Until the Bernie Madoff case, the term “clawback” was virtually unknown in the asset recovery world. Now it has become a powerful tool for court appointed receivers and a nightmare for those lucky Ponzi scheme victims who cashed out early or managed to independently recover some of their investment. The Wikipedia definition is quite vague […]
Revictimizing the Victims – "Reloading" Common in Ponzi Schemes
[Original post October 2010, post supplemented and republished April 2020] Recently an unemployed woodsman from Washington state was convicted of nine federal offenses including blowing up his own mailbox (destruction of a mail box is a federal crime.) What was he doing? Trying to convince victims of a Ponzi scheme to give him money in […]
Medicare Fraud Whistleblower Opportunity?
Periodically, we review the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services enforcement action docket. There are literally tens of thousands of healthcare providers across the country. Most participate in the Medicare or Medicaid health programs. The government periodically audits a small percentage of these providers each year. When a significant problem is uncovered, the government can […]
Nikolai Battoo and Tracy Sunderlage – "Sons of Madoff"?
It’s Halloween weekend and kids throughout the country are dressed in costume. (Same for a fair amount of adults in college towns too.) 75 years ago, the public was terrified when the hit movie Son of Frankenstein was released in theaters. Today it takes more than a movie to scare most adults. For this Halloween […]
Donors Sue Over Abusive Tax Shelter
The University of Arizona Foundation and two of their largest donors, Karl and Stevie Eller, have filed suit against Swiss bank UBS for its role in an abusive tax shelter scheme. The Ellers’ previously donated $23 million to the University. The lawsuit claims that UBS was acting as the Ellers’ financial advisor and that they […]
Seattle MD Faces Medicare Fraud Charges
A Seattle physician has been charged with Medicare fraud. Published reports claim Bruce Chen was falsely billing for visiting patients. While that may sound more like an oversight or paperwork error, the government says some of the patients allegedly seen by Chen were dead while at other times he wasn’t even in the United States. […]
Whistleblower Receives $14 Million from SEC
The government may be shut down for a few days but one lucky whistleblower will soon be receiving a check for $14,000,000.00 according to the SEC. Although the whistleblower chose to remain anonymous, we do know that his or her information helped the government recover tens of millions of dollars on behalf of defrauded investors. […]
Sunderlage / Battoo Litigation Mired In Guernsey Court
Hundreds of Americans have suffered tremendous losses from investing with Tracy Sunderlage and Nikolai Battoo and funds related to them. Some say the two men are responsible for $1.5 billion in investor losses. One of the biggest battles being fought today concerns the whereabouts of the missing money. To date we have spoken with dozens […]
Massachusetts Targets REITs… Again
We have written many posts about REITs – Real Estate Investment Trusts. They can be great investments but many have liquidity problems. Stockbrokers often recommend them to the wrong customers as well. In May, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Gavin announced that five brokerage firms had agreed to pay restitution of $6.1 million to settle […]
Affinity Fraud? SEC Charges Broker in Alleged $4.7 Million Ponzi Scheme
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Larry Dearman Sr, an investment advisor working for Focus Group Advisors, with defrauding dozens of investors between 2008 and 2012. They say that many victims entrusted him with their savings because of his affiliation with a small town Oklahoma church. According to published reports, Dearman at one time served […]
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