Fxpro, who belongs to EuroOrient Securities and Financial Services Ltd, will be now the owner of NorthFinance Broker on June 1st 2008.

Here is part of the letter from NorthFinance:

We would like to inform you about our decision to accept the offer from EuroOrient Securities and Financial Services Ltd, owners of FxPro.com, and sell to them the operations of North Finance as of June 1^st 2008. The reasons that let us to take this decision are the many changes that have taken place recently which affected our industry and in particular the provision of online trading services for Forex and CFDs.

Due to various events and the increasing demand from investors and regulators, the whole industry is moving under the supervision and regulation by competent financial authorities. We believe that our decision will benefit our common clients.

Who are EuroOrient and FxPro.com

EuroOrient is a European company, registered in the Republic of Cyprus (certificate 181344) and it is regulated in the European Union by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission under license 078/07. The trade name “FxPro” and the domain “www.FxPro.com” are owned by EuroOrient. You can verify the information on EuroOrient and FxPro by visiting the websites www.FxPro.com and www.EuroOrient.eu.

FxPro offers competitive dealing spreads starting from 1.8 pips, plus other superior trading conditions to investors who would like to trade in CFDs for Forex, Stocks, Futures, Precious Metals; more than 120 financial instruments in total. FxPro provides investors with the highest standards of professional service and operates a 24/5 multilingual customer support. 

Clients Need to Transfer to FxPro.com by 31^st of May 2008

Clients in order to continue trading with the existing terms and conditions after EuroOrient takes over the operations of North Finance on 1^st June 2008, they need to follow 3 simple steps and accept their Terms and Conditions. By following this procedure, as of 00:01am (GMT+2) on 1^st June 2008, the clients will automatically become Clients of EuroOrient Securities and Financial Services Ltd. Until the 31^st of May 2008, all accounts (Cash Balance and Open Positions) will be under the responsibility of North Finance Co Ltd. All OPEN Positions and Positive Cash Balance of each account will be transferred safely to EuroOrient Securities and Financial Services Ltd where clients can access their account(s) with the same Login and Password Codes at no extra cost and no hassle.

Thanks a lot to TraderJ for all these files and information that you can download from my server in a zip file:

Legisi

As I know Greg McKnight has been charged but the case has not began yet. The thinking is that he will get 10 years once it´s all over but who knows… the SEC just closed him down some days ago and it is the beginning of this process.

Thanks to member okosh who posted in Jude´s Forum about this news. I want to share it with my readers too:

Greg McKnight (Legisi´s Admin) has been indicted!

I posted about this program before in this post.

When some people invest a great sum of money into these ponzis they always think that those bad news are not true (I am sure you are also one of these if you have been scammed before), they maintain the hope to receive a refund from these scam artists and they also trust them until it´s too late. Meanwhile some of these scammers are sending your funds to different locations/digital accounts, thinking how to avoid authorities, or simply dissapearing from the map.

Others simply never show his/her real name, using anonymous proxys to hide the IP and the real country where they live. But this is not the case with Greg McKnight. He even showed his real name and identification to some investors and so he gained their confidence. You could even read his real name and address in the whois of the domain, a very strange case.

Please avoid hyips like a plague. If you want to invest your funds there are other solutions. For example you can open your own forex account where nobody can withdraw your money except yourself, and then you can find a good trader to make a reliable profit paying him a monthly fee.

Sunday, May 04, 2008 / FBI

SACRAMENTO, Calif.-United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced that JOEL NATHAN WARD, 49, of Turlock, California, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Garland E. Burrell, Jr. to nine years in prison for masterminding a Ponzi scheme in which nearly 100 investors lost over $11 million. WARD was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $11,275,501.53 and to serve three years of supervised release after the completion of his prison sentence. He was remanded into custody immediately following the sentencing hearing.

This case is the product of an extensive joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates commodity futures and options markets in the United States, has noted the sharp rise and increasing complexity of foreign currency exchange (forex) trading scams. WARD, a frequent commentator and seminar speaker on forex trading, ran an elaborate forex trading scam through an investment fund he controlled called the Joel Nathan ForexFund.

According to Assistant United States Attorneys Benjamin B. Wagner and Ellen V. Endrizzi, who prosecuted the case, sentencing documents filed in the case show that WARD offered investors the opportunity to invest in the foreign exchange interbank spot market through his fund. Between early 2003 and November 2006, WARD took in over $15 million from investors. Of that, about 85% was diverted to other purposes, including promoting WARDs business interests, salary, travel and other expenses, and purchasing a foreign exchange trading school in Sacramento called Learn:Forex. WARD also used about $3.7 million to make Ponzi payments back to investors who sought to withdraw funds. According to trading records, he only actually traded about $2 million, and lost virtually all of it in the foreign exchange market. WARD concealed his diversion of funds by sending false account statements to investors purporting to show trading profits. He also defrauded investors in a second scheme relating to a purported real estate investment project in Mississippi. Nearly 100 investors lost a total of over $11.3 million.

Joel Nathan Ward earned every minute of the nine-year sentence the court imposed. He brazenly defrauded scores of victims out of over $11 million, stated US Attorney Scott.

Several victims spoke during the sentencing hearing, telling the judge about the financial devastation caused by WARDs conduct, and their hopes for restitution. In sentencing WARD today, Judge Burrell stated that WARD defrauded many people. He caused losses over $11 million, and many investors suffered devastating losses.

The defendant had proposed that he be allowed to remain out of prison while he attempted to generate funds to repay investors. In rejecting that plan, Judge Burrell stated that the magnitude of his crimes, the manner in which the economic crimes were committed and concealed, and the duration of the criminal activities required a lengthy prison sentence.

Interview with the trader: 

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/253956.html

More news:

Bloomberg

Usnews

Modbee

Findlaw

You can read the last news in E-gold Blog:

April 21, 2008

Maybe we have a proof now about what mt4 brokers are doing with all of us traders!

Take a look at this plugin (Virtual Dealer), these are not good news to MT4´s system:

I recommend you to follow this thread in forexfactory to know some more about this plugin:

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=70582

Do you want to know which other websites are sharing the server in your hosting with your own website?. Well, now it´s very easy with this new tool and website:

MyIPneighbors

Maybe you have that curiosity. In my case I am sharing the server with 220 websites!

Enjoy!

Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for seconds to minutes after power is lost, even at operating temperatures and even if removed from a motherboard. 

Although DRAMs become less reliable when they are not refreshed, they are not immediately erased, and their contents persist sufficiently for malicious (or forensic) acquisition of usable full-system memory images. This phenomenon limits the ability of an operating system to protect cryptographic key material from an attacker with physical access. 

It can be used on popular disk encryption systems — BitLocker, FileVault, dm-crypt, and TrueCrypt — using no special devices or materials. 

Some more information:

Securosis

CITP

Yesterday I read in a Spanish newspaper (El Mundo) a warning from CNMV (National Securities Market Commission, it´s the organism who regulates financial markets in Spain) about “Finanzas Forex” (commercial name) or “Evolution Market Group”:

- His owner: German Cardona Soler, was involved before in some different businesses since 2002,  with great losses to many people, these businesses were about telephony, betting, games…

-  This program offers to their promoters good comissions to attract new investors, even with bonds in the form of luxury cars and some helps to buy a house (60.000 eur). With this referral program the company is getting 600 investors/1.200.000 eur daily. 

- The profit they supposedly get trading in the Forex market is not realistic in a long term or constantly: from 10% to 21% monthly.

- The company has got about 18.500 clients, managing a patrimony of 77 million of eur. This income is transferred to an American Company called Crowne Gold, and from this last company the funds are “supposedly” transferred to Dukascopy broker.

- One of the most active promoters is Santiago Fuentes, who posted in his website that they were in the process to be regulated by CNMV, but this organism denies it.

Source in Spanish language:

ElMundo newspaper 

According to this post, Global Pension Plan could be involved in some kind of investigation or fraud:

Feds seize more than $1M from Norfolk pastor

Posted to: Crime News NorfolkBy Tim McGlone

The Virginian-Pilot© April 4, 2008

Federal agents seized more than $1.1 million from a self-proclaimed pastor in Norfolk who is under investigation in an international investment fraud scheme, according to court filings unsealed this week. Benjamin Seigler of Pall Mall Street has not been charged but is the focus of an ongoing inquiry into several of his investment programs, says an affidavit filed in federal court this week by U.S. postal inspectors.

More than 4,000 individuals in this country and abroad placed investments with Seigler, but none has seen any returns, the affidavit says. “Seigler is defrauding individuals by selling fraudulent insurance and securities products” says the affidavit, filed by postal inspector Eric Brown. “This scheme is ongoing.”

Postal inspectors have been investigating Seigler since November, when managers at the Norview post office, near Seigler’s apartment, noticed he was receiving more than 50 letters a day containing money orders made out to him in amounts ranging from $44 to $1,000, which Seigler cashed at various post offices around the city, the affidavit says.

The mail originated from states across the country as well as from Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Many of the money orders noted they were payment to the “Global Pension Investment Trust” or some variation. Further investigation discovered that Seigler had deposited, from October to March, more than $900,000 in cash in a Chartway Federal Credit Union account, Brown said in his affidavit.

The inspectors obtained warrants to listen in on Seigler’s phone calls. During daily conference calls with investors, Seigler said his investments would yield greater returns than traditional bank accounts or stock programs, Brown wrote.

For example, an investment for as little as $42.62 in an insurance contract would yield $3,000, $79,000 or as much as $154,000, Brown’s affidavit says.

The investments were purportedly to be made through an online entity called Global Pension Plan, which has a Web site with no phone number, address or contact information, nor does it identify exactly what insurance program funds are invested with.

“Because we want to succeed in this business, we need to protect the privacy of all our partners. This may sound confusing and shady, but please try to take another perspective,” Global Pension Plan says on its Web site.

Postal inspectors interviewed a number of people, mainly in Arizona and Louisiana, who invested with Seigler but have not received any returns. Those investors were not identified in the court filings. Postal inspectors did not return calls for comment. Officials in the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

Messages left for Seigler at his home were not returned. Over the past several months, about 15 people who invested with Seigler signed an online petition stating that Seigler “has caused great consternation among some in the group” by not investing in the Global Pension Fund. The petition signatures are collected at ipetitions.com, an independent Web site. The petition asks that officials at Global Pension Fund “take appropriate action” to divorce Seigler from the program.

Postal inspectors say they believe Seigler used some of the investors’ money to pay for his own investments, but largely had stocked the money in his Chartway account, according to the court records. Last month, the inspectors took more than $1 million from Seigler’s credit union account plus another $150,000 in cash from his home as well as 27 boxes of documents, two computers and a handgun, according to a federal search warrant unsealed this week.

Agents also seized three brand-new vehicles Seigler purchased recently: twoChevy Malibus and a Chevy Trailblazer. When he purchased the vehicles, Seigler identified himself as a pastor with a church called “Talking by Faith Global Deliverance Anointed,” according to Brown’s affidavit.

Public records show that Seigler held a Virginia home improvement contractor’s license from 2000 to 2004 and that he lived in Virginia Beach at the time. In 1996, Seigler and his wife filed for bankruptcy in Pennsylvania and emerged with their debts discharged, according to court records.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com