Organizing a Ponzi in the USA is a bad idea, Zeek Rewards CEO Paul Burks got 14 years, COO Dawn Wright Olivares 7.5 years and 2 years for CTO Daniel Olivares.
Federal prosecutors are recommending 10 years of prison time for James Merrill, the former Chief Executive of TelexFree Inc., for his role in one of the largest pyramid schemes of all time.
Merrill, of Ashland, pleaded guilty in October to multiple fraud counts for his role in the global scheme, in which nearly 1.9 million people from more than 100 countries lost $3.5 billion.
He will be sentenced in federal court in Worcester next week, while his business partner, Carlos Wanzeler, remains a fugitive in his native Brazil.
In sentencing memorandums filed Thursday, prosecutors alleged that from February 2012 to April 2014, Merrill ran
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TelexFree Fraud Victims Can Now File Claims Online
by Ted Nuyten • • 0 Comments
An online claim site is now live for victims of the TelexFree Inc. fraud.
Participants in the scheme, who number nearly 2 million and live in virtually every country in the world, can log in to the website telexfreeclaims.com and file claims for alleged losses, according to the bankruptcy trustee in the case.
The deadline for filing a claim is Sept. 26, although any payments will likely take much longer.
TelexFree, formerly based in Marlborough and Brazil, is believed to be the largest Ponzi scheme of all time, in terms of the number of people affected. The company, which nominally sold Internet phone service, grew into a vast global investment swindle, prosecutors have alleged, with investors believing they had $3 billion in their accounts.
TelexFree filed for federal bankruptcy protection two years ago. The company’s two
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TelexFree – Sann Rodriques in Jail
by Ted Nuyten • • 0 Comments
One of the top promoters in TelexFree Inc.’s alleged $3 billion pyramid scheme is being held in a Florida jail on a contempt charge, after failing to return assets including cars and cash that securities regulators had frozen.
Sanderley Rodrigues de Vasconcelos, known more widely as Sann Rodrigues, was arrested in May on visa fraud charges and has been home under electronic surveillance awaiting trial. But he was arrested Thursday and is now in custody in Tampa, according to federal officials.
A judge in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil case against Rodrigues in December held him in contempt for violating the terms of his release on bail.
He had been given a deadline of Jan. 15 to return $233,473 transferred out of his bank accounts, as well as proceeds from the sale of a
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TelexFree Receiver Stephen Darr Speaks Out
by Ted Nuyten • • 0 Comments
In 35 years of handling bankruptcy cases, Stephen Darr has seen plenty of ugly. He has doled out funds to creditors of an asbestos company and a machine gun maker and to victims of several Ponzi schemes.
But nothing comes close to the scale of the TelexFree Inc. bankruptcy. Never in history has a trustee been responsible for divvying up the assets of a company that prosecutors say defrauded 2.1 million people, from Boston to Uganda.
Darr, an accountant by trade and senior managing director at Mesirow Financial Consulting in Boston, is the court-appointed trustee charged with paying out claims to victims who believe they are owed more than $1 billion in the case. TelexFree was purportedly a long-distance phone company, but in reality generated most of its money by luring a stream of small investors from 2012 until it was shut down earlier this year, according to prosecutors.
Many Brazilian immigrants risked — and lost — large portions of their savings, in hopes of reaping the generous returns that were promised.
“I feel very sympathetic toward these people,’’ Darr said. “They lost a lot of money. They deserve to get it back, and it’s my job to get it back to them as
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TelexFree Co-Owner Pleads Not Guilty In Alleged Fraud
by Tina Williams • • 0 Comments
James Merrill entered a not-guilty plea for the TelexFree Inc. co-owner Wednesday in federal court in Worcester, his lawyer said.
Merrill, of Ashland, was president of the Marlborough-based phone service company, which is accused of running a $1 billion global pyramid scheme. His business partner, Carlos Wanzeler, remains a fugitive in Brazil and did not appear in court to face the charges.
Both men have been charged with nine counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. Each charge carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 years, but actual sentences are generally less than the maximums, according to the US Attorney’s office.
TelexFree sought federal bankruptcy protection in April, just as state and US securities regulators were days from filing civil fraud charges against the principals. Wanzeler fled the country that month to his native Vitoria, Brazil, while Merrill was arrested and held in jail for several weeks.
Merrill will remain home, wearing a GPS tracking bracelet and on $900,000 bail, officials said.
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Federal Grand Jury Indicts TelexFree Owners
by Tina Williams • • 0 Comments
The Wall Street Journal reported that a federal grand jury indicted (Formally and officially accused) TelexFree LLC co-founders and owners James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler Wednesday on fraud charges tied to allegations that their company operated a massive pyramid scheme.
The indictment expands upon the original criminal case against Messrs. Merrill and Wanzeler, who in May were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the alleged pyramid scheme, which prosecutors say caused total losses of more than $1 billion, including promised returns to investors.
In addition to the conspiracy charge, the indictment adds eight counts of wire fraud stemming from transfers of about $10 million in TelexFree funds to the two men’s personal accounts.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
“The defendants devised, and intended to devise, a scheme to defraud, the purpose of which was to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, promises and omissions,” reads the indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court in Worcester, Mass.
Lawyers for Messrs. Merrill and Wanzeler couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. However, the men have maintained their innocence since the original charges were filed. And in court papers, Mr. Merrill has
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TelexFree Hearing Next Week
by Tina Williams • • 0 Comments
A hearing will be held in Boston next Tuesday to determine whether an Ashland man accused of running an international pyramid scheme can access $4 million of his money to help fund his defense.
TelexFREE co-owner James Merrill initially asked the U.S. District Court two weeks ago to release the funds, which he said are necessary to cover the exorbitant cost of defending himself against a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
But government prosecutors have resisted, telling the court Merrill has not shown the money didn’t come from TelexFREE, which several state and federal agencies have charged with being a pyramid scheme.
The hearing will be held before Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy at 9:30 a.m., according to court records.
TelexFREE was ordered to shut down last summer in Brazil, after a judge ruled it a “financial pyramid” scheme, according to news reports.
Galvin’s complaint says the company has raised over $1 billion worldwide, “often from honest earnings and savings accounts of Brazilian-Americans and other minorities.’’
The scheme works by constantly bringing in new money, the state alleged. For instance, participants are recruited to invest either $289 or $1,375, and receive a number of advertising kits in return. By posting ads on web sites
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TelexFree Co-Owner Asks Courts To Release $4M For Legal Costs
by Tina Williams • • 0 Comments
Facing steep costs to defend himself against a criminal fraud charge, TelexFREE co-owner James Merrill has asked a federal court to release more than $4 million of his money so he can pay his legal fees.
While the Ashland man’s attorney’s 8-page motion doesn’t mention where that money came from, Merrill argues it’s the responsibility of U.S. prosecutors to prove the funds are related to their charge against him, which stems from his alleged role atop what they say was an international pyramid scheme.
“Certainly, the government is in no position to challenge the contention that extraordinary funds are necessary to defend the instant prosecution,” Boston-based lawyer Robert Goldstein wrote in the Tuesday filing in U.S. District Court in Worcester. “Indeed, at the original bail hearing, the government not only argued this was not ‘a typical white-collar case,’ but it proceeded to argue that it ‘is probably the largest financial fraud being prosecuted in the United States currently…'”
Merrill specifically identifies five accounts he hopes to draw from to fund his defense: two held in Merrill’s name containing $79,684.28; two in Merrill’s and his wife Kristin Merrill’s names containing $4,090,085.97; and one in the name of his cleaning company, Cleaner Image Associates, containing $10,643. All of those accounts were frozen by the
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TelexFree Inches Closer To Chapter 7
by Tina Williams • • 0 Comments
Yesterday saw a hearing for TelexFree Trustee Stephen Darr’s request for permission to subpoena several companies associated with TelexFree. Darr had also requested permission to conduct depositions with individuals from said companies, with the court granting him permission to proceed.
Five such motions were filed by Darr, with three of them granted as proposed. Alvares and Marsal (financial consultants to TelexFree) objected only to having to share emails between the firm and its legal counsel.
Darr agreed to this on condition that he reserves the right to request the emails, if needed, at a later date. A & M consented on condition they retain the right to appeal any such requests.
At the time of publication, no order has been made public regarding Darr’s request to subpoena TelexFree’s law firm Greenberg Traurig, however news reports suggest permission was granted on all five subpoena requests.
Speaking to the Worcester Telegram about why he had to file the requests, Darr remarked
There are no employees left. There’s no insurance. There never was insurance.
I have no money to start up the business. I just don’t know if there ever was a business. I’m hampered by a lack of records.
Following a raid on TelexFree’s headquarters, HSI and FBI agents seized a host of TelexFree’s onsite