Rewind to 2019’s most unusual financial crime case – the Ponzi schemer who paid US$720,000 for online spiritual rituals and filled freezers with beef tongues to cast voodoo spells on SEC lawyers to stop an investigation

Tweet This case wins first prize as the most unusual financial crime case of 2019. It’s about Dawn J. Bennett, a former stock broker from Maryland, who first worked with Western International Securities. In addition to selling securities, Bennett was a financial expert on a radio show where she dispensed investment advice and believed that […]

Over $3.2 billion missing in digital currency fraud in China; several Bitcoin exchanges shut down and many CEOs disappear with funds

Tweet A few weeks ago in China, several digital currency exchanges announced that they were suspending trading or shutting down operations altogether, leaving the recovery of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of funds with those exchanges up in the air, and this after approximately US$3 billion went missing from two initial coin offerings (“ICOs“) […]

“If I had been a better lawyer…” Scott Rothstein’s wife and her lawyer sentenced in Ponzi scheme money laundering case

Tweet Kim Rothstein, the so-called “free-spending” wife of Scott Rothstein, was sentenced to 18 months in jail yesterday for plotting to hide over $1 million worth of jewelry to avoid it being seized as proceeds of crime. Mr. Rothstein is a former lawyer incarcerated for running a $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme through the trust accounts […]

SEC charges Texas man with securities fraud for allegedly running Ponzi scheme involving bitcoin investments

Tweet Alleged Ponzi scheme involving bitcoin The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission announced today that it has charged Texas resident, Trendon Shavers, and an entity he ran called Bitcoin Savings and Trust (“BTCST“), with defrauding investors through the operation of a Ponzi scheme involving bitcoin. Bitcoin is a popular virtual currency. The charges have nothing […]

Law firm COO gets 10 year sentence for money laundering in Ponzi scheme

Tweet Debra Villegas, former chief operating officer of the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale law firm run by Scott Rothstein, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 years and ordered to pay US$363 million in restitution today in Florida. Villegas forged signatures on fabricated legal settlements that were sold to wealthy investors. Earlier this year, […]