Two Ponzi Scammers Got Their Prison Sentences Handed Down...

Two ponzi scammers got their prison sentences handed down recently in early 2017.

Paul Burks, who was the head of the $939 million Zeek Rewards ponzi scheme with over 1 million victims around the world, got 14 years in a Federal prison, in addition to fines of $244 million in restitution (which he can't pay as he already gave up all his possessions) and 3 years probation. Given that Burks is already 70 years old and is believed to be not in the best of health, he may spend his final days in prison.

Two other top heads of the scheme, Daniel Olivarez (computer guru) and Dawn Wright-Olivares (VP of Operations and spokesperson) have been sentenced previously to lesser terms for their contributory roles in the scam that was shut down in 2012 by SEC and Secret Service. It was believed they were fined and have to give up their residence. There was no word on what happened to a restaurant Dawn allegedly operated, or what happened to her job at a different MLM company called iWowwe.

MLM Skeptic had been tracking Zeek Rewards for over a year before it was shut down and published several articles explaining how Zeek Rewards cannot be legitimate. Indeed, in the final days of their scam they tried to gag me with a "takedown request" to my content host by claiming MLMSkeptic had violated their trademark when it was quickly realized that the alleged trademarks was not even owned by them! Must be really desperate over there in their final days, as only a few weeks later when SEC and Secret Service stepped in.

In other news, co-leader of a smaller ponzi known as "The Achieve Community", Kristine Johnson, was sentenced to 21 months in Federal Prison. TAC, which is peanuts compared to Zeek, was shutdown in 2015 by SEC. It was a pretty simple Ponzi scheme that didn't bother to polish itself by hiring celebrity lawyers and experts and pretending to be legitimate. They mainly stuck to Facebook and such, by claiming "triple algorithm" that can multiply money... What utter nonsense.

MLM Skeptic had not been tracking TAC but it was identified early on by Oz of BehindMLM as a simple cycler ponzi scheme.

What do these two scams have in common? It's actually quite simple..

GREED.

Scam Psychology: Victim Mindset is all about asset recovery, not justice

JusticeAlwaysLate, a FB blogger in Malaysia who primarily blogs in Chinese / Cantonese, recently relayed a little anecdote which I thought was rather... illustrative of the victim mindset. The scam name is not important, but it's a pretty big one in China that resulted in arrests earlier this year called Nanning (南寧) any way, it goes like this:

有个南宁受害者来找哦，丈夫倾家荡产相信兄弟，投资了下去。先是云数贸， 然后圆梦都亏大本，兄弟建议他用南宁回本，有事他包。
A certain victim of Nanning scam came to tell a sob story. Husband is about to go bankrupt, believing in a buddy, invested everything, against and again, first it was YSM (a scam fronted by a Chinese guy), then YC and lost big in both. Buddy told him he can make it back with Nanning, and the buddy claims he'll cover the losses if it happens.  

这个丈夫就把所有钱丢进去了南宁骗局，留下老婆和父母，家里一直缺钱用。他问我怎么办。
Thus, this husband threw everything that's left into the Nanning scam, leaving wife and parents with nothing. She asked me, what should she do? Family needs money now to live.  

我说：我叫她报警捉人。。
I said, go to the cops, have the perps arrested.  

她又说：不能，这样会拿不回钱，兄弟答应丈夫在等一段日子就会把钱还给丈夫。。请问现在该怎么办？
She said, no way, can't get the money back that way. Buddy promised that he'll make up the money later. What should she do now?  

我说：那么给我他们的资料与细节，我炸到他们出门都没得躲，
I said, give me their information and background. I'll reveal them so they can't hide anywhere.  

她又说：这样就更没有办法还钱给我们了。请问现在该怎么办？
She said again, no way they'll return the money if you do that. Now what?  

我就说：现在是他欠你们钱，为什么你要替老千着想？
I said, why are you thinking for these crooks? THEY owe YOU money!  

她又说：不是不要报警不给你资料，等我们拿到钱了我们会去做的。
She said, It's not that she's not going to the cops, she had to get the money first, THEN she'll go to the cops.  

我说：那你找我干嘛？闲聊吗？
I said, so why are you here? Chitchat?  

她的最后回复是：好，当我看错你了。
Her final answer was, alright, guess I was mistaken about you. 

The victims have primary emphasis on recovery of money. They realize they had been deceived, but they don't want justice done. They want to be made whole first. This greed (what got them scammed in the first place) lead them to believe that they will get the money back, either someone promised them so, or they decided to lock their morals in the basement and went all out recruiting (i.e. turned judas goat) so they can get their money back.

They don't realize that the money is GONE, and they've just seeing excuses after excuses.