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Tag: Walter Clarence Busby Jr.

  • REVISITING ADVIEWGLOBAL AND ‘ONEX’: Why Promoters Of Better-Living Global Marketing, Zeek Rewards, TelexFree And Profitable Sunrise Should Care About Scam History

    EDITOR’S NOTE: The PP Blog is back — after its most recent brush with death led to a suspension of publishing that lasted through all or parts of six days. You’ll read more in the days ahead about certain changes the Blog plans to implement to safeguard its right to publish, to improve revenue, to make it less reliant on a small group of dedicated readers to put out fires and to keep its archives open to the people who can benefit most.

    As for the editorial below: Some of it is based on “Government Exhibit G” and other government exhibits in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. Exhibit G was filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC went to federal court in Charlotte, N.C., and alleged that the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” was a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid fraud that had victimized hundreds of thousands of participants. Among other things, Exhibit G addressed Bowdoin’s participation as a silent partner in the AdViewGlobal reload scam. Another court document filed by prosecutors on the same day addressed Bowdoin’s participation in OneX, which prosecutors described as yet-another MLM-style scam in which Bowdoin had participated after the U.S. Secret Service moved against ASD in August 2008 and eventually seized more than $80 million.

    _______________________________________

    The evidence sticker from "Government Exhibit G" in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. (Red bar added by PP Blog.)
    The evidence sticker from “Government Exhibit G” in the criminal prosecution of AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin. (Red bar added by PP Blog.)

    Let’s talk about pollution and how it may be flowing to a bank near you:

    AdSurfDaily Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin used a secret hushmail address in 2009 to discuss a bank wire for $38,750 that was to be sent to an account at Regions Bank in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to pay for servers and programming required by AdViewGlobal.

    AVG, as it was known, was an ASD reload scam that began to unfold in October 2008, just two months after the U.S. Secret Service began the process of seizing more than $65.8 million from at least 10 Bank of America accounts linked to ASD, according to government records.

    The Secret Service, according to court filings, also had its eyes on separate Bank of America accounts linked to an ASD-connected enterprise known as Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda was operated by Rev. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a Bowdoin business partner and Georgia grifter implicated by the SEC 11 years earlier in three prime-bank swindles, including one that promised to pay interest of 10,000 percent. Some of the Golden Panda money also made its way into Bartow County Bank, a small Georgia bank that later failed, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. an estimated $70 million, according to government records.

    From this fact set, one can plainly see that ASD and related scams had caused polluted money to flow to Bank of America and Bartow — and that the noxious and ever-evolving ASD enterprise now had its sights on causing polluted money to flow to Regions. That’s three banks put in harm’s way by what effectively was an evolving ASD criminal enterprise.

    There were more.

    At least $413,018 in ASD-infected funds also had made their way into accounts at First National Bank in Ames, Iowa. Another $96,525 in polluted proceeds flowed to two accounts at Wachovia Bank. (The U.S. state in which Wachovia was used to stockpile $96,525 in fraudulent proceeds directed at an ASD member is unclear. What is clear, according to federal court filings, is that the ASD member allegedly was using ASD to promote a “multi-level marketing site that listed classified job postings” and that 17 checks from ASD were deposited into the Wachovia account on a single, fateful day.)

    That day was July 31, 2008.

    History shows that the Secret Service moved against ASD the very next day, Aug. 1, 2008, as a means of stopping the ASD Ponzi monster from sucking in any more cash and from polluting any more banks. The ASD member with the Wachovia accounts had “sponsored 6-8 people to get into the ASD system,” and somehow had managed to receive nearly $100,000 in tainted proceeds after paying ASD only $500 and working as a “consultant” to ASD “for a brief period,” according to court records.

    Because ASD used infected proceeds to pay members with accounts at banks across the U.S. spectrum of hundreds of institutions, each of those institutions became places at which wire-fraud proceeds were deposited. The total flow of fraudulent proceeds linked to Bowdoin and follow-up scams exceeded $120 million, according to federal court files.

    But it gets worse . . .

    At Least 2 Swiss Accounts Discussed In Exchanges Over Hushmail And Gmail

    Why not infect Europe with American Ponzi proceeds?

    This is the clincher, the one event that — in the context of other ASD-related events — shows the rampant criminality within the ASD enterprise and this particular wing of MLM. This criminality caused federal prosecutors to describe Bowdoin as a man who roped in at least 96,000 people in part by asserting that his “programs” reflected “God’s will.”

    Bowdoin, prosecutors said, indeed was the personification of a con man and affinity fraudster who “boldly continued or expanded his criminal conduct” even after the Secret Service raid in August 2008.

    Just two months later, in October 2008, Bowdoin and a former ASD insider held discussions aimed at launching AVG, the ASD reload scam that allegedly sucked in millions of dollars — in part by targeting ASD members all over again. The sources for this information are a government sentencing memo and  “Government Exhibit F,” filed on Aug. 13, 2012, four days before the SEC’s Zeek action and confirmation by the Secret Service that it also was investigating Zeek.

    Exhibit F is styled “Summary of AdView Global by T. Andy Bowdoin, Jr.” Precisely when and how the government obtained the document is unclear, but prosecutors say Bowdoin drafted it in “memo” form. Agents are known to have seized ASD-related computers. It also is believed that the government seized at least one AVG-related computer.

    The undated document features a narrative in which Bowdoin, despite the Secret Service raid of ASD and ongoing civil and criminal investigations, suggests he was still sticking to a cover story that ASD was an “advertising” company, not an investment company offering securities that paid a preposterous interest rate of 1 percent a day while magically constituting neither a Ponzi scheme nor an investment firm. In fact, according to the document, AVG hoped to ward off the U.S. government by establishing some sort of presence in Uruguay.

    Another part of the AVG launch plan was to attract “30 founders” in December 2008. In the Exhibit F document, Bowdoin also planted the seed that the nascent AVG MLM program had been vetted by “attorneys.”

    These unidentified “attorneys” purportedly had advised Bowdoin that prosecutors would not be interested in establishing whether the AVG upstart “was OK,” even if Bowdoin submitted an AVG business plan, according to Exhibit F. Bowdoin then moved forward with AVG, despite all that had happened at ASD. Both before and after the ASD debacle, according to assertions by prosecutors, Bowdoin claimed he had acted “on the advice of counsel” and therefore had done nothing wrong.

    “Bowdoin’s reliance on the ‘advice of counsel’ defense became a theme in both the civil and criminal litigation,” prosecutors advised a federal judge.

    It was a defense that failed miserably, as various entries on the public record show. And when Bowdoin got in trouble again — this time for promoting an alleged pyramid scheme known as “OneX” while out on signature bond in the ASD criminal case even as he asserted the OneX “program” had been vetted by attorneys and passed muster and that recruits could earn to the limits of their imaginations — Bowdoin again defaulted to an advice-of-counsel defense.

    This time, however, Bowdoin appears to have merely repeated false assertions that he’d heard from OneX or someone within OneX. The government responded by producing an affidavit from an attorney who’d performed work for OneX but never had drawn a conclusion the “program” was lawful and had never examined the actual business practices of OneX. The attorney swore in an affidavit filed under pain of perjury that the law firm through which he represented MLM clients “has never represented” Bowdoin. (The PP Blog is declining to identify the attorney, a partner in a Southern California law firm.)

    Back to AVG, the scheme Bowdoin helped launch before later trying to sanitize the alleged OneX pyramid scheme by claiming it had been scrubbed clean by attorneys: Bowdoin was to own two-thirds of AVG; the former ASD insider would own the remaining third, according to Exhibit F.

    Among other things, the document shows some of the fractured thinking and incongruities so often associated with HYIP scams. Despite the purported need for an offshore presence to ward off U.S. investigators, for instance, the document asserts that Gary D. Talbert, identified elsewhere as an ASD insider and one-time executive, had hired AVG “customer service people in the U.S.” (Bolding added by PP Blog.)

    Web records show that AVG had come out of the gate with two impossible (if not insane) propositions: The first was that AVG was just like the NBC television network, an absurdity on its face in that NBC doesn’t pay its advertisers to watch ads. Moreover, NBC, unlike the collapsed AVG, doesn’t operate a closed network in which only NBC’s advertisers and not the public at large can view ads. Nor does NBC try to recruit advertisers by telling them they’ll receive a dividend of 125 percent (or more) on their ad spend within a few months and that its advertisers can earn downline commissions two levels deep by recruiting competitors to advertise on NBC’s closed network.

    The second proposition was even more absurd: that AVG had nothing to do with ASD. The absurdity of this obvious lie was exposed before January 2009 even had ticked off the calendar. Indeed, after earlier asserting that AVG had no ties to ASD, the company — using a U.S.-based AVG customer-service rep who’d actually testified on ASD’s behalf in federal court —  announced that ASD’s Talbert was its CEO. If this weren’t absurd enough, AVG insisted through the former ASD member now working as a AVG spokesman that the appearance of AVG graphics in an ASD-controlled webroom was an “operational coincidence.”

    AVG went on to pile on the absurdities, according to court filings. In Exhibit F, the document prosecutors say was Bowdoin’s draft memo of his AVG reflections, members of Bowdoin’s family who allegedly benefited from ASD Ponzi proceeds are described as heroes who tried to save AVG from the thieves.

    With ASD’s Bowdoin’s knowledge, Talbert, according to Exhibit F, also purchased an Arizona “company named TMS” that owned a payment processor named “eWallet.” (Other records strongly suggest that the payment processor actually was named “eWalletPlus” and was operating from servers AVG was using in Panama.)

    “TMS used a bank in the Caribbean,” according to the document. The signatory on the Caribbean account somehow never was changed after the asserted change in ownership at TMS, and two former TMS associates allegedly stole nearly $2.7 million from AVG. The theft of nearly $3 million led to the collapse of AVG, according to the telling attributed to Bowdoin in the document.

    To date, the PP Blog has been unable to ascertain the truthfulness of the assertions about the thefts allegedly committed by the alleged former TMS insiders.

    What is clear, however, is that as much ASD money that could be found in August 2008 was seized. AVG then launched with cash that hadn’t been seized, and in part was targeted at ASD members.  AVG members then were left holding the bag, with the blame placed on former TMS associates.

    And something else is clear, which brings us to “Government Exhibit G”: AVG, the follow-up scam to ASD that involved Bowdoin and ASD insiders and alleged thefts of millions of dollars by outsiders, had at least two Swiss bank accounts.

    bowdoinhmail
    One of AVG’s Swiss bank accounts allegedly was discussed in this email between Andy Bowdoin and Gary Talbert. Bowdoin was ASD’s operator; Talbert was an ASD insider who allegedly became Bowdoin’s business partner in the AVG Ponzi scheme that sucked away millions of dollars. (Red lines inserted by PP Blog.)

    On Jan. 28, 2009, just days before AVG’s scheduled launch date in early February and less than six months after the Secret Service raid on ASD’s headquarters and Bowdoin’s home in Quincy, Fla., Gary Talbert used a Gmail address to email Andy Bowdoin at a hushmail address, according to Exhibit G.

    Talbert advised Bowdoin that an individual — presumptively one of the 30 AVG founders — had conducted a “Wire Transfer to AVG Swiss Bank Account” and needed assurances that it had posted. The inquiry about the asserted wire transfer appears to have been initiated by another AVG insider who’d emailed Talbert from his Gmail address to Talbert’s Gmail address. Through Gmail, Talbert then checked with Bowdoin at Bowdoin’s hushmail address, instructing the ASD patriarch that someone wanted to “verify that a bank wire hit the Swiss bank account.”

    Upon verification, the customer would make “another large wire,” Exhibit G suggests.

    Another email within the January 2009 chain says that AVG had at least two Swiss accounts.

    What It Means

    Walking this back and assuming the Exhibit G communications were truthful, what it means is that the ASD enterprise — this time in the form of AVG — had set up a banking operation in Switzerland, a secrecy haven. At the same time, it means that the ASD enterprise did this after it earlier had polluted U.S. banks in multiple states with fraudulent proceeds and now was taking its act not only to Switzerland, but also to South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

    Less clear is whether ASD had a preexisting banking network in Switzerland before effectively morphing into AVG. Regardless of when the Swiss accounts were opened, however, the mere presence of them suggests that ASD and AVG insiders had the means to move fraudulent proceeds from U.S.-based crimes offshore and perhaps tap into them later.

    And this brings us to Zeek Rewards, which also used domestic and offshore facilitators and the same fundamental business model of ASD and AVG. It also brings us to Profitable Sunrise and other MLM “programs” such as Better-Living Global Marketing. The now-disappeared Profitable Sunrise scheme allegedly used U.S. bank wires and offshore facilitators to drive tens of millions of dollars to the scheme. BLGM, still active, clearly has U.S. promoters and facilitators while purportedly operating from Hong Kong.

    Meanwhile, BLGM, like ASD, AVG, Profitable Sunrise and Zeek Rewards, has Stepfordian “defenders” running interference online.

    One of those “defenders” is over at the BehindMLM.com antiscam Blog asserting that he “met a guy online. I know him well now. I deposited $6500 into his Bank Of America account at my local branch.”

    Another BLGM defender is at BehindMLM.com asserting that (italics added):

    Got my Hongkong wire/remittance of 6,000 USD at Bank of America, have all my questions and concerns answered by Luke Teng, the teleconference helped a lot, disregard all the unnecessary comments of non-members.

    Get all your transparent answers from Luke Teng, or else you will die of stress reading all the negative comments of people who are not engaging, and guys remember this is our freewill and our own money, our decision, our own risk.

    TelexFree, a scheme more or less operating globally that has U.S. footprints in Massachusetts and Nevada and is under investigation in Brazil, also used Bank of America, according to members. Some TelexFree promoters instructed recruits to walk deposits meant for TelexFree into a Bank of American branch in Massachusetts or TD Bank locations elsewhere. TD Bank, of course, was the bank of Florida Ponzi schemer and racketeer Scott Rothstein. Four years after Rothstein’s $1 billion-plus scam brought great shame to the banking community, it’s still causing ripples.

    The PP Blog previously reported that a former Zeeker who also was associated with Profitable Sunrise — an alleged international pyramid scheme that funneled tens of millions of dollars to Europe, China and Panama amid the murkiest of circumstances — also was pushing BLGM.

    All of these “programs” are operating or have operated within the MLM sphere, the same sphere that produced the incredibly toxic ASD/AVG Ponzi schemes. All of the “programs” either have or had access to the wire facilities of various nations around the globe while using Ponzi- and pyramid schemes as their business model.

    The Piggybackers

    Various destructive forces are piggybacking on the scams, including attack bots and spambots that are keying on the names of HYIP enterprises and HYIP story figures to promote other scams or to drive traffic to other highly questionable “opportunities.”

    Even after the PP Blog announced the temporary suspension of the publication of new stories last week, it continued to be targeted by resources-draining bots. One wave knocked the Blog offline for about an hour two days ago. During the involuntary outage, legitimate readers and researchers  could not access the Blog.

    One of the spammers left the signature of an IP associated with the country of Indonesia. A spam bid from the specific IP keyed on a PP Blog story about ASD figure and purported “sovereign citizen” Kenneth Wayne Leaming, now in federal prison for targeting U.S. federal officials and a Secret Service agent in an abuse campaign, harboring fugitives and possessing firearms as a convicted felon. Records in Washington state show that a Leaming-connected enterprise once traded on the name of JPMorgan, a famous banking concern. (“Sovereign citizens” are becoming increasingly infamous for harassing banks.)

    Another spammer — one that left an IP signature from Belarus — also targeted a Leaming story thread at the PP Blog.

    In recent weeks, the Blog has recorded data that plainly show that  botnets, spambots or human spammers are circling antiscam sites and attempting to execute command strings that — if enough volume is applied — can cause databases to malfunction or even cause the sites to go offline.

    This creates an atmosphere that affects the publishing of information not only on current scams, but also on emerging scams and scams of the past. The downstream effects are potentially ruinous — and yet it continues.

    ASD and AVG were discredited long ago. But scams that use their core business model not only are launching, but in some cases thriving. Serial promoters are racing from one fraud scheme to the next. This sets the stage for schemes to fill up the world’s largest sports stadiums eight or 10 times over with victims. In 2008, ASD could have filled the Rose Bowl to capacity with victims one time. By 2012, Zeek could have filled the Rose Bowl with victims 10 times.

    The “defenses” for these various schemes range from the bizarre to the utterly mindless — and they absolutely must be decimated with the full, combined weight of the various world governments.

    It is in the interest of the worldwide public to connect the dots of these schemes and to eradicate them through the maximum application of the force of law. Left unchecked, they will erode the very foundations of freedom and permit the criminal underworld of MLM to thrive.

    NOTE: Our thanks to the ASDUpdates Blog.

     

  • Missouri Orders Alleged HYIP Operated By Christopher Hanson To Cease And Desist; Scheme Reached Into North Carolina, State Alleges; Tough Economic Times Give Scammers Opportunity To ‘Pull Schemes Directly From The Pages Of The Fraud Playbook,’ Official Says

    Missouri Sectetary of State Robin Carnahan

    UPDATED 10:52 A.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Christopher Hanson of Springfield, Mo., has been ordered to “cease and desist” from offering an HYIP “featuring supposed ‘leveraging’ on U.S. Treasuries,” the office of Secretary of State Robin Carnahan announced.

    Missouri state securities regulators described the scheme as a hybrid that married Hanson’s HYIP to a prime-bank scheme.

    “In tough economic times, everyone is looking for ways to make money, which gives fraudsters ample opportunities to pull schemes directly from the pages of the fraud playbook,” Carnahan said.

    Regulators at both the state and federal level have issued repeated warnings about HYIP and prime-bank swindles. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a figure in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme in 2008 and a companion fraud scheme known as Golden Panda Ad Builder, was implicated by the SEC in three prime-bank swindles in the 1990s.

    “The cease-and desist-order alleges that Hanson sold unregistered securities and committed securities fraud by failing to disclose material information to investors,” Carnahan’s office said.  “According to the order, Hanson assured investors that their investments were risk free or ‘safe’ and were backed by a U.S. Treasury program. Hanson promised investors that they would quickly receive high rates of return on their investments, some in as little as 24 hours. To date, investors have not received any return on their investments.”

    Hanson, according to the state’s order, is a former insurance salesman who was fired in 2005 “for failure to disclose reportable events on a Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration Form . . . and failure to fully cooperate with a regulatory inquiry and internal requests for information.”

    By 2011, Hanson was in the HYIP business, according to Missouri state investigators — at least one of whom was corresponding with a Hanson investor in New York, according to the state.

    The New York investor, according to Missouri investigators, “was referred to Hanson through an attorney in North Carolina.”

    Also named in the order are Hanson Holdings LLC of Springfield and IBS Investments LLC, also of Springfield.

    Read the Missouri order for additional details.

    North Carolina recently was rocked by the collapse of Zeek Rewards, which the SEC described as a $600 million Ponzi- and pyramid scheme.

  • UPDATE: More Red Flags At ‘Text Cash Network’; Firm’s ‘Official’ Video Has YouTube Upload Date Of Nov. 15, 2011 — But Same Video With Nearly 3-Year Old Upload Date Also Appears On YouTube For Same ‘Opportunity’

    In this Nov. 13 post, the PP Blog published a list of red flags concerning online promos for Text Cash Network (TCN), purportedly an emerging business “opportunity” involving text advertising and cell phones. A promo for TCN appeared — and then vanished — from a website linked to huckster Phil Piccolo, known online as “the one-man Internet crime wave.” Piccolo has been associated with other schemes that involved cell phones, namely Data Network Affiliates (DNA).

    This post raises another red flag — and once again, the issue is about Piccolo’s potential TCN involvement or the involvement of Piccolo associates. In the DNA scam, the purported firm used generic YouTube videos to drive traffic to its purported opportunity. In 2010, for example, DNA incongruously posted a YouTube video known as “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” to its website, using the video to promote DNA.

    The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” video — a You Tube smash — had absolutely nothing to to with DNA. The video was designed in part to create awareness about domestic violence and to publicize the Sheila Wellstone Institute.

    Sheila Wellstone was a human-rights advocate. She and her husband, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., were killed in a plane crash in 2002. Their daughter, Marcia, died in the same crash.

    After conducting a “prelaunch” event with much fanfare on Nov. 11 — Veterans Day in the United States — TCN now has added a You Tube video to its website. An all-caps line of “OFFICIAL LAUNCH 12/12/2011” appears below the video, which plays in miniature on TCN’s site.

    But the video also is playing in full size on YouTube’s site. Text on the YouTube site dubs it “THE OFFICAL TEXT CASH NETWORK (TCN) – RIGHT HERE – RIGHT NOW” site. The upload date of the video is listed as Nov. 15, 2011: yesterday.

    The same video, however,  appears elsewhere on YouTube — and its upload date is listed as Jan. 26, 2009, nearly three years ago. Despite the upload date, the video also is promoting TCN, whose website appears to have been registered just last month.

    Both videos raise questions about whether YouTube is being gamed by TCN and affiliates. Meanwhile, the videos use the same soundtrack by Fat Boy Slim: “Right here, right now.”

    Among other things, Piccolo is known to use all-caps presentations and to hype “prelaunches” and “launches” for weeks. He also is known to hype launches by publishing the names of top promoters — something TCN is doing — and to try to stay in the background of “opportunities,” as opposed to becoming the public face of them.

    Joe Reid, a known Piccolo associate, has served as a conference-call host for TCN. Reid also hosted conference calls for DNA, which was linked to Piccolo last year and served up Theatre of the Absurd and a sea of incongruities.

    DNA, for example, misspelled the name of its own CEO — and didn’t advise members that the CEO had left the company for nearly a week. The former CEO told the PP Blog last year that the firm was engaging in “bizarre” conduct and a campaign of “misinformation and lies.”

    After the former CEO agreed to an interview with the PP Blog, a PR handler who described himself as a conflict-management strategist” sought to intervene. As the year proceeded, DNA appeared to have both entered and exited the cell-phone business in a matter of weeks — while planting the seed that it would pay enormous rates of return to customers who provided it money, even as it purportedly entered businesses such as mortgage writedowns and offshore “resorts” after apparently abandoning its purported core business of helping police recover kidnapped children.

    At one point, DNA was urging members to record the license-plate numbers of cars in a purported bid to assist the AMBER Alert program — while it was selling a purported “protective spray” that would make it impossible for cameras placed by police at intersections to snap usable photographs of the plates.

    In 2009, another purported “advertising” opportunity known as Biz Ad Splash (BAS) used the same Fat Boy Slim soundtrack. Walter Clarence Busby Jr., the purported operator of BAS, is a figure in the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme and is the former operator of Golden Panda Ad Builder. Golden Panda surrendered more than $14 million in the ASD Ponzi case, and the SEC said that Busby was involved in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s.

    The SEC has not responded to requests for comment on the emerging TCN “opportunity.”

    As of now, it can be said that two “advertising” schemes — BAS and TCN — are using the same music in what appears to be largely generic promos for business “opportunities.”

    It also can be said that DNA, one of the “businesses” associated with Piccolo, also used generic videos and caused them to play in miniature on “prelaunch” and “launch” sites for “opportunities.”

    It also seems possible — if not likely — that certain MLM promoters have found a way to edit YouTube sites to make the content appear “current” or to store generic videos and use them for multiple “opportunities.”

    Questions

    Why does one video for TCN show an upload date of January 2009 while the “official” site shows a video upload date of yesterday — when it is the same video and TCN purportedly is a “new” opportunity?

    Did TCN exist in an earlier form as far back as 2009? If so, what happened back then — and why is it reemerging now?

    Are certain MLMers simply using generic videos they uploaded earlier to YouTube — and then editing the YouTube sites when a new “opportunity” comes along, thus potentially maintaining a search-engine advantage no matter what “opportunity” comes along?

    Why would a company that purports to be a market and technology leader use what appears to be a generic video as its “official” video?

    Why did a promo for TCN that appeared on the website of OWOW — a site linked to Piccolo — suddenly go missing last week?

    Why does TCN appear to be closely following “prelaunch” and “launch” strategies associated with purported Piccolo “opportunities?

    Screen Shot 1

    This YouTube video for Text Cash Network bears an upload date of Jan. 26, 2009, even though TCN claims it is a new company proceeding from a "prelaunch" in recent days to "launch." The video is a duplicate of a video dated Nov. 15, 2011 that claims to be TCN's "official" video.

    Screen Shot 2

    This YouTube video for Text Cash Network bears an upload date of Nov. 15, 2011, even though the same video for the purported TCN opportunity appears elsewhere on YouTube and bears an upload date of Jan. 26, 2009, nearly three years ago. TCN claims it is a new company proceeding from "prelaunch" to "launch." TCN claims the Nov. 15, 2011 video is its "official" one. Both video sites feature all-caps when addressing prospects and content that is virtually the same.

    Screen Shot 3

    This 2009 YouTube video for the purported Biz AdSplash "advertising" program used the music of Fat Boy Slim. An emerging "advertising" opportunity known as Text Cash Network is using the same Fat Boy Slim music: "Right here, right now." While BAS purported to deliver "advertising" to computers, TCN purports to deliver it to cell phones.

  • EDITORIAL: As Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force Website (StopFraud.gov) Spotlights AdSurfDaily Prosecution, Bizarre Email Circulating Among ASD Members Raises New Conspiracy Theories

    UPDATED 10:31 A.M. EDT (U.S.A).

    ASD case subject of discussion in Washington’s highest power corridors: The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was formed by President Obama in November 2009. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a member of the President’s cabinet and the chief law-enforcement officer of the U.S. government, presides over the Task Force.

    Secret Service is charter member of Task Force. The U.S. Secret Service, whose duties include protecting the President of the United States, the integrity of the economy and the financial infrastructure of the nation, is a member of the Task Force.

    Among the allegations in the ASD case is that members were falsely trading on the name of then-President George W. Bush to sanitize a $110 million Ponzi scheme, that ASD President Andy Bowdoin encouraged the false claims and arranged to spend Ponzi proceeds to retire the $157,000 mortgage on a home in Tallahassee occupied by his wife’s son and the son’s wife, purchase a lakefront home in Florida, purchase an $800,000 building (for cash), purchase jet skis, a Cabana boat, haul trailers and marine equipment — all while owing restitution to victims of an Alabama securities caper in the 1990s and “thousands of dollars” to an ex-wife.

    Some of the purchases occurred within days of Bowdoin’s return from a May 2008 ASD “rally” in Las Vegas at which he defined himself as a Christian “money magnet” and encouraged others to follow him in thanking God and becoming like-minded “money magnets.” At the rally, Bowdoin urged members not to miss the opportunity to provide ASD with money by the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, according to records.

    “Thank you, God, for destining me to great wealth,” he exhorted the Las Vegas crowd to internalize and recite during the day.

    And he exhorted members to picture themselves wealthy.

    “See a big check coming in from AdSurfDaily,” he urged. “I signed a check the other day, about $22,000. See those checks like that coming for you constantly, just flowing to you.”

    One of Bowdoin’s business partners — Walter Clarence Busby Jr., the operator of the Golden Panda autosurf — was implicated by the SEC in three prime-bank schemes in the 1990s, according to records. Golden Panda, according to Busby, was hatched after he went fishing with Bowdoin on a Georgia lake in April 2008. Just days after the fishing expedition, Bowdoin boarded a plane and flew to Costa Rica, according to court filings.

    Weeks after his return from Costa Rica, Bowdoin headed to Washington, D.C., to rub elbows with politicians, according to court filings.

    Read the full news release on the AdSurfDaily case here. It is published on StopFraud.gov, the Task Force website.

    New conspiracy theory emerges after government compensates ASD victims. As often has been the case, some ASD members appear not to have taken the clue that top Justice Department officials and perhaps the White House itself are being briefed on developments in the ASD case. The ASD case became a national-security case when the U.S. Secret Service discovered in 2008 that Andy Bowdoin, a recidivist securities swindler in his seventies who allegedly had “earned no significant income from legal employment in the twenty years prior to his commencement of ASD’s operation,” suddenly was sitting on tens of millions of dollars and had handed out some of it to political rainmakers.

    Some of the handouts, which came in the form of contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), occurred in early 2007, even as the first Ponzi scheme iteration of ASD was collapsing and the firm’s original members were left holding the bag while Bowdoin explained $1 million had been stolen by “Russian” hackers. Bowdoin did not file a police report about the purported theft because he did not want to draw the attention of law enforcement, according to court filings.

    The NRCC handouts continued in 2008, after Bowdoin had changed the name of his collapsed autosurfing venture from AdSurfDaily to ASD Cash Generator, plumbed it with new cash from a new group of suckers, started a second Ponzi venture known as LaFuenteDinero, arranged with Busby to form a third Ponzi-in-waiting  (Golden Panda) and had flown to Costa Rica with a “North Carolina lawyer” (and co-owner) of LaFuenteDinero, according to court filings and Federal Election Commission records.

    In a bizarre email that began to circulate among ASD members yesterday, the seed was planted that that the government was trying to recruit witnesses by luring them with remissions payments — and that prosecutors might claw back the remissions money if  the member “did not cooperate in testifying against ASD.”

    The date upon which the email was written could not immediately be determined, but the email appears to be the second in a two-part series sent after ASD members began to receive remissions payments late last week.

    The content of the email, which was described as “insider information” and attributed in part to an unamed third party who purportedly overheard a conversation involving a federal prosecutor at an unspecified location, was titled, “Important Warning: ASD/Golden Panda.”

    Among the suggestions in the email was that the government planned to “force” ASD members who received remissions distributions to testify against Bowdoin in his upcoming criminal trial on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. The email was signed “Sara.”

    Here is the email verbatim (italics added):

    “Hi Everyone-

    Since I sent the last email update about ASD/Golden Panda monies being received by members, I received some very important insider information you should know. This is an important warning.

    The information (these are not quotes) I am sharing with you was spoken by and was heard directly from an attorney for the government, in relation to the ASD legal case. I must protect the source but I can assure you it is reliable (it is not Andy). I was told that the person heard the government attorney say they had hired the Rust Company to send a remission form by email and US-mail to ASD and Golden Panda members. The form was to be sent under the pretense that the member would get their money back if they filled out the form to request a remission of their ASD/Golden Panda monies seized by the government on 8/1/08. Those members would then receive their remission monies directly into their bank accounts, but the attorney said that their names would go onto a list and they would then be summoned by the court (at the members own expense) to testify against ASD. They would be forced to testify against ASD even if they did not believe that ASD was illegal, because the form they signed was set up in such a way that the member was essentially stating that ASD victimized them in an illegal business. I’m imagining a typical scenario in court would be: The attorney for the government would read statements from the form and the member’s answers and then say something like, “Is this your signature?” to force the member into saying that the statements were theirs.  And, take note, that it was also mentioned by the attorney that the direct deposit into the member’s account could be reversed at any time if ASD should eventually lose the case or if the member did not cooperate in testifying against ASD. If the money isn’t in the account anymore, it would be money owed back to the government, so moving the money would not help. The addendum that I was advised to suggest to you if you were drawn to fill out the form (sent by the Rust Company on behalf of the government) that stated that you did not make an investment in ASD/Golden Panda, but rather bought advertising, would apparently protect you from the government’s tactics, but I honestly do not know that for sure.

    Many of us had major red flags when we read the form as it was obvious what the government was trying to do. That’s why it was advised that members add the addendum to their form, to protect themselves from the government’s deceptive practices. So pray about how you should proceed. Please don’t ask me. I can’t make this decision for you.

    God’s Blessings,

    Sara

    The email appears to have followed the email below, which divines a construction by which  the government seized ASD money illegally and set up the remissions program only because ASD members outraged at the illegal seizure demanded the return of their funds (verbatim/italics added):

    “Dear ASD & Golden Panda Members-

    I have some news! ASD and Golden Panda Members have recently received a “remission” of the money that was in their ASD and/or Golden Panda accounts, deposited directly into their personal bank accounts by the government; amounts like $50,000 and $60,000 and it was apparently 100% of the money that was owed to them!

    Personally, I am stunned. My experience over the last decade or more has been that the government has never fulfilled their obligation to return money they have seized from programs they deemed illegal. My opinion is that they are scrambling to do this in order to diffuse the outrage ASD members have felt toward the government from their (in my opinion, illegal) seizure of members’ account funds, so that members will have less opposition toward the government during the eventual ASD trial.

    But, for whatever reason the government is doing it, it is irrelevant to those relieved members who are finally receiving justice from this (in my opinion, illegal) seizure.

    If you have not received your remission, you can go to this website to fill out the form there: adsurfdailyremission.com. You can also call the following toll free information line for more information and even talk to a customer service agent in person to ask any questions you might have about this process: 888-398-8214. The following email address has also been provided to communicate about this: info@adsurfremission.com You will notice that, in the recorded message, the government does NOT back down in their assertion that Golden Panda and ASD were illegal ponzi schemes, but that is obviously not stopping them from returning members’ funds.

    Some of you will notice that this form is the one that many of you did not feel inspired to fill out when it was first presented to us. It really puts members in an uncomfortable position of stating that they were victims of ASD/Golden Panda when they don’t believe they were and many felt as if they were also being set up to incriminate themselves.

    At the time, I was advised to suggest to you that, if you felt drawn to fill it out, you include an addendum that stated that you understood that you were purchasing advertising, not making an investment. That continues to be the advice. Now that people are actually receiving their money back, perhaps some of you may feel more motivated to risk filling out the form. Just be careful not to incriminate yourselves. Be alert as you do it. Do not leave any question unanswered or it will be rejected. You must also provide documentation so hopefully you kept good records.

    You will notice on that website (upper left corner) that it says that you must fill it out and submit it by a date in January, 2011. The way around this may be to say that you just found out about it (you didn’t get their letter in the mail or an email from them) and therefore you are only responding to it now. You might want to make that clear to the Customer Service agent at the number above BEFORE you take the time to fill it out, to confirm that they are still accepting them. If not, take a stand for your right to your monetary remission and ask for a supervisor. I am hearing that they are swamped trying to keep up with the communications they are receiving from members, so please be patient.

    Blessings,

    Sara

    Read a January 2011 story about ASD-related emails. Read a November 2010 story. Read another November 2010 story. Read a December 2009 story.

  • BULLETIN: Commodities Online LLC Fraud Case Takes Unexpected Turn; Federal Judge Says Defense Attorney Accused Her Of ‘Trampling’ On Client’s Constitutional Rights In Issuing Order To Turn Over $1.45 Million To Court-Appointed Receiver

    James Clark Howard III

    BULLETIN: A federal judge in Florida who says she was accused of “abusing” her discretion and “trampling” the Constitutional rights of a man implicated in an alleged multimillion-dollar commodities fraud by the SEC has ordered the defense attorney who made the assertions to explain himself and substantiate claims that his client had been denied due process.

    U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz ordered attorney Horecia I. Walker to respond in writing no later than Sept. 9 and explain what kind of investigation he conducted prior to asserting that James Clark Howard III and his counsel present at an Aug. 23 evidentiary hearing did not have adequate time to prepare for the hearing.

    Howard, who appeared at the hearing, was represented at the hearing by attorney Mark C. Perry, according to records. Both Howard and Perry had 11 days to prepare for the hearing, Seitz wrote.

    In an order issued on the same day as the hearing, Seitz directed Howard and Sutton Capital LLC to turn over $1.45 million to attorney David S. Mandel, the court-appointed receiver in the Commodites Online LLC fraud case filed in April by the SEC.

    Seitz gave Howard and Sutton, another firm associated with Howard, until yesterday to turn over the money. It was not immediately clear if either party complied with the order.

    What is clear is that Seitz was not amused by an emergency motion filed by Walker on behalf of Howard and Sutton to stay the Aug. 23 order to turn over the money pending an appeal of the order.

    “Walker has accused this Court of trampling Howard’s constitutional rights and abusing its discretion in entering the turnover Order,” Seitz wrote. “The factual underpinnings for these accusations are that Howard and Perry had insufficient time to prepare for the August 23, 2011, hearing. To avoid running afoul of Rule 11, Walker should have investigated these factual circumstances before relying on them to accuse the Court of a constitutional affront.”

    The judge added that “it appears to the Court that no such investigation occurred.”

    Seitz took issue with Walker’s characterization of the Aug. 23 hearing as an “apparent ‘evidentiary hearing,’” according to an order she issued yesterday denying the stay.

    “Walker posits that the hearing ‘was not an evidentiary hearing at all’ and the Court’s Order requiring disgorgement amounts to an abuse of discretion,” Seitz wrote. “Lost in all of his hyperbole is the simple fact that Howard and Perry received notice of the hearing eleven days before the hearing commenced.”

    Neither Howard nor Perry asked for a continuance, Seitz wrote.

    The Commodities Online case has a link to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case brought by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008.

    SSH2 Acquistions, a Nevada company that listed former ASD member and pro-ASD Surf’s Up moderator Terralynn Hoy as a director, sued Howard and others in September 2010 amid allegations he was part of a massive Ponzi scheme into which SSH2 had plowed $39 million. The lawsuit was filed about six months after the Boca Raton Police Department filed felony charges against Howard in an alleged financial scam that targeted Haitian Americans.

    Surf’s Up was a cheerleading site for ASD, and Hoy later became a moderator of a cheerleading forum for the collapsed AdViewGlobal (AVG) autosurf.

    While SSH2 claims to be a Ponzi victim of Howard, the Surf’s Up and AdViewGlobal forums both claimed that ASD and AVG were conducting legitimate commerce. With Hoy as a moderator of Surf’s Up, the forum conducted an October 2008 online party complete with images of champagne and fireworks for ASD President Andy Bowdoin.

    The U.S. Secret Service described Bowdoin as an international Ponzi schemer and recidivist felon who’d gathered tens of millions of dollars in the ASD caper — most of it in ASD’s final weeks of life in the late spring and summer of 2008. At least $65.8 million was seized from Bowdoin’s 10 personal bank accounts, according to court records. One account alone contained more than $31.6 million. Three accounts contained the exact same amount: $1,000,338.91.

    It is unclear if ASD members beyond Hoy had any business ties to Howard and invested any money with the accused schemer. Hoy has not been accused of wrongdoing.

    SSH2 said in court filings that it plowed $39 million into the alleged Howard scheme, and received back about $19 million in “fake and fraudulent ‘profits.’” Sutton, Rapallo Investment Group LLC and Patricia Saa also were named defendants in SSH2’s lawsuit.

    Howard was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison in the 1990s on narcotics and weapons charges, according to records. ASD’s Bowdoin, meanwhile, narrowly avoided jail time during the same decade when he was implicated in Alabama in a securities swindle, according to records.

    Clarence Busby Jr., one of Bowdoin’s alleged business partners, was implicated by the SEC during the 1990s in three prime-bank schemes, according to records.

    Some ASD members have been identified as members of the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement. Cheerleading for Bowdoin and ASD continued on the Surf’s Up forum even after it was revealed that Curtis Richmond, one of the purported “sovereign” beings associated with ASD, had a contempt-of-court conviction for threatening federal judges in California and once claimed a federal judge from Oklahoma sitting by special designation in Utah owed him $30 million.

    Richmond was a member of the so-called “Arby’s Indians,” an “Indian” tribe that targeted public officials with vexatious litigation. U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot ruled the “tribe” a complete sham.

    U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia is presiding over the ASD Ponzi case. Both Richmond and Bowdoin tried unsuccessfully to have her removed from the case. Richmond accused Collyer of “TREASON” and claimed she may be guilty of 60 or more felonies.

  • Tax Lien Was Filed Against Golden Panda’s Clarence Busby Prior To Lawsuit Autosurf Operator Filed Against Bank; Separately, Georgia Has Dissolved 2 Busby Firms And Says Biz Ad Splash ‘Surf Company In State Of Noncompliance

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Clarence Busby Jr., a figure associated with at least four autosurfs — AdSurfDaily, Golden Panda Ad Builder, LaFuenteDinero and BizAdSplash — has encountered a recent string of troubles, including a mortgage foreclosure and tax liens. Owing to his association with ASD President Andy Bowdoin, who operated ASD and LaFuenteDinero and once had a partnership with Busby in Golden Panda, Busby also was forced to spend an unknown sum on legal fees after the seizure of ASD- and Golden Panda-connected assets in 2008.

    Bowdoin said in September 2009 that he’d spent more than $1 million on legal fees in the first 13 months of ASD-related litigation. He was arrested on federal charges on Dec. 1, 2010, and had to arrange a bond of $350,000.  Sixteen days later — on December 17, 2010 — federal prosecutors filed yet another (the third) civil-forfeiture complaint against Bowdoin-connected assets. Bowdoin filed appeals in the first two forfeiture cases, losing both and driving up his legal costs.

    Despite the costly troubles encountered by both Bowdoin and Busby — and the remarkable staying power of those troubles, which next month will enter their fourth year — promoters on TalkGold, MoneyMakerGroup and other Ponzi forums still are pushing autosurfs and HYIPs.

    They’re pushing them even though Bowdoin and others potentially face long prison sentences and have lost significant dollar sums and property as a result of their infatuation with what prosecutors have described as serial lawlessness.

    On July 6, a federal judge ordered Gregory N. McKnight, the operator of the Legisi HYIP Ponzi scheme, to pay more than $6.81 million in disgorgement and penalties. Like ASD and countless schemes, Legisi was promoted on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup — and court filings in the Legisi case specifically reference MoneyMakerGroup.

    Still pushing ‘surfs and HYIPs?

    Apparently using a fill-in-the-blank litigation template, Clarence Busby Jr. sought foreclosure relief on a central Cobb County property in Marietta, Ga. Busby's filing also placed the property in Gwinnett County, which does not border Cobb County. (Graphic from Wikipedia.)

    When former autosurf operator Clarence Busby Jr. filed a lawsuit last year last seeking relief from from a bank and other parties involved in a mortgage foreclosure against him, he’d already been put on notice by the Internal Revenue Service that the agency intended to collect thousands of dollars in back taxes from him, according to records in Cobb County, Ga.

    The taxes were from 2009, according to records. During the same year, Busby launched an autosurf known as Biz Ad Splash — but the tax bill was for a different Busby entity.

    On Aug. 11, 2010, the IRS prepared a federal tax lien against Busby and a company known as Freedom Achievement LLC for $15,481. The lien was formally recorded on Aug. 26, 2010. A note on the lien described Busby as “SOLE MBR” of Freedom Achievement, whose business purpose was not immediately clear.

    About four months later — in December 2010 — Busby filed a pro se lawsuit demanding relief from Quicken Loans, OneWest Bank, MERSCorp and 1,000 “Doe” defendants in Cobb County Superior Court.

    OneWest and MERS responded in January 2011 by moving to have Busby’s case transferred to federal court in the Northern District of Georgia because the lawsuit named defendants in multiple states and involved a controversy that exceeded the sum of $75,000.

    Busby’s case was assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Robert L. Vining Jr., who dismissed it for failure to state a claim. Beyond dismissing the lawsuit for failure to state a claim, Vining agreed with the defendants that Busby’s arguments had no legal merit. Busby’s pro se pleadings appeared to have come from a fill-in-the-blank legal kit.

    These words appeared on the first page of Busby’s complaint: “COMES NOW, name here, as plaintiff” — and Busby did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    By contrast, some filings in the ASD/Golden Panda forfeiture case begin with these words, “COMES NOW, plaintiff United States of America, by and through its attorney.”

    The Busby complaint also claims the Busby property in dispute is located in “Gwinnett County.” The document claimed elsewhere that the property was located in the city of Marietta in “Cobb County,” the venue in which Busby sued.

    Marietta is situated in central Cobb County. Cobb County and Gwinnett County do not border one another. and the property is listed in Cobb County courthouse records, meaning it is possible that Busby used an existing legal template and never swapped out an existing reference to Gwinnett County — in the same manner in which he did not insert his name in the “name here” space.

    Whether Busby’s apparent fill-in-the-blank oversights added to the defendants’ costs in successfully defending against the lawsuit is unclear. What is clear is that Busby came out on the losing end and that the defendants referenced the IRS tax lien against Busby in Cobb County in their response to his complaint.

    Separately, the state of Georgia dissolved a Busby company known as Homeshare Investment Club Corp. The dissolution occurred on Sept. 13, 2010, less than a month after the IRS tax lien was filed against Freedom Achievement LLC, according to records.

    Records pertaining to Homeshare Investment Club show that it used the same address used by Busby in the formation of Biz Ad Splash NA LLC.

    BizAdSplash, or BAS, was an autosurf that ceased operating in January 2010. BAS launched in the aftermath of the ASD- and Golden Panda-related asset seizures. A separate address associated with the BAS filing in Georgia is the address of a maildrop in Kennesaw.

    BAS purported to operate offshore. Its apparent U.S. domestic brand is listed in noncompliance by the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp.

    Members of BAS have complained to the PP Blog about not getting refunds from the autosurf. How much money the surf collected is unclear.

    At the same time the state of Georgia was dissolving Homeshare Investment Club, it also was dissolving another Busby enterprise: Ocean View Enterprises Inc.  Meanwhile, yet another Busby firm — Legacy Premier Properties Inc. — is listed in a state of noncompliance.

  • PART 2: PROSECUTION BOMBSHELL(S): Operators And ‘Insiders’ Received ‘Millions Of Dollars’ From ASD; Bowdoin Changed Subject When Told What He Was Doing Was ‘Not Mathematically Possible’; Government Targeted ASD Money In Iowa Bank Accounts

    EDITOR’S NOTE: See Part One here.

    UPDATED 1:46 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) AdSurfDaily “paid out millions of dollars to operators and insiders,” according to a U.S. Secret Service affidavit originally filed under seal in February 2009.

    But ASD President Andy Bowdoin changed the subject when people told him that what Florida-based ASD was doing not only was illegal, but also was “not mathematically possible,” according to the affidavit.

    What he was trying to do, according to court filings, was establish at least three autosurfs that would generate Ponzi-extending cash while Bowdoin positioned them as legitimate “advertising” businesses.

    And Bowdoin also wanted to persuade members that he had discovered a formula that purportedly made it possible for ASD to set aside 50 percent of its daily revenue and pay participants 125 percent of what they paid in — all while planting the seed that members could expect a return of 8 percent a day on some days.

    Investigators saw things a different way, saying ASD was creating a minimum liability of $1.25 for every dollar it took in.

    “Try it — it works,” Bowdoin simply told the doubters, changing the subject instead of addressing the mathematical realities, according to the Secret Service.

    There was too little profit in operating legitimately, Bowdoin told a consultant, according to the Secret Service.

    As ASD was facing a Ponzi abyss, a consultant told Bowdoin there was a way for ASD to clean up its act, according to the Secret Service.

    “Bowdoin, however, was dissatisfied with the consultant’s revenue sharing proposal and with the limited revenue a legitimate business would produce,” the Secret Service alleged in the February 2009 affidavit. “Bowdoin rejected the consultant’s plan and terminated his relationship with the consultant.”

    Bowdoin had arrived at his 50-in/125-out formula after an earlier formula in which ASD purportedly had set aside 60 percent of its revenue to pay participants 150 percent of what they paid in had brought on a Ponzi collapse that caused the company to cease operations and leave investors in limbo for weeks in 2007, according to the Secret Service.

    ASD’s original formula was concocted by Bowdoin and his “silent partner,” a man who recruited Bowdoin into the 12DailyPro autosurf Ponzi scheme, according to the Secret Service.

    Both of ASD’s formulas were just a means of hiding ASD’s true nature as a financial beast with a fatal disease, according to court filings.

    Despite the spectacular collapse of 12DailyPro amid Ponzi allegations filed by the SEC in early 2006, Bowdoin and his silent partner ruminated that 12DailyPro simply had promised to pay out too much money on a daily basis, according to the Secret Service.

    Upstart ASD, Bowdoin and his silent partner speculated, could take regulators out of play and avoid the Ponzi fate of 12DailyPro by telling investors that the firm would pay out less money and by introducing verbal sleight-of-hand to disguise the true nature of the business, according to the Secret Service.

    ASD also speculated that it could circumvent the Ponzi problem and law-enforcement scrutiny by suggesting that ASD’s payouts, which the firm called “rebates,” were not “guaranteed,” according to the Secret Service.

    Despite telling members to “Try it — it works,” Bowdoin had no confidence in his business model and knew it was still a Ponzi despite the post-12DailyPro tweaking. In the end, according to court documents and other records, ASD still was telling investors they’d get back more than they paid in and, on a yearly basis, would receive a return of 365 percent at a “rebate” rate of 1 percent a day.

    Even as ASD was playing in the post-12DailyPro fields and grew eventually to suck in tens of millions of dollars a week, less than 2 percent of its revenue came from external sources. More than 98 percent came from members and was simply being recycled to other members to keep the Ponzi afloat, according federal prosecutors.

    At a certain point in time, Bowdoin did away with unlimited purchases and limited the amount investors could pay ASD to $12,000 “because he did not want members to lo[]se too much money should ASD collapse,” according to the February 2009 Secret Service affidavit.

    The import of the claim is that prosecutors can argue to a jury that Bowdoin himself was worried about the imminent demise of ASD — a demise Bowdoin brought on through the use of various mathematical concoctions, linguistic fantasies and fabrications designed to separate people from their money to keep the Ponzi afloat.

    Meanwhile, the claim sets the stage for prosecutors to tell a jury that Bowdoin anticipated a catastrophe and sought to insulate himself from prosecution by suggesting that ASD did not guarantee rebates and that customers were purchasing “advertising,” as opposed to entering into an investment contract with ASD.

    “[T]o ensure that no individual investor monopolized the rebate pool, and to reduce the
    likelihood that any individual investor would suffer a catastrophic loss, Bowdoin placed a limit on the amount of ‘advertising’ members could purchase,” the Secret Service said. “Of course, it would have made no sense to impose such limitations if ASD was actually selling, and members actually were purchasing, Internet advertising.”

    Bowdoin’s various stories were at odds with themselves, the Secret service alleged. Even as Bowdoin was telling members ASD was not in the investment business and instead was a provider of  advertising “rebates,” ASD’s computer systems described member payouts as “ROI” — for Return on Investment.

    And even as he positioned himself as a Christian “money magnet” and merchant who’d been recognized by the President of the United States — and even as he purportedly was enforcing a $12,000 purchase ceiling to minimize the chance an individual investor would become engulfed in a calamity — Bowdoin told attendees of company “rallies” in U.S. cities that ASD would match the money they plowed into the firm 50 cents on the dollar.

    “At the rallies, to raise more money, Bowdoin concocted the idea of running ‘rally-only promotions,’” the Secret Service alleged. “New members were told they would receive a 50% bonus for joining at the rally. For example, if a new member purchased $500 in ‘ad packages’ as a bonus she would be credited $750 to her account. Representatives of ASD stated this was a ‘World Wide Wealth’ program that was available to anyone with Internet access.”

    In early 2008, Bowdoin became a participant in a scheme with a “North Carolina” attorney to assure prospects that ASD had been vetted and was operating lawfully. ASD’s 26-minute legality video and the rallies caused tens of millions of dollars suddenly to flow into the firm, according to the Secret Service.

    Just a year earlier, the company suspended operations because it was starved for cash flow and faced a collapsed Ponzi, according to the Secret Service. ASD’s response to the collapse was to launch a new autosurf Ponzi under a new name — and to port the accounts of its original set of victims into the new scheme, where the payouts early loyalists had expected would be funded by incoming participants who did not know their money was being distributed to Bowdoin’s orginal victims.

    Later in 2008, as spring and summer warmth returned to northern climes, ASD found people throwing money at it. Some of the people who threw money at ASD did so at rallies in Iowa, according to the Secret Service.

    Affidavit For Seizure Targeted At At Least 7 Iowa Bank Accounts

    The PP Blog reported in December 2010 that funds traced to Bowdoin and two other ASD members had been targeted in yet-another forfeiture action in the District of Columbia. The action was filed less than three weeks after Bowdoin’s Dec. 1 arrest by federal agents in Florida on Ponzi-related charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and selling unregistered securities.

    Prosecutors’ December civil-forfeiture action was at least the third targeted at assets owned by Bowdoin. Assets of two other ASD members — Erma “Web Room Lady” Seabaugh and Robyn Lynn Stevenson (also: Robyn Lynn) of Florida — also were targeted.

    The civil case against Bowdoin’s assets is on hold because of the criminal allegations against him. But the cases against the assets of Seabaugh and Lynn remain active. Neither Seabaugh nor Lynn had filed a claim for the money as of Friday.

    In the case against Seabaugh’s assets, the government was authorized to seize $213,693 from a bank account, but found only $153,097 in the account. The Secret Service seized $96,525 from two bank accounts linked to Lynn.

    Some of the money Seabaugh plowed into ASD originated at E-Bullion, a shuttered California money-services business operated by convicted murderer James Fayed, who ordered the execution of his estranged wife in 2008.

    Pamela Fayed, a potential witness against her husband on matters pertaining to E-Bullion and an associated business known as Goldfinger Coin & Bullion, was slashed to death in a Los Angeles-area parking garage on July 28, 2008.

    On Aug. 1, 2008, the Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars from Bowdoin’s bank accounts. The December 2010 claim by federal prosecutors that Seabaugh had used E-Bullion to fund one of her ASD accounts was the first public tie between ASD and E-Bullion, which has been linked to multiple Ponzi schemes.

    Seabaugh had multiple ASD accounts with multiple email addresses — and appeared to be “selling her own investment ‘ad packs’ to clients and representing herself as ASD,” the Secret Service alleged.

    The PP Blog learned on June 10 that the Secret Service, in February 2009, also targeted proceeds in seven bank accounts belonging to ASD members in Iowa for forfeiture. In an affidavit, the agency said the accounts contained at least $413,018.

    How the cases are evolving was not immediately clear. The Secret Service, according to the affidavit, identified the assets as proceeds of an ASD-related wire-fraud scheme.

    Acting as pro se pleaders and using a litigation template associated with ASD participant Curtis Richmond, one of the so-called Arby’s Indians, two of the individuals associated with the Iowa accounts cited by the Secret Service in the February 2009 affidavit later attempted unsuccessfully to intervene in the main civil-forfeiture case against Bowdoin’s assets.

    The February 2009 Secret Service affidavit identifies the individuals as Joyce and Michael Haws.

    “Joyce Haws was an active participant in and large promoter of the ASD wire fraud
    scheme,” the Secret Service alleged in the affidavit. “Ms. Haws was one of several people who requested and facilitated one of the first rallies within ASD, in Ankeny, Iowa, on about March 15th, 2008.”

    Haws recruited her mother and others into the scheme, according to the affidavit.

    Walter Clarence Busby Jr., a Georgia minister and Bowdoin’s alleged business partner in Golden Panda Ad Builder, identified Joyce Haws and her “spouse” in 2008 as “founders” of Golden Panda.

    In the same Busby affidavit, filed on Aug. 29, 2008, Busby identified Robyn Lynn as the person who introduced him to ASD.

    Curtis Richmond was an early mainstay in the ASD story. He has a contempt-of-court conviction for threatening federal judges, has been banned from the practice of law in Colorado even though he is not an attorney and has been sued successfully under the federal racketeering statute for harassing public officials and participating in schemes to place bogus financial judgments against them.

    Richmond, who proclaimed himself a sovereign being answerable only to God,  was a member of a Utah “Indian” tribe a federal judge ruled a “sham.” The “tribe” got its derisive name — the Arby’s Indians — because it once held a meeting in an Arby’s restaurant.

    The “tribe” also used the address of a Utah doughnut shop as the address of its “Supreme Court,” while threatening public officials with arrest and detention for carrying out their official duties.