Who are some of the most heartless scammers out there?
Let’s get right into their scams!
4 - Boston hedge fund SCAMager A Boston hedge fund operation was accused
of running a Ponzi scheme that included spending investor money on liquor, luxury hotels and
specialty cars.
The top securities regulator in Massachusetts barred Murakami and his three hedge funds
from any securities business.
Murakami had already drained the bank accounts of investors for his own benefit.
And who were his first victims?
His family and friends.
Hedge UnFund
A hedge fund is a partnership that includes private investors whose capital is managed
by seasoned fund managers that employ a variety of tactics, such as trading in non-traditional
assets, to generate above-average returns on investment.
Murakami began his first hedge fund in 2007 with his MC2 Capital Partners Fund.
The fund was marketed mainly to friends and family members- because if he’s going to
steal from anyone, it may as well be people who know and love him- taking in more than
$3.5 million.
Murakami had no discernible strategy and lost nearly $600,000 in the first three months
and by the end of the next year, the fund had a negative balance of roughly $2.4 million.
So Murakami started a second fund, MC2 Capital Value Partners Fund, which ended with similar
catastrophic losses.
And Murakami, being the solid guy that he is, had actively worked to hide those losses
from investors by soliciting more investments and supplying misleading performance numbers.
Next, Murakami struck a deal with ANOTHER hedge fund to start MC2 Capital Canadian Opportunities
Fund, which then allowed him to get investors to give him even more money.
Murakami then used that new money to pay out investors in the other two MC2 funds.
While investors were waiting for their promised returns, Murakami was buying a sports car,
traveling, enjoying high-end shopping trips, staying in luxury hotels, and of course, racking
up thousand-dollar restaurant bills.
In all, Murakami stole more $15.3 million from at least 47 investors.
Aftermath
Murakami was eventually investigated and arrested for his Ponzi hedge fund scheme.
When initially summoned to testify before the enforcement section of the securities
division, Murakami pled the fifth.
But with the piles of evidence against him, Murakami changed his plea of ‘the fifth’
to ‘guilty’ and admitted to withholding information regarding the hedge fund, and
to providing investors with falsified account statements to fool them into thinking their
investments were safe.
Murakami was sentenced to six years in prison, and ordered to pay more than $10.5 million
in restitution.
Ponzi’s never work, but these clowns keep trying.
3 - Left Feeling Dumb David Aubel is a professional con man who’s
very good at telling people what they want to hear.
Aubel ran a scam that stole millions of dollars from at least 12 investors, some of whom lost
their entire life savings.
One woman, believing Aubell’s company was real, lost $50,000 after buying into what
she thought was a solid investment.
The woman had complete faith in Aubel after he’d given her a fake stock certificate
she believed to be authentic, but was left feeling dumb when she found out it was totally
worthless.
Just like David Aubel.
No Angel Investments
Aubel and his partner, Nelson Garcia, operated a company they ironically named ‘Angel Investments’,
and claimed to sell shares from startup companies which could be turned into equity after one
year.
Aubel and Garcia also promised investors quarterly returns of 8.25% or more, raking in more than
$2.4 million.
The companies were real, but the stocks were not.
While the money never actually went to the start ups, Aubel did spend all that money
on the betterment of mankind, or rather, a very specific part of mankind.
This betterment included spending roughly $15,000 at restaurants- because these guys
ALWAYS have to go overspend at restaurants-, $515,000 on family members, and over $31,000
on entertainment, along with making $138,578 cash withdrawals, probably in all singles
if you get our drift, and $673,000 on credit cards.
Aubel had no qualms about spending other people’s life savings eating too much and putting young
women through college- sadly, those victims only ever got about 5% returned to them.
Previous Crimes
About 5 years before ‘Angel Investments’, Aubel and a co-conspirator named Robert Raffa
got themselves arrested and charged for their involvement in a scheme to manipulate the
market for penny stock company Green Energy Renewable Solutions, Inc., who claimed to
develop and operate waste processing and recycling facilities.
Raffa and Aubel had used foreign accounts to sneakily acquire nearly all of Green Energy’s
unrestricted stock without reporting their controlling interests.
Then, they started an email campaign promoting Green Energy to potential investors, while
selling their shares at the same time.
If you think that sounds illegal and shady, it is, and we’re proud of your intuition.
Raffa and Aubel were able to sell more than 1.5 million shares of Green Energy stock,
making roughly $900,000.
Raffa and Aubel still controlled a large amount of Green Energy after that first round, so
they used more manipulative trading techniques to stabilize Green Energy’s stock price
until they could run a second campaign.
That second campaign was actually run by a stock promoter who was working with an undercover
federal agent.
The agent pretended to have access to a ring of corrupt stockbrokers who would buy shares
for kickbacks.
Raffa and Aubel sold 174,000 shares of their Green Energy stock to one of these corrupt
brokers, then sent a $6,000 kickback payment, and in return, got themselves arrested.
Aubel pled guilty, was charged with bail jumping after he repeatedly failed to show up for
sentencing.
Eventually, US marshals drug Aubel to court by the scruff of his neck like a puppy about
to get its nose rubbed in the accident it left on the rug.
Aubel got 87 months in prison, five years of supervised release and had to pay $242,553
in restitution.
The judge also probably firmly shouted NO! and told him he was BAD!
VERY VERY BAD!, but was left out of court reports.
Busted
Back in the present, the Office of Financial Regulation arrested David Aubel and Nelson
Garcia on charges related to their involvement in the $2.4 million Angelic Investments scheme.
Aubel was extradited from a federal prison where he had already been serving out his
sentence for his previous securities fraud scheme.
Garcia claims that Aubel destroyed his life along with the victims, and that he was tricked,
hoodwinked, bamboozled, and most of all, snookered.
Rapaciously snookered.
Garcia gave an interview while under house arrest and claimed Aubel used a phony name
and phony documents to convince Garcia that he was legit.
Now Garcia says he’s out of work and broke- making this claim despite court records showing
that he was paid more than $352,000.
Garcia faces charges of engaging in a securities fraud conspiracy and unlicensed telemarketing-
as if regular telemarketing wasn’t bad enough, this guy didn’t even have a license!
Aubel was charged with securities fraud, unlicensed telemarketing, three counts of money laundering
and engaging in an organized scheme to defraud.
Being the naughty little bail jumper he is, Aubel was denied bail and is currently awaiting
trial.
2 - Millennium Mobster America’s Not so sweetheart, Nancy Carrol
Spinx stole over $8.6 million through money-laundering from 23 victims at Millennium Title, an escrow
company in Florida.
Carroll stole the money clients had entrusted to her through real estate sales and closings,
1041 Exchanges, and in the heinous case of Jeremiah Adam Wright, life insurance funds.
Jeremiah was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident, leaving a wife and two little girls
to fend for themselves.
Jeremiah’s widow hired Carroll to create a trust account for the $100,000 the family
would receive in insurance funds.
Carroll told the family that when she got the funds she would deposit them in a court
registry in Wise County.
Then she kept it because, apparently, Carroll needed a new car more than she needed her
soul.
Seriously, who steals from a widow and her children?
Millennium Title
Texas insurance regulators took over Carroll’s title company, Millennium Title, after she
disappeared with millions of dollars.
The Texas Department of Insurance, or TDI, said that Millennium Title had less than $10,000
available to pay over $100,000 in bills.
Title companies hold deposits in escrow for real estate buyers- earnest money, down payments
on homes, or profits from real estate sales.
Like a trusted friend that holds the money until it’s ready to be paid out.
A few days before the takeover, a neighbor said he noticed someone moving out of Carroll’s
upscale Keller home in the middle of the night.
By the next day, the house was empty and no one knew where Carroll was.
At the time of her disappearance, there was $3 million missing from the company’s escrow
accounts, and $2 million from separate investor accounts.
Carroll had vanished for over a month, but was eventually found and arrested in Lake
Forest, a swanky suburb of Chicago, where she was renting a house for about $8,500 a
month, and had started a moving truck business.
Carroll was caught when she was eating at a Chicago mall when her husband, Bubba- of
course his name would be Bubba…- 23 years her junior, used her PayPal card to pay for
the food.
Mall security was notified when the account was flagged, and Carroll was arrested while
walking to her 16 year-old-son’s Mercedes.
Lifestyle
Carroll was known for her excessive and outrageous spending habits.
She seemed entirely too proud of her opulent lifestyle that included fur coats- seriously,
who still wears fur coats besides Cruella De Ville?- a fleet of Mercedes, and horses.
She also was found to have spent roughly twelve and a half thousand dollars on a Taylor Swift
concert, forty three hundred dollars to attend the Academy of Country Music Awards, and $100,000
thousand dollars on a second wedding.
Carroll was also particularly cavalier when it came to her various criminal activities.
At one point while in custody, Carroll was heard on a recorded phone call with her mother
laughing about her crimes, dismissing them as only white collar, calling herself “Millennium
Mobster” after her title company, and openly mocking the idea that she’d do any time
for stealing $8 million.
Which, by the way, is a really strange way to behave when you’re already incarcerated
for your crimes and you’re aware that your phone call is being recorded.
The next time you’re incarcerated for stealing $8 million, probably don’t do that.
In a different recorded call before her time in jail, Carroll called her mother from her
Lake Forest home, talking about how she wanted to get in touch with the publisher of “The
Wolf of Wall Street”.
Carroll had apparently been hard at work writing the first chapter of her biography/movie,
“Everything that Glitters is not Gold”, which would star America’s other sweetheart,
Reese Witherspoon.
In a very Michael Scott move, she also had her cover planned out: her own hands in handcuffs
holding a Louis Vuitton handbag.
It sounds awesome.
Liquidated
While incarcerated in Lake Forest, Carroll had another recorded call with Bubba- who
was likely to be played by Chris Hemsworth in her blockbuster we’re sure- and told
him to withdraw all the funds from her bank accounts.
Carroll wanted to liquidate her assets so they couldn't be seized by the man while she
was bankrupting her company.
This is also illegal by the way, so probably don’t do this either.
During Carroll’s proceedings, there was talk of a Probation plea deal, where a judge
orders the offender to prison for a shorter time, then suspends the remainder of the sentence
in favor of probation.
The hope is that the experience of prison would provide an effective deterrent from
recidivism.
But TDI said they would vigorously oppose any form of early probation because of Carroll’s
brazenness and lack of remorse.
Ultimately, Carroll was sentenced to 10 years in prison as part of a plea agreement and
was ordered to pay $8.6 million in restitution.
Sadly, of $8.6 million Carroll was ordered to pay back, only $3.6 million will be covered
by the Texas Department of Insurance’s policy guaranty fund.
Those who lost money on the 1031 Exchanges, which is when an investor swaps out an investment
property for another to defer capital gains or losses, have no recourse under Texas law.
During her sentencing, Carroll was visibly crying as her 10 year prison sentence was
handed down.
1 - Superannuations 24 year old Jasmine Vella-Arpaci was part
of a cybercrime syndicate that stole millions of dollars from Australians’ superannuation
and share-trading accounts.
Ol’ Jazzy-pants was the only heartless piece of crap caught in the scheme, which involved
over $3 million being taken from superannuations and over $238,000 from share trading accounts.
Superannuations are essentially Australia's retirement pension benefit funds, similar
to a 401(k), with mandatory contributions made by the employer.
Vella-Arpaci was stealing money from retirement funds, and described accounts for those at
the age of eligibility- about to retire- for access as the 'ultimate jackpot'.
An elderly couple in their 80s and 90s spoke of the hopelessness they felt when learning
they had been targeted in the scam, finding out they’d lost everything.
Another woman revealed she was literally weeks from retirement when her entire $500,000 life
savings was stolen.
Her criminal syndicate self-identified as ‘Team Awesome’
Go Phish!
Vella-Arpaci was involved in a phishing scam, where the attacker sends a fraudulent message
designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information, to access account login
details she purchased on the dark web.
Vella-Arpaci mainly targeted businesses with HR, admin or bookkeeper usernames, hoping
they would have access to superannuation account details
Jasmine also manipulated identification documents to change names or dates of birth then stamping
them with a false certification stamp.
Those details were then used to withdraw funds and arrange shares to be sold, with proceeds
deposited in newly opened bank accounts.
Debit cards from the new accounts were then sent to fake addresses in Hong Kong to launder
proceeds.
Vella-Arpaci would then get her cut of the money in cryptocurrency.
Clever Girl
When Vella-Arpaci wasn’t available to steal money herself, she left instructions on her
computer for her sub explaining how to steal debit cards using stolen identification documents
from vacant houses’ mailboxes.
Her instructions suggested dressing like an office worker or a real estate agent when
grabbing the cards in order to remain inconspicuous.
Vella-Arpaci even planned for nosey neighbors, suggesting to park down the street and pretend
to be on a phone call, or just returning an hour later.
Once Vella-Arpaci had the cards in her grubby little Vella-Arpaci paws, she sent them straight
to Hong Kong.
However, the cards would have to be activated, so smooth Jas would notify the bank that the
account holder was overseas to prevent any fraud alerts.
Aftermath
Vella-Arapci’s scheme came to an end when she was finally arrested after a joint investigation
by the Australian Federal Police and Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
At the time of her arrest, police found roughly 1400 documents on her computer including drivers
licenses, passports, and Medicare cards.
Vella-Arapci was paid more than $147,000 in bitcoin for her involvement in stealing from
old people.
In total, there were 26 victims,and roughly $3 million pilfered from the superannuation
accounts, and $238,000 in shares that were stolen and sold.
Of that, over $2.5 million was laundered through the syndicate.
Fortunately, the syndicate failed when it attempted to take an extra $1.80 million in
super fund money as well as $5.75 million worth of shares before Vella-Arpaci was caught.
Jasmine Vella-Arpaci faced a whopping 53 counts of fraud and theft.
She’s since pleaded guilty.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section below what you’d rather do if you HAD to do it, try
to rob a bank and face whatever consequences, OR go straight to prison for a year?