Christian Money This group of men almost pulled off one of
the biggest radio scams in history, with more than 155 million dollars stolen from over
700 Christian investors.
Just how did they come together to decide to specifically target Christians to separate
them from their money?
A Scam is Born It all started when Bo Beckman met Christopher
Pettengill in 2004.
Each of them owned a money management firm but decided to put their heads together and
launch Oxford Private Client Group in August 2005.
Pettengill invested on the side with a man named Trevor Cook and suggested, in 2006,
that Beckman consider investing with him as well.
Cook was making his living doing Forex trading.
Eventually, Beckman was convinced that Cook's investment strategy could work and bought
into his firm.
Cook, Beckman, and Pettengill all eventually linked up with Gerald Durand, who was a longtime
associate of Cook's.
They created a new firm as equal partners called Oxford Global Advisors.
Living Like Kings And here’s where red flag number 1 comes
in.
Back in June of 2007, Cook bought the historic and castle-like Van Dusen Mansion in Minneapolis.
They set up shop and got to work.
Beckman continued to run his money management firm from the mansion.
With Cook at the helm, the four men needed a personality—a face for the scam.
They needed someone who was in the ear of the general public.
They needed Patrick Kiley.
Kiley hosted a radio program called "Follow the Money" that aired on more than 200 stations,
including many Christian radio stations.
Kiley was the perfect addition to the scheme.
His older audience had plenty of money to invest, especially right after the dotcom
boom.
Forex Market If you’re not familiar, foreign currency
exchange, most commonly known as Forex, is simply converting one form of currency to
another.
It’s one of the most active markets with over 5-trillion dollars in daily trading volume.
To make money, it’s as simple as buying, say, the euro, and hoping that it goes up
in value against the dollar.
This is what Trevor Cook supposedly had a talent for.
He created a Swiss bank account named Crown Forex, LLC.
He used this account to deposit investor funds to trade Forex.
Those funds, however, were really for his personal use.
Follow the Money So how on earth did a Christian radio station
play into Cook and Co.'s scheme?
In his late 60's early 70's at the time, Patrick Kiley hosted "Follow the Money," which aired
on over 200 stations nationwide.
However, a large part of his audience tuned in via World Wide Christian Radio or WWCR.
Kiley would refer to his listeners as "truth seekers" and asked them to trust his financial
expertise.
While Cook and everyone else siphoned the money behind the scenes, Kiley was the face
of the scam.
He lured investors in with his personality and booming radio voice.
At the height of the scam, the 2008 recession started to hit.
Financial security lingered on the back of everybody's mind.
Some of the most vulnerable people were the elderly—not knowing if their retirement
plans would hold up.
They were willing to throw their money at Patrick Kiley, a man they trusted in both
faith and finance, to keep their money safe and secure.
Kiley would ultimately help bring in 70% of the money stolen throughout the Ponzi scheme.
Spending Habits Cook and his co-conspirators lived a lavish
lifestyle while the rest of the country, especially their victims, suffered from the recession.
For example, Tim Cook spent his dirty money buying decorative Faberge eggs, a multitude
of luxury vehicles, and a collection of expensive watches.
He also invested over $12 million to build a casino in Panama and paid back his own substantial
gambling debts.
Christopher Pettengill earned over $4.3 million working with Cook.
Bo Beckman spent his millions driving luxury cars and buying vacation homes in Florida
and Texas.
He even made plans to become part owners of the Minnesota Wild hockey team.
Patrick Kiley used money to fund his lifestyle.
Promised Returns Cook promised investors annual returns of
10-12% on their investments.
He highlighted the fact that trading would present little or no risk to the investors.
Cook pretty much convinced them that it was free money.
To make his money management firm look more appealing to potential investors, Cook claimed
that Oxford Global Advisors had more than $4 billion dollars in assets under management.
When investors gave Cook and his crew their money, he simply just used new money to pay
off the interest to past investors.
While victim A thinks they were getting the money they were promised, they were really
just receiving funds scammed from victims B, C, and D.
However, Cook had the Swiss banking regulators breathing down his neck and, to throw them
off his scent, he continued pumping stolen money into his Crown Forex Swiss bank account.
Of course, to keep their victims on the hook, Cook and his co-conspirators drew up false
statements to convince their victims that their investments were performing as expected.
The Castle Falls Cook's scheme came undone in the summer of
2008.
Investors began hearing things, especially Ken Locklin.
They heard whispers that Cook's firm was under federal investigation.
They started trying to pull their money out all at once.
Locklin and another investor drove from Texas to Minnesota to get their money in person.
They both left without a penny.
Why?
Because their money was long gone.
Lawsuits piled up.
Victims came forward in droves, and both the FBI and IRS had a mountain of evidence ready
to charge those involved with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering, and Conspiracy.
Federal agencies dug in when Durand and Pettengill broke off from the others to venture out on
their own.
Cook, in turn, renamed his business Oxford Global Partners.
The confusion between Oxford Global Partners and Oxford Global Advisors only angered investors
further.
Nobody knew who was responsible for stealing their money as the men hid behind multiple
investment firms.
The doors finally blew open on Cook's Ponzi scheme, which led to all of their arrests.
Lessons Learned Cook and his partners scammed over 700 innocent
victims before the scheme finally collapsed in 2009.
One of the most outspoken advocates for victims was a Texas-based investor named Ken Locklin.
Locklin, who was swindled by Kiley, exclaimed that Kiley quote "long ago chose a life of
crime."
Lockin and his family were defrauded of over a million dollars.
To make matters worse, Lockin's mother also lost hundreds of thousands from the scam.
This was money she had been saving since the late 70s, $250,000 of which she'd received
from a life insurance policy payout.
Cook even scammed his own office manager, Mary Dingman.
She said quote, "I did it because I thought it was safe.
I've lost everything.
He got my 401k, savings account, my house, my life insurance account."
Dingman wasn't the only employee of his that Cook robbed.
Kyle Garman lost almost $4 Million worth of investments made by him and his family.
Plot Twist While their lives were beginning to crumble,
another devious plot was unfolding in the back of Durand's mind—a plot to simply get
rid of Beckman!
Prosecutors introduced this plot claiming Durand approached Pentegill and proposed they
off Beckman to collect on his life insurance policy.
They met up in a cafe as if they were in a Tarantino movie.
Durand revealed his plan to Pettengill as they sat across from each other.
Pettengill was quote "stunned" by Durand's plan to kill Beckman.
It leaves us to wonder if Durand would have plotted to go after Pettengill if he knew
about his cooperation with authorities.
Lawyers speculated whether the judge would allow this Tarantino-like plot to be entered
as evidence.
Ultimately, the Judge threw it out.
Durand was never formally charged with conspiracy to commit murder or anything similar.
Caught Green Handed The five men connected to the Ponzi scheme
weren’t all tried at the same time.
Trevor Cook was the first to go down after pleading guilty in April of 2010.
He admitted that between 2007 and 2009, he was the ringleader of the elaborate scheme
to scam investors by convincing them to back his fake Forex trading.
He admitted to using the money obtained to pay off other investors while funding his
lifestyle.
Cook was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Christopher Pettengill was the first to turn on his partners.
He pleaded guilty in 2011 to charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and money
laundering.
Facing up to 20 years in prison, Pettengill had hoped to lessen his sentence by cooperating
with authorities.
He ultimately got 7 years.
Patrick Kiley defended his role scam by trying to play dumb.
A court-ordered psychological assessment described Kiley as compliant and appeasing.
The assessment also called Kiley gullible.
Kiley's lawyer insisted that Kiley was nothing more than a confused old man, someone who
got suckered in by Cook's charm.
But Prosecutors didn't buy any of it.
They referred to Kiley as "cunning, persuasive, and believable."
It was those exact qualities that allowed Kiley himself to lure in his listeners.
Kiley got a 20-year sentence.
The judge's parting words to Kiley didn't have any sympathy.
He said to Kiley quote, "your age does not trump what you did here.
You were the engine that kept the scheme going."
Although Bo Beckman fought to defend himself, he'd end up getting the worst sentence of
them all—30 years in prison.
Beckman claimed that the millions he'd made were from his own investments and that the
amount stolen from investors was only 21 Million dollars, far less than what they were accused
of stealing.
Of course, none of that worked.
Durand got 20 years in prison on 12 counts of wire and mail fraud.
On top of their total 97 years, the former Oxford Global Advisors were ordered to pay
back $155 Million dollars in restitution to the victims of their Ponzi scheme, once they
get out of jail.
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