Criminal suits against ColonyInvest and Blue Ocean Siam

According to a report from Nov 11, 2010 in the Nation (Bangkok), the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) filed cases against two pyramid schemes, one the ominous Colony Invest (colonyinvest), see the report.

Pyramid scam leader convicted.

The BBC News reports today on a Chinese man, who masterminded a pyramid scheme. Investors lost a total of ~250 Million US$, and the man was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Any investment opportunity that promises unrealistic returns, such as HYIPs etc. are simply a fraudulent pyramid scheme.

The biggest pyramid scheme of them all... 50 Billion dollars gone

This is arguably the biggest con of all times: It is the pyramid scheme of former stock exchange chairman Bernard "Bernie" Madoff. Over 50 Billion U$ have disappeared, see these BBC reports: 1, 2.
The old adage holds true: If it's too good to be true, it's not true. This should be a wake-up call to all people investing into HYIPs, and other investments that promise high returns. These things are just plain fraud. In case of Madoff, he got away with it for so long, because he "only" offered 10% in return. But as can be seen, even in this case it was a scam.

Thousands of Columbians defrauded in pyramid scheme

Defrauded investors have rioted in several cities in Columbia. They were cheated out of their savings in a pyramid investment scheme, and now the crooks have closed shop, though some have been caught.
See the BBC News for the full report.

Spam and Malware sites receive a hit

A commentary on the Register.co.uk revealed that Directi provides the PrivacyProtect service. Behind this service many fraudulent web sites were hiding. The service itself (Privacyprotect.org), when a whois is performed, is hiding behind a mail box in New Zealand - with a note that all mail is rejected. The contact phone number given is in Denmark. A call to that number results only in an answering machine, telling you that nobody answers the phone. The service is provided by Directi, and they promise now to suspend abusive services within 24 hours.
The article revealed also other sites, such as Knujon (no junk backwards), which has a large list of junk email. Further, there is TeMerc Internet Countermeasures (a forum for adware, malware, spyware), Hostexploit, and Scaminvestments. Catty Shaq, mentioned in a previous post, has closed down, but the information was transferred to $caminvestments$.
In a joint statement from Sept. 7., 2008 from Directi, HostExploit and Kunujon, they promise collaboration in suspending fraudulent services.

wollenberginternational is also down

In case you have not noticed, well, not surprisingly, wollenberginternational.com is also down.

But new HYIPs will always pop up - perhaps the same guy under another name - to collect more money from gullible victims.
Don't fall for it.

ColonyInvest closed down, people loose millions in Thailand/Vietnam

Police have moved in on the ColonyInvest fraudsters, the Nation, Bangkok, reports. Many people have lost millions of baht in this fraudulent pyramid scheme. See The Nation.
Also in Vietnam people have been cheated out of Billions of VND by the pyramid scheme. Police have arrested 15 people. See Thanhnien News.com.

We have warned here against ColonyInvest since June 2007.
This just serves as a reminder that all these schemes that promise exceedingly high interest rates, these so-called HYIPs, are fraudulent. While they may pay some money in the beginning, this money comes from other investors, and not from proper investments, which never have such high rates of interest. The whole thing just collapses whenever the mastermind decides to run away with the money.

More info on HYIPs and scams

Catty Shaq has more infos and discussions of HYIPs and other online money making scams. It also has information on the e-Gold court case.

HYIPs are essentially scams.

Here is a nice explanation of how the HYIP (High Yield Investment Programs) scams (i.e. Colonyinvest, Wollenberg, SNGInvest, etc.) operate, see WorldLawdirect. It is similar to what you can find on HYIP in Wikipedia.
A simple fact is: "Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, made around 30% per year during his most successful period." So, any claims of higher profits by HYIPs cannot be real.

Very interesting is also the fact the e-gold, which is used by many HYIP programs as a way to transfer the funds is itself indicted on charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, see WLD forum thread on e-gold.

Wollenberg International (www.wollenberginternational.com), part 2

Wollenberg International claims to be based in Panama. The address they give is (click for larger picture):



Searching with this address, one finds that this is exactly the same address used by another fraudulent investment web site: Scandinavian Networking Group (www.snginvest.com), which has been exposed at sng-scam.info. Here is an excerpt of the Panamanian documents of SNG (taken from moneymakergroup):


As one will notice, the address is the same as for Wollenberg. So, either Wollenberg ING copied it from SNG, or they are the same operation. In either case, this looks like a scam.

The same address is used by what looks like yet another dubious investment site, siaminvestcorp.com (Siam Gain S.A.):



Siaminvestcorp has links to Hatfield Oak International, which in turn had links with SNGinvest (see sng-scam.info).

Then there is a representative of the a3union.com based in this apartment:


Furthere, we find an application form under vmover.com listing Hatfield Oak's address in the same place:

although Hatfield seems to have another address:


Vmover.com itself is an advertisement board for such sites as AmityFunds, SNGInvest, A3Union, ExclusiveCircle, FantasticPay, FeederFund, FX Club and more.

Sewercash has previously exposed Amityfunds as also being located in the same place Findings on Amityfunds

And people involved in Amityfunds and SNGinvest are prosecuted:


If you look at the Torre Cosmos Floor plans, the apartment tower where the address is, you will find that it contains 2- and 3-bedroom apartments, and four 2-bedroom penthouses on top. Apartment A on the 13th floor is a 3-bedroom apartment.
Well, well, this little apartment in Panama is pretty crowded...

Hence, Wollenberg is lying about being in Panama, or it's part of the SNGinvest/Amityfunds circle of fraudulent companies.

Another fraudulent investment scheme: Wollenberg International

While looking at colonyinvest, I also came across another suspect site: www.wollenbergfunds.com. This "company" has now undergone a substantial overhaul and markets itself as Wollenberg International marketing group (ING) at www.wollenberginternational.com. In an "advertisement" on one of the quick money scheme web forums, they claim "new ceo, new staff, totally new concept":






Let's look at the whois data of the old site, pretty much all information about www.wollenbergfunds.com seems to have been erased, but the whois data is still available:

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The new whois entry for www.wollenberginternational.com is this:




As one can see, the first administrator was Krzysztof Giemza in Tarnow, Poland, who registered the web site in Australia??!
The second administrator is now an "Arnold Wollenberg". However, as you will notice, this person is also in Tarnow, Poland, and the telephone number (+48 502 683982) is the same. Arnold Wollenberg is Krzysztof Giemza! The overhauled domain is simply the attempt to hide who he really is.








Now, we can find out more about Mr Giemza. Using the phone number to search, we find that he posted an advertisement to do house sitting in London! So, the successful investement company CEO is looking for housesitting jobs?!!












He provides a client testimonial on the sitecube.com web site, the flash software he used to develop the new wollenberginternational web site:


Also, on a web site in Poland, he listed his credentials looking for jobs:


We can see he speaks English and German, was a fitness instructor for 12 years, and a martial arts instructor for 19 years, and insurance agent for 1 year, and working in trading/enterprise for 4 years. Worked as English translator for 15 years. He also had some computer courses. Now he is operating an investment company supposedly based in Panama, but all contacts are in Poland? This sounds all very fishy. This is all in line with someone trying to make some fast money, not through investment, but with other people's money. Stay away!

More shady dealings of colonyinvest in Vietnam, part5

A Vietnamese newspaper tracked down the local representative of colonyinvest. See their article at
www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=30717.
How shady is it for a supposedly reputable business with investments yielding 100 percent gains per month to distribute info in a photocopy shop?! And to meet a representative of colony investment the newspaper had to go to a coffee shop. It is also very revealing that the colonyinvest representative claims that they get their money from investments in casinos, foreign exchange, and normal stock markets (high-tech/blue-chip). This clearly shows that this business cannot be legitimate, since, for example, no deals in foreign exchange currencies can yield such profits. It is very clear however, that the top colonyinvest representatives at this meeting get their money from the investment of other people. The normal “investor” is left with e-money that supposedly increases in a computer account. The real problem will start when they want to withdraw some real money… Tellingly, when the journalists wanted to borrow some e-money, the colonyinvest representatives said “no”. If Colony Invest can generate money so easily with their scheme, why can’t they lend a little e-money? Clearly, this is all about cheating people out of their real money. Stay away from this fraud!

Several taken down schemes: Phoenixsurf.com, FrancSwiss, SwissCash

While fraudulent schemes pop up everywhere, government agencies are making progress to catch them. The more people report them, the faster they will fall.

Here is a report on Phoenixsurf.com:

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SEC Charges Operators of Phoenixsurf.com Web Site With Conducting a Massive Internet Ponzi Scheme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2007-141
Washington, D.C., July 24, 2007 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed securities fraud charges against the operators of an Internet-based Ponzi scheme that raised $41.9 million in just four months from more than 20,000 investors worldwide.

---

For the full report see www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-141.htm

Or for FrancSwiss internet fraud see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=75039

And for SwissCash or Swiss Mutual Fund Web frauds (www.swissmutualfund.biz.) see http://www.todayonline.com/articles/167644.asp . Of course, a Swiss company based in the Commonwealth of Dominica should have raised alarm bells with investors.

Also, check out the Web site of the Monetary AUthority of Singapore, the maintain a list of fraudulent sites:
http://www.moneysense.gov.sg/check_our_list/Consumer_Portal_IAL.html . But because of the fast changing nature of these fraud internet sites, such list will never be complete.

Colony Invest fraud moves around, part4

Colony Invest (colonyinvest) operates also at colonyinvest.net. Their other - identicial - web site, www.colonyinvest.com, is presently not responsive. No reputable company would keep their ".com" down or inactive. They could reroute to the other. Perhaps they are on the move to hide from old investors.
Also, it seems they moved their blog entry to colonythailand.blogspot.com to attract Thai people into their scam. Colonythailand is the same fraud! They also have a web site geared towards Vietnamese at http://music.easyvn.com/colonyinvest/. The contact person associated with this Web site is a Nguyen Kinh Luan. It has a nice description of their pyramid scheme:



As one can see, this is a rather overcomplicated scheme, nobody is really supposed to understand the details, all that matters is that it promises extra percentages of profit for each new member that you can recruit. No investment company would offer such a pyramid scheme. In fact Colony Invest is both a pyramid and Ponzi scheme. This is illegal and does not work (see for example the Wikipedia entries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme).

Perhaps some people will get some money, but most will loose. Do not invest!

Colonyinvest Fraud, part3

Well, each time you look at that site, you just find more lies. The testimonials are all written in poor English, definitively not by a native English speaker. Further, this testimonial says they used this company for 6 months! What a lie. If you look in my first post, you will see that the Web site is up only since the middle of March 2007.

Forget these fraudsters...

Colonyinvest Fraud, part2

Colonyinvest is even running their own blog here on blogspot (or at least used to). Does it surprise me that they only have one post, advertising their schemes? Of course not.

At least this gives us the opportunity to look at their claims.


So, for 1000$ investment, at 3% interest per day put into a separte account, you get 1000$ in 33 days. You are supposed to gain 3000$ to 4000$ (it's not quite clear how this strange scheme is counting) in the short time of 100 days. Impossible with the investment sources (stock market, commodities) they cite on their Web page.
They clearly want to cheat unsuspecting people from SouthEast Asia. They offer low investment limits (just 100$ gets you started), and they have a strange online keyboard for entering information. This only makes sense if one thinks about possible entry problems caused by keyboards and alphabets in different countries.
They want to lure as many people as possible in a short time, therefore the network and friend-to-friend bonuses. Clearly this is an illegal pyramid scheme.

www.colonyinvest.com could be shut down any moment, and the only one who profits is the Web operator who collected all the money. Perhaps he will pay out some interest to the first investors to generate a positive feedback, and keep the money coming in, but at some point, this Web site and the money will just disappear. Since this seems to have started in April, it could stop any day.
Again, just keep away from such sites.

Scam Investment Schemes: ColonyInvest part1

There are plenty of fraudulent investment schemes out there. If a scheme sounds too good to be true, well, indeed, it's probably not true. Artists against 419 (419 is also known as Nigerian fraud) has a database of fake Banks (http://db.aa419.org/). Alas, this list is not complete, new schemes pop up all the time.
Let's have a look at a recent scheme: www.colonyinvest.com.

Can this be real? They apparently advertise their business mainly on Asian webboards (e.g. Malaysia), and seem to rely on word to word propaganda to sign up people, apparently in a pyramid scheme.
So, let's examine the Web site. The "About Us" section:



They claim to be the online investment branch of a major Investment company "Colony Invest Management Inc. ".
Web searches do not reveal any company by that name. Further, they are supposed to be based in Rochester, NY, but a check in the list of supervised institutions at the "State of NY Banking Department" http://www.banking.state.ny.us/supinst.htm" does not reveal any such company.
Most revealing is that nowhere in the Web site is any real adress or phone number listed. Highly suspicious.
Look at the supposed list of directors, many of the places they supposedly worked at cannot be found on the internet:
Estine Development Group, London Tucks Development Agency, Smith Simpson College, Barbra Capital Partners, Clinton, Dubbier & Rice, Inc. There is a "Simpson College" without "Smith", but why should a "reputable" company make such a mistake... Anyway, this whole list is just made up to look impressive.

What about the links to the companies they invest in, the references? You will notice that these are just links to other Web Sites, and none of these other Web Site ever mention or link back to ColonyInvest.

So, where is the Web site registered? A search on http://www.whois.net/ brings us to the registrar godaddy.com (where you can register a web site for 10$ a year). The information there yields:



Wow, a single person in Fremont California (whatever happened to Rochester, NY?) is listed as administrator and technical expert, and he has a yahoo email address in China! How fishy is that?
A reverse lookup of the phone number at http://www.whitepages.com/ gives us the following information for the same phone number:



Ibi synergy (http://www.ibisynergy.com/) is an importer of condoms for NR Synergy in Malaysia. This seems to be a little legitimate business. You can make another lookup for this Web address and find another owner listed for this phone number. But clearly, this is very different from what ColonyInvest is supposed to be.

Finally, let's look at some of the fine print of ColonyInvest. In their FAQ:

To deposit money into an account of theirs, they charge 5%!. To withdraw money, they charge 10%. So, according to the example given, you deposit 1075$, and when you want to withdraw it later, you get 860$ back. So, together with fees, they take 20% of your money, what a rip-off. No reputable bank will do that. And nowhere do they promise you any garanteed profits... For each transaction in the market they charge you 50$. A search for "online banking" will give you many online banks that allow you stock market trading for less than 10$ per transaction.

So, in conclusion, just stay away...