The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an enforcement action against Jack A. Calvin in March of 2003 and obtained a default judgment in December of 2003.  The Court found Calvin, of Ozark, Missouri, liable for securities fraud and ordered him to pay  $6,114,283.    (more…)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged David William Thomas of Global Marketing Consultants, LLC with misappropriating investor funds through two different fraudulent investment schemes.  According to the SEC, the defendants raised approximately $6.3 million from over 140 investors, with roughly one-third of the investors being seniors.  According to the SEC’s press release: (more…)

We’re looking at facts that are common to Ponzi schemes. No two are alike, but many share common characteristics.  (more…)

The SEC has stopped a prime bank scam operating in Colorado.  The Commission charged  Stanley W. Anderson, Edwin A. Smith, with running the scheme through their companies, Trinity International Enterprises, Inc., and CFO-5, LLC, and charged Michael D. Norton, Nicholas R. Fair, and Charles L. Kennedy with selling the bogus investments.   (more…)

I think I was ten years old when I went on my first and only snipe hunt.  I didn’t catch one.  I was sure I’d had bad technique or maybe just bad luck until the next morning when my friend who’d invited me on the hunt clued me in. 

Prosecutors in Eastern Pennsylvania have accepted a guilty plea from a woman who accepted $400,000 in return from taking investors on a financial snipe hunt.  Michele Antal convinced investors that they could take advantage of the falling dollar by buying German Certificates of Deposit.  Like the snipe, though, no such CDs existed. 

Lately I have been reminded that the prime bank scam will never die.  At the center of each is a snipe so big that it could feed you for a lifetime.  Bank Guarantees.  Standby Letters of Credit.  Medium Term Notes.  Bank Issued Debentures.  High Yield Investment Programs.  None of them exist.  Yet each is described in such meticulous detail and sold with such soothing assurances of complete safety and astronomical returns that investors invest and lose billions each year. 

Baby boomers and seniors — if you are considering an investment program that centers on a financial instrument you have never invested in before, ask someone with SEC-experience (preferably one who has been on a snipe hunt) to investigate before you invest your nest egg. 

David William Thomas of Loveland, Colorado has copped to bilking more than 50 people out of more than $4.4 million in a Ponzi scheme.  According to his signed plea agreement, Thomas promised investors high investment returns from what he called “non-depleting” accounts.  Instead, he ‘depleted’ the accounts to pay his personal expenses and to pay earlier investors with amounts invested by those who came later in classic Ponzi fashion.  To maintain the illusion of success Thomas also sent investors phony account statements.    (more…)

Travis Correll wore the zebra shirt of a college basketball referee, working games in the Southeastern Conference (SEC).  When not officiating basketball games, he ran a prime bank scam that collected more than $29 million from hundreds of investors nationwide, before the other SEC-the Securities and Exchange Commission-shut the scheme down in December 2005.   (more…)

David Baines of the Vancouver Sun  has written an insightful story about Canadian victims of a prime bank fraud.  The scam revolved around a company called International Fiduciary Corp. SA (IFC), run by Malcolm Stevenson (Stevenson) and Daniel Byer (Byer) both of Abbotsford, British Columbia, and Preston Pinkett II (Pinkett) of Virginia.

The scam will be familiar to regular readers of this blog.  Baines writes: (more…)

Two British accountants are awaiting a jury verdict in a case involving a Ponzi scheme that robbed more than 200 investors on both sides of theAtlantic of more than $50 million.  Their case reveals the scope of the Ponzi epidemic that plagues the globe. After initially claiming that the investigation by the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority was a case of the government run amok,  Shinder Gangar and Alan White claimed at trial that they truly believed that the scam was a legitimate investment.  (more…)

On November 30, the  Securities and Exchange Commission charged Great American Technologies, Inc. (”Great American”) and Vincent Sette, the company’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, with violating the antifraud provisions of the securities laws.  The Commission’s complaint alleges that Sette is a recidivist securities law violator.  

According to the SEC, Sette’s real name is Vincent Setteducate.  In 1997 the SEC charged him with (more…)