No Longer Works

    Are the Ponzi clouds darkening for JSS Tripler?

    On Feb. 4, the PP Blog reported that a JSS Tripler-related website listed in an action by CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, was based in the United States and had been programmed to redirect to the Netherlands several days after CONSOB announced the action.

    That domain — JSS-Tripler.com — now is throwing a server error and no longer is redirecting the traffic to Europe. The site generates an “Unable to connect” message in the Firefox browser and an “Unknown error: 1214” message when pinged, meaning the server is in a black hole.

    The circumstances under which the server went dark are unclear. It is not known, for instance, if law enforcement, the hosting company or the JSS Tripler affiliate — purportedly a woman — caused the domain to stop working. Its registration is valid until Feb. 24, according to records.

    Earlier this week, the site was directing to a JustBeenPaid subdomain styled “marketing.” JustBeenPaid and Frederick Mann are the purported operators of JSS Tripler, which advertises a return of 2 percent a day. The return computes to an annualized return of 730 percent.

    Despite the CONSOB action, cheerleading for JustBeenPaid/JSS Tripler continue on the Ponzi cesspits such as TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup.

    Just BeenPaid/JSS Tripler makes members affirm they are “not an employee or official of any government agency.” In addition, it makes them affirm they are not “acting on behalf of or collecting information for or on behalf of any government agency” and not “an employee, by contract or otherwise, of any media or research company.”

    The Terms alone appear to be an invitation to join an international financial conspiracy. Regardless, the Ponzi-forum cheerleading continues.

    JustBeenPaid has traded on the names of American icons Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Zuckerberg — and even the name of fictional spaceman “Mr. Spock” from the Star Trek series on American television.

    Frederick Mann was a cheerleader for the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008, according to promos. ASD was based in Florida.

    In May 2008, Mann asserted that “[p]ast performance indicates a strong probablility (sic) that ASD will continue to perform as advertised,” according to a promo.

    Two months later, the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from bank accounts linked to ASD President Andy Bowdoin and others.

    Some ASD figures are known to have ties to so-called “sovereign citizens” — and any number of ASD members have invested in crackpot legal theories such as all commerce is lawful as long as parties agree to a contract.

    Such bizarre constructions would legalize slavery, securities fraud, tax fraud, Ponzi schemes and narcotics-trafficking, among other pursuits.

    And because some “sovereign citizens” believe they can divine a contract out of thin air and demand a litigation result from judges, prosecutors, investigators and creditors, bizarre courtroom clashes have been occurring across the United States.

     

  • UPDATE: JSS Tripler 2 (T2) Pulls An Andy Bowdoin; T2’s ‘Dave’ Comes Back For Second Bite Of Ponzi Apple To Chorus Of Forum Cheers

    Although accused Ponzi schemer and AdSurfDaily President Andy Bowdoin appears not to be among the promoters of JSS Tripler (T2), T2 appears to be relying on a Bowdoin-like playbook in announcing a restart after having earlier suspended payouts.

    The bizarre international spectacle created by JSS Tripler 2 (T2) is continuing — and gets stranger and more insidious by the day.  The purported “opportunity,” which is trading on the name of a murky entity known as JSS Tripler and apparently cloning its Ponzi business model, has announced a restart after weeks of existing in a state of suspended animation purportedly caused by the freezing of a one-time T2 business partner’s AlertPay account.

    T2 now claims it has regained access to the frozen AlertPay funds.

    A week or so prior to T2’s purported restart, promoters of JSS Tripler, the purported “opportunity” upon which T2 based its name,  became  the subject of a securities investigation in Europe. Ponzi-forum hucksters — some of whom are promoting both T2 and JSS Tripler — scoffed at the CONSOB probe and flooded the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum with “I got paid” posts.

    It is axiomatic that all successful Ponzi schemes pay. That an “opportunity” pays is not evidence that no underlying criminality exists.  The timing of T2’s restart — indeed, the restart occurred after the Italian regulator CONSOB announced that JSS Tripler promoters were being scrutinized — demonstrates that the serial hucksters driving T2 are turning a blind eye to the serious issues being raised in Europe.

    The development is hardly unprecedented, given that core groups of scammers who populate the Ponzi boards and simultaneously maintain their own fraud sites thumbed their noses after law-enforcement moved against “opportunities” such as Pathway To Prosperity, Legisi, Gold Quest International, Imperia Invest IBC and others, including AdSurfDaily.

    Like its namesake JSS Tripler, T2 advertises a return rate of 2 percent a day, twice that of ASD. In 2008, the U.S. Secret Service called ASD an international Ponzi scheme. Tens of millions of dollars were seized from bank accounts, and ASD operator Andy Bowdoin later was arrested on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    At least $110 million found its way into ASD or related coffers, prosecutors said. Several million dollars were moved into Canada just prior to the seizure of ASD-related assets in August 2008, according to court filings.

    In early 2007, according to prosecutors, ASD suffered a Ponzi collapse that in part was blamed on “Russian” hackers. Bowdoin claimed the hackers stole $1 million, but he never filed a police report.

    Like T2 did between at least December 2011 and February of this year, ASD existed in a state of suspended animation for months in 2007. Bowdoin eventually restarted the “opportunity” under a different name and different website — ASDCashGenerator, as opposed to AdSurfDaily — and began the process of picking pockets anew, federal prosecutors said.

    Unlike ASD, T2 did not claim its payout problems were caused by Russian hackers. Instead, the “opportunity” claimed a onetime business partner known as “Chris,” purportedly living in England, was to blame.

    Like ASD, however, T2 claimed it was changing names, morphing from JSS Tripler 2 to T2MoneyKlub. The name change was explained to be part of an overall restart plan in which T2 would create revenue streams by building prefabricated websites and offering them for sale at a tremendous profit. The plan, which appeared to be exceptionally forward-looking while making preposterous assumptions, presented fallacies of logic such as these:

    • That T2, operating with an in-house skeleton crew and volunteer members, no declared base of operations and no compliance arm despite reaching into dozens of countries each with a unique set of laws, could at once be a web-service provider while managing a “program” that promised a return rate of 2 percent a day or 730 percent a year on top of recruitment-commission payments.
    • That web-service customers would pay a premium for sites built by a murky entity whose operators simultaneously were offering investors returns that would make Bernard Madoff blush.
    • That the fees generated by the sale of websites at a future point uncertain somehow could sustain a scheme that promised to pay out twice as much as ASD, whose operator already was under indictment on Ponzi-related charges and had advertised the same sort of payment schemes.
    • That there would be any reason at all for T2 to continue to offer an investment program that advertised a ludicrous return if its purported sale of websites could result in handsome, self-sustaining profits for the web-service venture. (Longtime PP Blog readers will recall that the AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf claimed at one time that it, too, was morphing into a company that would offer web services as a means of propping up an initial investment scheme. AVG, like ASD, promised to pay out half of what T2 claims. AVG disappeared in June 2009, only weeks after its morphing announcement.)

    Also like ASD, T2 preemptively denied it was a Ponzi scheme, despite an absurd confluence of payment schemes in which T2 claimed an ability to pay an annualized return of 730 percent on top of recruitment commissions.

    As previously noted, T2’s advertised return rate was double that of ASD, which prosecutors said had no meaningful revenue streams beyond payments by members. Those payments simply were recycled and returned to other ASD members in the form of classic Ponzi payouts.

    Even though T2 — like ASD — purported to be changing its name, the name change appears to have hit a snag. T2 initially announced it would emerge as T2MoneyKlub on Feb. 1. That didn’t happen, according to Ponzi-forum chatter, because T2 did not have an AlertPay account in its new name.

    T2, according to chatter, then defaulted back to its original name, a circumstance that apparently means the purported “opportunity” can both receive and send money, shelve its new name for the time being and reposition itself under its “old” name to reach into the pockets of new investors.

    “Dave,” the purported operator of T2, according to Ponzi-forum chatter, once was a member of JSS Tripler, one of the entities referenced in the CONSOB action. It appears as though “Dave” was unmoved by the CONSOB action, so much so that he restarted JSS Tripler 2 even though claims about namesake JSS Tripler are under scrutiny and the already-radioactive name easily could become even more radioactive in the weeks ahead.

    T2 payouts will come from “AlertPay, SolidTrustPay and LibertyReserve,” Dave announced on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum, posting as “Peakr8.” All three of the named processors have reputation for being friendly to fraud schemes. Both AlertPay and SolidTrustPay are referenced in court files in the ASD Ponzi case.

    MoneyMakerGroup member “jieroz” quickly fired up an “I got paid” post for T2 today, saying the $25 payment had come from AlertPay.

    Veteran huckster “strosdegoz” quickly congratulated “jieroz.”

    “Congrats, that was fast … As usual . . .” strosdegoz blathered.

    A poster purportedly from India and using the handle “hemsagar” also joined in the cheers.

    “WTG! WTG!” he exclaimed in approval.

    A link under the approving post of “hemsagar” led to a “benefactor” promotion in which he claims he’ll pay people to join T2 by sending them money through AlertPay.

    Amid the cheerleading in the MoneyMakerGroup T2 thread, “Dave,” posting as “Peakr8,” announced he was taking a trip to “Cambodia.” This trip apparently follows on the heels of a trip “Dave” purportedly had taken earlier from England to Thailand during a period in which T2 was not paying members.

    “Dave” conceded that T2’s restart had resulted in problems at T2’s in-house cheerleading forum.

    “I know there are bugs, but we will stamp on em one by one when I get back from Cambodia,” Dave posted on MoneyMakerGroup as “Peakr8.”

    Below that post, another post from “hemsagar” appears. Although his brief MoneyMakerGroup bio at the left of the post claims he is from India, his post about the bugs in the T2 forum makes this claim:

    “Its back up here in the Ukraine.”

    Whether “hemsagar” is a citizen of India now living in Ukraine is unclear.

    Serial huckster “strosdegoz” later proclaimed “we need to pump up” the T2 forum and “also . . . every place else.

    “I have to do my dozens of forums too,” strosdegoz acknowledged.

    Regulators have warned the public repeatedly that scams involving hundreds of millions of dollars are spreading virally on the Internet through forums and social-media sites. Pathway to Prosperity, which was pushed on the Ponzi forums, eventually made its way to 120 countries, according to court filings.

    The scheme had a take of more than $70 million and created at least 40,000 victims, according to court filings.

    ASD may have created a similar number of victims, according to court filings. Legisi and Imperia Invest IBC also created victims by the thousands, investigators said.

    Included in the Imperia victims’ count were thousands of people with hearing impairments, investigators said.

  • In Wake Of CONSOB Action, Affiliate ‘Press Release’ Calls JSS Tripler Members ‘Investors’ EIGHT Times And Suggests U.S. Government Approves Purported ‘Program’ That Advertises Return Rate That Dwarfs Madoff

    You can’t make this stuff up . . .

    A week after CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, announced it was opening a probe into the activities of JSS Tripler promoters amid claims the absurd “program” advertised returns that would make Bernard Madoff blush, a new “press release” ignores the CONSOB development, calls participants “investors” (eight times) and suggests the U.S. government has approved the JSS Tripler “program.”

    The issues in the Italian probe are whether JSS Tripler and promoters are selling unregistered securities as investment contracts unlawfully as part of a multilevel online scheme that offers preposterous returns that compute to an annualized rate of 730 percent — with compounding “bonuses” and two-tier downline commissions totaling 15 percent on top of the advertised returns.

    Madoff, jailed for 150 years in the aftermath of the collapse of his massive Ponzi scheme, generally offered annualized returns between 48 and 73 times lower than the advertised JSS Tripler returns.

    Dated today, the “press release” appears to have been issued by a JSS Tripler affiliate and is available through Google News. The release does not mention the week-old CONSOB probe. Nor does it identify either the affiliate or the purported company as individuals or entities authorized in any jurisdiction to sell securities.

    Moreover, the release does not seek to qualify customers in any way. The only apparent customer qualification is access to a bank or payment account to send money to JSS Tripler and wait for ludicrous profits in return.

    A Patent Absurdity

    “Thousands of high return programs on the internet have been created for people who want to work from home,” the release begins. “However, the majority of these fast money work home (sic) programs are not sustainable. Frederick Mann solved this problem with his recently US patented system JustBeenPaid! and its subprogram JSS Tripler.”

    “JustBeenPaid” (JBP), an exceptionally murky entity, is the purported operator of JSS Tripler. Frederick Mann, JBP’s purported operator, once advertised that he was a promoter for AdSurfDaily, which the U.S. Secret Service has described as an online Ponzi scheme involving at least $110 million.

    JBP itself is advertising a U.S. patent, a specious and hollow claim. Regardless of whether a patent exists as part of JBP’s purported software platform, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does not regulate securities markets or approve the issuance of securities.

    Those responsibilities rest with the world’s securities-regulatory bodies, including — for just two examples — CONSOB in Italy and the SEC in the United States. Virtually all developed countries have such regulatory bodies. In the United States and Canada, individual states and provinces also have regulatory responsibility over securities.

    Scams routinely make specious claims and divine a connection to government as a means of disarming doubting prospects. The relatively new “patent” claim in the context of JSS Tripler, however, could be a sign that the “program” is becoming increasingly desperate to raise cash and has dialed up its deception to achieve that end.

    The nationality of the press-release author was not immediately clear. But he is using a Google Gmail address and appears also to be presenting the release in U.S. English, based on the spelling of the word “program” (as opposed to the chiefly British  “programme”) and certain elements of punctuation associated with U.S. English.

    The release, which is accessible from the United States, has five embedded JustBeenPaid affiliate links, each of which rotates to a pitch page with a signup prompt page that asks investors to register using a Gmail address.

    Among the incongruities about JBP/JSS Tripler is that the purported opportunity continued to solicit customers to register with Gmail addresses — even after Google-owned YouTube deleted promos for the “opportunity” last year.

    One promoter on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum asserted that he could overcome the deletions because he exercised control over hundreds of YouTube accounts.

    “No sweat, I own over 500 Youtube accounts, so I’ll just keep making videos like normal, plus I can always use Viddler and Windows movie maker and facebook video as well,” MoneyMakerGroup poster “gtprosperity” claimed.

    Apparently oblivious to the CONSOB probe, the serious concerns about the unlawful sale of securities and the bizarre JBP/JSS Tripler developments over many months, the author of the news release asserts that the “program currently has over 125,000 members, and over 2,000 new investors join each day.

    “Investors can earn a 2 percent daily, with over 60 percent earned in a month,” the release claims. “Investors earn 2 percent daily on each position they purchase. New positions can be bought with money or earnings. Daily earnings can also be cashed out by sending them to one’s JSS account for withdrawal. Withdrawals take 24 hours to process.”

    “Work Home Fast Money Making System To Earn Extra Income Recently US Patented,” the release headline reads.

    A JPB/JSS Tripler claimed on the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum yesterday that he planned to buy a “motor home” with his profits and travel the United States.

    Among the potential problems with the claim is that it likely demonstrates that JBP/JSS Tripler is selling unregistered securities as investment contacts to U.S. citizens — even as it is doing the same thing in Italy and other countries.

     

  • UPDATE: JSS Tripler Promoters On Ponzi Boards Scoff At CONSOB Action, React By Making ‘I Got Paid’ Posts; Like AdSurfDaily, Purported ‘Opportunity’ Calls Payouts ‘Rebates’ And Employs Confluence Of Payment Schemes

    “I dont care what the CONSOB or whatever says because I am not an Italian.” — TalkGold poster known as “WallStreetIsAPonzi,” Jan. 28, 2012

    Even as CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, is publishing an announcement on its website that promoters of a bizarre HYIP known as JSS Tripler are under investigation amid preposterous claims that investors receive an annualized return of 730 percent, promoters on Ponzi forums such as MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold are thumbing their noses at the news.

    JSS Tripler is an arm of “program” known as “JustBeenPaid” (JBP). Whether JBP plans to assist any of the companies or individuals identified in the CONSOB announcement in navigating the regulatory waters and preparing a defense in the weeks ahead is unclear.

    What is clear is that some JBP promoters are reacting to the news by posting fresh “I got paid” posts on the Ponzi boards, even as JBP continues to use its website to advertise returns of “2%+ per Day” and “60% per Month!”

    Visitors are advised they can “Increase Earnings with Daily Compounding” and glean affiliate “bonuses” totaling 15 percent over two tiers — on top of the annualized returns of 730 percent.

    In the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case in 2008, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer described “a confluence [of ASD] payment schemes” very similar to the payment schemes purportedly in place at JBP. JBP, though, is advertising a return rate double that of ASD, whose operator, Andy Bowdoin, later was arrested on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    Bowdoin faces up to 125 years in federal prison and fines in the millions of dollars, if convicted on all counts.

    In her 2008 ruling in the ASD case in which she refused to release money seized by the U.S. Secret Service as part of an international Ponzi probe, Collyer noted that ASD called its payouts to members “rebates.”

    Separately, documents from Canadian investigators show that the word “rebates” was used in international scams, including Flat Electronic Data Interchange (FEDI) and the mysterious “Alpha Project.” At least one FEDI promoter is jailed in the United States, as is FEDI operator Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, also known as “Michael Mixon,” who was convicted on charges of operating an investment-fraud scheme and financing terror.

    At MoneyMakerGroup yesterday — on the heels of the CONSOB news — a poster published seven purportedly recent payment proofs from JSS Tripler. Each of them used the word “rebate,” demonstrating that the purported opportunity also is using the same language as ASD and FEDI to describe payouts to members.

    The MoneyMakerGroup member said he planned to buy a “motor home” and “start traveling the US” with his JSS Tripler money.

    In the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, several automobiles were seized as the alleged proceeds of a criminal scheme. A boat and marine equipment also were seized, along with computers and real estate valued at more than $1 million. All in all, the cash seizures to date in the ASD case total more than $80 million, including cash seized from individual promoters in at least four U.S. states.

    U.S. federal prosecutors say that ASD in part tried to mask its $110 million Ponzi scheme by calling its payments to members "rebates." JSS Tripler, an arm of a "program" known as "JustBeenPaid," also refers to its payouts to members as a "rebate," according to this post yesterday at the MoneyMakerGroup Ponzi forum.

    Although Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JBP/JSS Tripler, is described by supporters as a business genius and creator of a “masterpiece,” the program is using the same sort of language and bizarre presentations that drew the attention of law enforcement in the ASD and FEDI cases.

    Elsewhere on MoneyMakerGroup, a member described the CONSOB development as “NONSENSE!”

    Another member observed yesterday that JBP payouts came from an email address on a domain styled BigBooster.com. Why the payouts are associated with the BigBooster domain is unclear, but the BigBooster domain previously has been linked to the alleged ASD Ponzi scheme and Frederick Mann, the purported operator of JBP/JSS Tripler.

    Separately, the TalkGold forum deleted a link to a PP Blog report on the CONSOB action. In the ASD case, a forum known as “Surf’s Up” routinely deleted links to the PP Blog. ASD members who relied on the Blog for information were described on the forum as troublemakers, and posters willing to consider the government’s point of view were described as “rats,” “maggots” and “cockroaches.”

    ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming was arrested by the FBI in November 2011 on charges of filing bogus liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case, including a federal judge, three federal prosecutors and an active-duty agent of the U.S. Secret Service who did some of the early legwork in the case.

    The Secret Service employed undercover operatives in bringing the ASD prosecution.

    One MoneyMakerGroup poster yesterday suggested that the CONSOB action was “crap” and claimed outright that JSS Tripler had “paid out over 10 million bucks.”

    Whether the poster ever had seen the verified, audited books of JBP/JSS Tripler and other financial records such as bank and payment-processor statements to substantiate his claim is unclear. But even if the $10 million claim is true, the claimed sum was not broken down by recipient — and online scams are infamous for siphoning cash and concentrating it in the pockets of program sponsors and insiders.

    Promoters of fraud schemes often pass along company lies and deceptions to recruits and prospects, a situation that U.S. government agencies, including the Secret Service, the SEC and the CFTC,  have noted in prosecutions involving individual, commission-based promoters.

    The same MoneyMakerGroup promoter also ventured the CONSOB action came because “governments are not getting a cut of this revenue,” further asserting that  “the only reason they are starting to do probes and crap (sic) not because they care about protecting you from loosing (sic) your money.”

    ASD members made similar claims. Like JBP/JSS Tripler, ASD also was promoted on the Ponzi boards — as were at least three purported ASD clones, all of which have ceased to operate. The cost to investors is unknown.

    Like ASD, JSS Tripler also appears to have a clone — one that actually uses JSS Tripler’s name to form its own name. That “program,” known as JSS Triper 2 or T2, appears now to be changing its name to T2MoneyKlub. Regardless of the name, T2 also was hawked on the Ponzi boards and appears even to have given birth to itself on a Ponzi board as a result of a dispute with JBP/JSS Tripler.

    Federal prosecutors said ASD also changed its name, morphing from just plain AdSurfDaily into ASD Cash Generator. Court records suggest that changing names was part of ASD’s criminal plan and that the change occurred after the initial ASD Ponzi collapsed and after certain payment conduits began to come under government scrutiny.

    Among the MoneyMakerGroup posters who published “I got paid” posts for JBP/JSS Tripler yesterday was “10BucksUp” — his second such post since the CONSOB action became public.

    “10BuckUp” previously pushed Club Asteria, anotherPonzi-forum darling that came under CONSOB scrutiny. In addition to displaying no apparent respect for CONSOB, “10BucksUp” let it be known in September 2011 that he also was a pitchman for Cherry Shares, a collapsed program referenced in June by Canadian regulators.

    Cherry Shares also was a Ponzi-forum darling.

    Whether “10BucksUp” and other JBP/JSS Tripler promoters planned to tell their existing recruits and prospects about the fact CONSOB is targeting individual promoters in a 90-day suspension order related to the purported JBP/JSS Tripler program is unclear.

    Also unclear is whether JBP/JSS Tripler will inform existing participants and prospects about the CONSOB action.

    Members of any “opportunity” that purports to pay an absurd return always are at great risk. The risk becomes even greater if they are denied information about investigations. Promoters who do not disclose the presence of an investigation or simply rely on the company line (or lack thereof) potentially are at greater risk of prosecution as individual promoters.

    In the ASD case, for instance, federal prosecutors said the company was collecting money from new members and funneling it to original members affected by ASD’s first collapsed Ponzi — without informing new enlistees and prospects that their money was being used to prop up losers from the initial scheme and to help the second Ponzi gain a head of steam.

    The personal assets of a number of individual ASD promoters were targeted in forfeiture actions or affidavits, with the government seizing sums in several bank accounts in multiple U.S. states. These sums totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to court records.

  • BULLETIN: Fugitive Found With AdSurfDaily Figure Kenneth Wayne Leaming Back In Jail After Judge Revokes Bond; Timothy Shawn Donavan Refused To Be Sworn As Witness At Pretrial Hearing In Arkansas Mail-Fraud Case; Leaming’s Firm Listed As Registered Agent For 2 Companies Implicated In Alleged Multimillion-Dollar Envelope-Stuffing Fraud

    BULLETIN: Timothy Shawn Donavan, one of two federal fugitives from Arkansas found in Washington state Nov. 22 with AdSurfDaily figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming, is back in jail.

    Separately, records show that Leaming’s Washington state firm was the registered agent for two defunct companies linked to the alleged Donavan mail-fraud scheme and that Leaming himself — using the name “Kenneth Wayne” and dropping his surname — was an officer in the companies.

    U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III revoked Donavan’s bond after Donavan, 63, refused to be sworn at a court proceeding in Arkansas earlier this month in violation of a bond condition that required him to cooperate at pretrial hearings in the mail-fraud case filed against Donavan in February 2011.

    Meanwhile, Donavan’s co-defendant in the mail-fraud case, Sharon Jeannette Henningsen, also is listed as back in federal custody. The circumstances surrounding her renewed detention were not immediately clear.

    Henningsen, 67, also was found with Leaming in the Pacific Northwest, federal prosecutors said in November. Donavan and Henningsen were participants in an Arkansas-based fraud involving envelope-stuffing, according to an indictment filed in February 2011.

    Donavan and Henningsen were freed on conditional bond several days after their arrests in Washington state. They returned to Arkansas, and trouble begun anew in very short order, according to court records.

    In the order revoking Donavan’s bond, Holmes said that Donavan “continues to insist, as he has in past proceedings, on repeating incomprehensible legal jargon in response to any question the Court posits, instead of cooperating with Court proceedings and responding appropriately to questions asked. Donavan ultimately refused to either swear or affirm to tell the truth during the proceedings.”

    The judge warned Donavan that he’d be taken into custody by U.S. Marshals if he refused to cooperate, according to the order revoking bond.

    On Jan. 23, Holmes ordered Donavan to be transported to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility in Texas, according to records.

    On Dec. 28, Donavan and Henningsen filed a strange pleading styled “NOTICE of Tender for Setoff and a Request Regarding a Statement of Account by Sharon Jeannette Henningsen and Timothy Shawn Donavan.”

    The Dec. 28 pleading was filed on the heels of other strange pleadings, including one styled,”Notice: Forgive Me Request; Constructive Notice of Conditional Acceptance and Request to Continue Public Proceedings.”

    Although Donavan and Henningsen had been scheduled to go on trial Jan. 19, the trial date has been canceled — and prosecutors have filed a superseding indictment against both defendants that adds at least four mail-fraud-related counts to the 15 originally filed 11 months ago.

    In the new allegations, federal prosecutors referenced two defunct Washington state companies — 1st Incentive Co. and Trail Head Options Inc. — allegedly tied to the Arkansas fraud of Donavan and Henningsen.

    Both firms, according to records in Washington state, listed Leaming’s firm — American International Business Law Inc. — as their registered agent.  Leaming, who sometimes drops his surname and uses simply “Kenneth Wayne,”  is listed as an officer of both companies.

    Prosecutors said the Donavan/Henningsen mail-fraud scheme netted more than $2.2 million.

    Leaming, 56, of Spanaway, Wash., was arrested in November on charges of filing bogus liens against at least five public officials involved in the ASD case. The U.S. Secret Service said ASD was a Florida-based Ponzi scheme that gathered at least $110 million.

    ASD President Andy Bowdoin, 77, was charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities in 2010.

    Some ASD members reportedly relied on Leaming for legal advice, even though he is not an attorney. Whether Dovavan and Henningsen did the same thing is unclear. Also unclear is whether they were ASD members.

    Leaming is jailed near Seattle. He is not named a defendant in the Arkansas case, but the indictment refers to at least one “unindicted co-conspirator.”