Kevin Merrill from Maryland was sentenced by a U.S.federal court to 22 years in prison for robing over 200 investors in a 396 million USD Ponzi scheme.
Merrill, who has a 11 million USD vacation home in Naples, Florida, was indicted in September 2018 and ordered to forfeit $9 million USD, six real estate properties, 25 cars, a boat and other assets.Now he will have to pay restitution in the amount of 189.1 million USD to over 160 victims in monthly installments.
Among his victims was a Louisiana couple in their 70s, who were defrauded of their 2 million USD retirement fund.
US Attorney Robert Hur, labeling the 54-year-old Kevin Merrill after the sentencing “the next Bernie Madoff”, adding that “the money didn’t get to get spent on college tuition or retirement, the money went to luxury sports cars, and high-end watches, and expensive clothes and shoes, and extravagant mansions here in Maryland on the Eastern Shore and in Naples, Florida.”
Bernie Madoff is former New York financier and investment adviser was sentenced to 150 years in prison for running a 64,8 billion USD Ponzi scheme back in 2009.
CONSOB blacklists ProFXPremium, GoldenCFD, and FXworld24 Oct 10 2019 15:39:10
Unregulated forex brokers ProFXPremium, GoldenCFD, and FXworld24 are the latest additions to the long warning list of Italian financial regulator Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa (CONSOB).Read more Singaporeans lose millions to investment scams Oct 09 2019 12:03:28
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Following the global trend of imposing stricter rules for margin trading, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) introduced a leverage cap of 1:20 for retail investors.Read more Commission-free stock trading on the rise in the US and UK Oct 07 2019 17:31:07
Several major US brokers – Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, and Charles Schwab recently announced the launch commission-free trading, as competition mounts.Free of charge stock trading seems to be on the rise in the UK too.Read more FCA focuses on the crypto market with 87 companies under investigation Oct 07 2019 16:40:18
Currently 87 crypto currency related companies in the UK are under investigation by the local Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – 74% up from 50 in October a year ago, the Financial Times reports.
Read more PayPal may be pulling out of the Libra project Oct 04 2019 14:17:24
PayPal, which is one of the founding members of the Libra Association, may have gotten cold feet on Facebook’s crypto project, reported the Financial Times on Thursday.Read more IKEA Island accepted its first Ethereum based payment Oct 03 2019 16:17:17
IKEA Iceland has recently settled an invoice using programmable digital cash on the Ethereum block chain – the first transaction of its kind, using smart contracts and licensed e-money to facilitate a corporate order.Read more CoinExchange.io shuts down due to financial difficulties Oct 03 2019 13:06:40
In an announcement on its website, CoinExchange.io stated that trading services and deposits will be suspended on October 15.Read more Bank scams in the UK cost investors over ÂŁ 616 mln for 6 months alone Oct 02 2019 16:30:52
For the first six months of the year alone scammers have stolen some 616 million pounds from bank account holders in the UK, of which 207,5 million pounds were lost in scams, where victims directly authorized payments to an account controlled by fraudsters.
Read more $6.4 mln stolen from Fusion Network in a hacker attack Sep 30 2019 16:42:48
Over 6.4 million USD worth of FSN Tokens were stolen from Fusion Network’s Swap Wallet after the block chain- based swap wallet platform was hacked on September 28, A swap wallet has been compromised resulting in the theft of 10 million native FSN coins and 3..
