US authorities have taken down the “Mike G Deal”.
The DOJ and SEC allege $45 million in fraud, and ringleader Neil Suresh Chandran has been arrested.
On January 4th, the SEC filed a Grievance naming Chandran, Garry Davidson, Michael Glaspie, Linda Knott, Amy Mossel (Glaspie’s spouse), Banner Co-Op Inc., BannersGo LLC and AEO Publishing Inc. as defendants.
The SEC’s federal Mike G Deal lawsuit was preceded by state-level stop and desists from Michigan and Alabama.
These enforcement actions resulted in Glaspie and Knott paying $15,000 and $10,000 fines respectively.
In the event you’re unfamiliar with the Mike G Deal, the fundamental premise is that victims are strung alongside on a endless sequence of guarantees and missed deadlines.
The guarantees and deadlines pertain to a deal, which in fact by no means eventuates.
Whereas the deal itself and fictitious story surrounding it adjustments, the MO stays the identical: traders are lured in on the promise of “getting in early” to capitalize on the deal earlier than its executed.
For probably the most half Michael Glaspie (proper) was the face and voice of the deal. This led to the rip-off being often known as the “Mike G Deal”.
I wish to observe that whereas the Mike G Deal itself isn’t MLM, Glaspie has used it to funnel victims into MLM ventures.
Due to Glaspie’s ties to MLM, I’ve made the editorial choice to cowl the SEC’s and DOJ’s Mike G Deal enforcement actions.
BehindMLM first got here throughout Glaspie in 2016 by means of Icanget2. This turned The ICANetwork in 2017.
In June 2022 we got here throughout Glaspie once more, funneling Mike G Deal victims into the Win on Wealth Ponzi scheme.
The Mike G Deal iteration the SEC has gone with is “CoinDeal”.
Chandran, a recidivist securities regulation violator and convicted felon, claimed to personal a singular blockchain know-how that was on the verge of being offered for trillions of {dollars} to a gaggle of respected billionaire patrons (“CoinDeal”).
Chandran additional claimed his enterprise required interim monetary help till the sale transaction closed. Along with and thru different named Defendants, Chandran focused largely unsophisticated traders with false and deceptive guarantees and representations that investments in CoinDeal would quickly yield extraordinarily excessive returns from the approaching sale of his enterprise.
Chandran sometimes supplied standing updates on the supposed deal, together with however not restricted to: the involvement of overseas central banks and america Division of Homeland Safety; the newest board conferences of the consortium of rich patrons; the function of sure political figures; and the causes of “non permanent” delays to the sale closing.
These updates had been designed to lull traders and induce them to proceed investing in CoinDeal.
The SEC alleges that Chandran (proper) “incentivized” recruitment of traders into the deal.
This began in 2018 with Davidson (a then former sufferer of Chandran’s), who went on to recruit Glaspie.
Glaspie, a web based promoter, raised massive sums for CoinDeal from tens of 1000’s of traders in a number of states and international locations.
As a part of his promotional marketing campaign, Glaspie knowingly or recklessly disseminated false details about CoinDeal that he acquired from Chandran by way of Davidson, together with data regarding the supposed worth and timeline of the sale transaction, in addition to the purported involvement of distinguished enterprise individuals, monetary establishments and governmental departments or companies.
Glaspie usually communicated such false data to traders by means of near-daily written updates and weekly teleconferences, during which Davidson sometimes participated.
In or round January 2019, Glaspie started selling the CoinDeal alternative throughout weekly teleconferences that included over 100,000 invitees from his community of contacts.
Glaspie defined that an unnamed Canadian resident had a really precious (however nameless) synthetic intelligence and cryptocurrency firm that was making ready for an imminent sale to a gaggle of billionaire patrons.
Glaspie additional defined that the Canadian resident was unable to acquire standard financing as a result of prior authorized points.
Glaspie didn’t reveal that this unnamed particular person was Chandran, and he additionally did not disclose that this particular person had a legal historical past in america.
Glaspie made extra misrepresentations and engaged in different fraudulent conduct, together with by: creating and publicizing astronomical payout scales that ranged from multi-million greenback returns for investments of $1,000 or much less, to returns in extra of $50 billion for investments of $100,000; providing referral bonuses to entice traders to recruit others to take part in CoinDeal; and personally guaranteeing to refund traders with 7% curiosity ought to CoinDeal not come to fruition.
In actuality;
CoinDeal was merely the newest iteration of Chandran’s prior fraudulent schemes.
No such purchaser group existed, there was no impending sale, and Chandran was incapable of manufacturing the astronomical returns he promised.
CoinDeal … by no means existed and thus, by design, the deal by no means closed.
Listed here are among the excuses used to lure Mike G Deal traders alongside through the years;
On February 22, 2019, Glaspie falsely claimed in a web based put up that CoinDeal’s closing had been delayed as a result of a vendor firm declaring chapter.
On April 16, 2019, Glaspie falsely claimed in a web based put up that closing of CoinDeal had been delayed as a result of a South Korean financial institution concerned within the deal required in-person signatures in Hawaii.
On Could 7, 2019, Glaspie falsely claimed in a web based put up that CoinDeal’s closing was delayed as a result of an engineer accustomed to the corporate programs was sick.
On July 24, 2019, Glaspie falsely claimed in a web based put up that closing was someway delayed as a result of a difficulty involving the variety of sensible
telephones being provided by a vendor.
And on and on it went…
As time went on some Mike G Deal traders took it upon themselves to analyze Glaspie and the deal.
This led to the general public outing of Chandran being behind the deal, which, regardless of understanding was true, Glaspie publicly denied.
On or about August 19, 2021, a potential CoinDeal investor shared a hyperlink containing details about Chandran’s 2018 legal fees and requested Glaspie to “verify that Neil Chandran is NOT the vendor of this transaction.”
In response, Glaspie denied that Chandran was concerned, admonished the person for “spreading rumors,” and additional acknowledged: “Please make this the final e mail on this subject [as] I simply don[’]t have time for this disrupting e mail.”
On or about September 3, 2021, Glaspie once more denied Chandran’s involvement in CoinDeal to a potential investor.
On this event, the involved particular person instructed Glaspie: “I’ve been doing a little digging across the web. Some individuals say that ‘Neil’ the proprietor, is definitely convicted fraudster Neil Chandran. Please inform me that’s not true.”
The person additional described discovering “purple flags” when looking out Chandran’s identify on the web.
In response, Glaspie acknowledged: “[W]right here these rumors begin is a thriller to me. The proprietor is NOT the person u suppose he’s.”
All in all of the Mike G Deal scammers took in $45 million. The funds had been laundered by means of shell firms for “private use”.
- Neil Chandran misappropriated $37 million. Chandran spent the cash on “a fleet of luxurious automobiles, varied actual property properties in
California and Nevada, and a ship”. - Michael Glaspie misappropriated $5.9 million. Glaspie spent the cash insurance coverage insurance policies for himself and spouse Amy Mossel, in addition to “switch(ing) hundreds of thousands to his associates to pay salaries and for different enterprise ventures”.
- Garry Davidson misappropriated $3 million. Davidson spent the cash on a “cellular house and used investor funds for private residing bills”.
Linda Knott (proper) was a Mike G Deal promoter who managed a gaggle of ~10,000 traders. Knott misappropriated at the very least $749,000, which she spent on “private use and functions unrelated to CoinDeal”.
The overwhelming majority of CoinDeal traders haven’t acquired the return of their principal funding quantities, and no traders have acquired any promised income on their investments.
Chandran, Glaspie, and Mossel declined to testify throughout the SEC’s investigation, invoking their Fifth Modification proper towards self-incrimination.
This brings us to the indictment of Chandran by a Grand Jury in Nebraska on June 14th, 2022.
Following his indictment, Chandran was arrested in California on June 14th.
Chandran has been charged with:
- three counts of wire fraud; and
- two counts of partaking in financial transactions in property derived from specified illegal exercise
Chandran pled not responsible to the costs on August fifteenth. Having been deemed a flight danger, on September 14th Chandran was ordered to stay in custody pending trial.
Chandran’s indictment detailed “100 completely different property”, together with financial institution accounts, actual property, and luxurious automobiles, together with 39 Tesla automobiles which, as of June 2022, had been within the technique of being seized.
If convicted on all 5 counts, Chandran, 51, faces as much as 80 years in jail.
Chandran’s legal case is ongoing, with a Standing Convention scheduled for March 2nd, 2023.
Glaspie and Davidson are referenced in Chandran’s indictment as “Particular person 1″ and Particular person 2” respectively. Whether or not there are pending legal proceedings towards Glaspie and Davidson stays unclear.
Getting again to the SEC’s civil case; The Mike G Deal being a passive funding alternative constitutes a securities providing.
The SEC alleges;
The CoinDeal investments provided and offered by the Defendants had been securities.
No registration assertion was ever filed with the SEC or has ever been in impact with respect to any provides and gross sales of CoinDeal investments.
On account of their conduct, Chandran, Davidson, Glaspie, Knott, Banner Co-Op, and BannersGo deliberately, knowingly, or recklessly dedicated securities fraud and provided and offered unregistered securities.
The Mike G Deal defendants have been charged with violations of the Securities and Alternate Act throughout seven counts.
The SEC can be looking for disgorgement, civil penalties, officer and director bars, everlasting injunctions and conduct-based injunctions.
I’ve added each Chandran’s legal case and the SEC’s Mike G Deal case to BehindMLM’s case calendar. We’ll hold you up to date as each circumstances progress.
