Scoundrels on line
Published Friday, January 30, 2004
by Dale M. King
Deep in the bowels of the World Wide Web lies an accumulation of scoundrels.
With the quest to increase the earning capacity, the website promise to Go Here and make millionaires has to be cautiously taken as many users a lured in to the very high success rate of trades which the software claims to achieve with every trade, it all depends on the algorithm used to imitate the trades predicted by the analyst and brokers who have studied the recent trends, considered all the aspects before recommending trade signals.
A mouse click on a secretive Web site may unfold the sins and shortcomings of a variety of white-collar rats.
Link by link, names are associated with other names in what the Web’s anonymous author surmises to be a vast conspiracy.
Readers who sink into this cyber-nadir will see creatures flittering around like bats in a cave that never see the light of day.
Many of those named on the site see little light of day, since they are languishing in jail cells. Others, though, have tasted their just desserts and decided to become “inactive,” the Web site says. Some have gone back into mainstream society, having paid for their crimes and gone back to the straight and narrow.
Still, the cabal of culprits remains locked in a vast electronic maze, their identities encoded on metallic chips with a cornucopia of other data.
For weeks, the Boca Raton News has been investigating the presence of white-collar criminals, scammers and purveyors of securities fraud who have holed up in the guarded and gated communities around the city.
The public has responded with e-mails asking for more, saying the articles have “just scratched the surface.”
The Web site listing a vast array of ne’er-do-wells offers some with Boca connections.
One who shows up with disquieting frequency is Charles Ira “Chuck” Fremer, identified as director of Foreign Currency International and Capital Concept Marketing, both with addresses at 4700 NW Second Ave., Boca Raton.
In 2001, the Pennsylvania Securities Commission issued a cease and desist order against Capital Concept Marketing and Fremer “to halt the offer and sale of unregistered securities” in that state.
Scott Lane, assistant director of the commission’s Division of Enforcement, Litigation and Compliance, said the firm offered in October 2001 the sale of accounts receivable purchase agreements for payday advance loans offering a 36 percent rate of return. A month later, Lane said, Fremer’s firm – on behalf of U.S. Funding Co.– offered funding agreements said to pay 20 to 25 percent.
Soon after, the state stepped in and ordered the company “to make no more solicitations.”
In addition, a complaint from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey accused U.S. Funding Corp. and Angelica Gwinnett of Paramus, N.J., of “defrauding investors” by allegedly selling the high-rate-of-return securities from October 2001 to April 2002.
The complaint says U.S. Funding skimmed 35 percent as a commission for Capital Concept Marketing. Swinnett allegedly took $300,000 of investor funds and “misappropriated” it. Among those “misappropriations” as a weekend in Las Vegas, the complaint says.
Fremer’s name also shows up as an agent of a number of South Florida firms.
The News could not find a telephone number for Fremer.
Another person whose name popped up frequently was Jayson Scott Kline. He was identified on the Web as a serial scammer who was barred in 1992 from selling securities for “[failure] to uphold high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade in the conduct of his commodity futures business.”
A 1992 news release from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission says Kline, along with Richard Love of Sunrise and Bachus & Stratton Commodies of Pompano Beach violated anti-fraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act.
Those involved “neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the CFTC’s complaint.”
Kline was listed as an associate of Fremer. Both allegedly owned companies called Foreign Currency International, Kline in Georgia, Fremer in Florida.
In 1998, a district attorney in Georgia investigated Kline. He is also listed as a director of Gibraltar Monetary Corp., located at 4700 NW Second Ave., Boca Raton – which lists Fremer as its main director. Thomas Clancy of Sunrise is the firm’s third director.
The list says Joseph J. Marchiano, a director of Alpine Financial Corp. of 1900 Glades Road, Boca Raton, also ran afoul of the securities law.
A CTFC news release says Marchiano was acting as a registered introducing broker, but was actually not registered. He was ordered to pay a $10,000 civil penalty.
In addition, he was also named in an earlier proceeding involving American Futures Group. The CTFC said that from September 1991 to December 1993, Marchiano, George J. Perk and Thomas G. Reeves “violated the anti-fraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations by, among other things, cheating and defrauding customers and potential customers by making false, deceptive or misleading representations and omitting material facts concerning the likelihood of profit and risk of loss.’
The complaint says employees in American Futures Group’s Aventura office “induced customers to reinvest proceeds or purchase additional commodity options contracts,” practices known as “rolling” and “loading” for the “sole purpose of maximizing commissions, at the expense of customers.”
Another name on the site is that of attorney Kim Mollica of Boca Raton. She is not, however, accused of any wrongdoing.
The site lists her as an agent for nearly two dozen South Florida firms – including the Miss Nude Florida Pageant Inc.
The News left a message at her office this week, but the call was not returned.