The goal of enforcement officials is always to arrive at the earliest time to save investor funds from the fraudsters. Despite their best efforts, frequently they arrive after much of the money is gone. Yet often portions can be saved. This is illustrated... Read More
"It's a process...We're going to try to gather as much money as we can and figure out who deserves what." Kenneth Bell, Court-appointed Receiver of ZeekRewards The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC")'s shutdown... Read More
Saturday, December 11, 2010 was the two-year anniversary of the day when Bernie Madoff's sons, Mark and Andrew, contacted law enforcement officials to notify them that their father was running the largest Ponzi scheme in history. On this same day... Read More
Several prominent athletes, including a newly-minted gold medalist member of the U.S. Olympic Soccer Team, have sued their former financial advisor and his employer, SunTrust Bank ("SunTrust"), alleging that they were unwitting investors in... Read More
A Utah man agreed to plead guilty for his involvement in two separate Ponzi schemes - while on parole for a previous conviction for a third Ponzi scheme - that took in more than $30 million from investors. Wayne Ogden, of Koosharem, Utah, was convicted... Read More
The D.C. Circuit rejected efforts by the SEC to compel the Securities Investor Protection Corporation to liquidate a broker-dealer that was part of the Stanford Ponzi scheme empire. The investors had purchased CDs from an off-shore Stanford entity. The... Read More
A Utah man who conducted real estate seminars across the country was the target of an emergency proceeding initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission that charged him with operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme with hundreds of investors. Wayne... Read More
A Connecticut man who scammed victims out of more than $500,000 in a classic Ponzi scheme is not too sick to serve time for his crimes, despite pleading from his attorneys that a sentence of home confinement was more appropriate. United States District... Read More
Several news outlets are reporting that a Chinese shopping website may have been outed last week as a Ponzi scheme, with the number of victims estimated in the hundreds of thousands and rumors that the founder had skipped town along with senior executives... Read More
Federal authorities arrested a California man of Pakistani descent on charges that he masterminded an investment scheme that raised nearly $50 million from investors. Syed Qaisar Madad, 65, a Pakistani native with Canadian citizenship living in the US... Read More
A federal grand juror is facing criminal charges after he allegedly disclosed details regarding the investigation and indictment of a suspected Ponzi schemer to a witness during a chance encounter at a local Costco - which resulted in the witness tipping... Read More
The United States Supreme Court will meet last week to decide whether to hear the dispute over the calculation of victim losses stemming from Bernard Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The court-appointed trustee, Irving Picard, has notched several... Read More
A staple of SEC enforcement in recent years has been offering fraud and Ponzi scheme cases. This week the Commission filed two more of these actions, one an offering fraud targeting military personnel and a second and investment fund fraud case which... Read More
In an unlikely turn of events, a Florida man decided to change his plea from 'not guilty' to 'guilty' on the third day of his trial, effectively ending the trial. George Elia, 69, made his decision after hearing a morning of testimony... Read More
After pleading guilty five years ago to masterminding a $29 million Ponzi scheme, a 76-year old Pennsylvania man now wants a federal judge to allow him to stand trial on claims that his now-deceased defense attorney "coerced" him to plead guilty... Read More