U.S. Secret Service

BULLETIN: Florida resident Robert Craddock, a figure in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi-scheme story, has been indicted in a separate scheme involving the alleged theft of more than $135,000 from a compensation fund set up to assist businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The office of U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III […]

Two domains linked to the alleged “Achieve Community” pyramid- and Ponzi scheme appear to have been disconnected. On Feb. 17, the PP Blog reported that the domains — ReadyToAchieve.com and TheAchieveCommunity.com — were displaying “Account Suspended” messages. ReadyToAchieve appears still to have DNS servers, but now displays nothing and will not return a ping. TheAchieveCommunity, […]

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Justice Department, is leaving after four years, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed in a statement. (Holder also is leaving, a topic for another day.) Cole said something in Mexico City at the High-Level Hemispheric Meeting Against Transnational Organized Crime in March 2012 that […]

UPDATED 8 A.M. EDT U.S.A. New England Public Radio has a minute-long audio report on TelexFree, iFreeX and Sann Rodrigues, including comments from Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin. An NEPR text report is available here. Look under the byline of Kari Njiiri for a link to the audio report. Rodrigues, accused in April 2014 by […]

The Gmail address used by TelexFree figure Faith Sloan in a Sept. 23 DMCA takedown notice filed against BehindMLM.com appears below a 2010 video promo for a “program” known as “Diamond Holiday Feeder,” part of a larger “program” purportedly engaged in the travel business while also operating a matrix cycler. Matrix cyclers sometimes are known […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: eAdGear, which had entities in California and Hong Kong, “primarily” targeted “investors in the U.S., China, and Taiwan” and gathered $129 million in a combined pyramid- and Ponzi scheme that engaged in brand-leeching, the SEC alleged last week. An MLM scam known as WCM777, which allegedly gathered more than $80 million, also engaged […]

2ND UPDATE 5:25 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Purported “Plans B” are one of the core signatures of the the MLM HYIP sphere, which is known for incredibly toxic global frauds such as Zeek Rewards and AdSurfDaily. In 2009, an ASD reload scam known as AdViewGlobal was positioned as a “Plan B.” The individual schemes of Zeek […]

So, you want to hide assets from a court-appointed receiver in a Ponzi scheme case? And when the U.S. Secret Service asks questions, you want to lie? South Carolina Ponzi schemer Ronnie Gene Wilson — sentenced in November 2012 to serve nearly 20 years for the Atlantic Bullion and Coin Inc. fraud — has been […]

Zeek Rewards “winner” Todd Disner owes the receivership estate $2,079,757.88, according to a motion asking the court clerk to enter a default judgment. Receiver Kenneth D. Bell filed for the judgment July 9 in federal court for the Western District of North Carolina, seeking not only Disner’s alleged Zeek haul of $1,800,037.06, but also interest […]

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 9:55 A.M. EDT, JULY 3, U.S.A.) The court-appointed receiver in the Zeek Rewards Ponzi- and pyramid case has moved for default against alleged Zeek winner Todd Disner. Disner, of Miami, also was a pitchman for the 2008 AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, a $119 million fraud that put ASD operator Andy Bowdoin in federal prison. […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 5, 2014, Zeek figures and alleged insiders Dawn Wright-Olivares and Daniel Olivares pleaded guilty to federal crimes. Wright-Olivares pleaded guilty to investment-fraud conspiracy and tax-fraud conspiracy. Olivares pleaded guilty to investment-fraud conspiracy. Federal prosecutors in the Western District of North Carolina are maintaining an information site here. Kenneth D. Bell, the […]