I'm not going to spend that much time looking, sorry:
"Where a pyramid scheme seems very far away; His TelexFree partner sits in a R.I. jail, but Carlos Wanzeler finds protection from US law and some support in Brazil" by Beth Healy and Nathan B. Thompson | Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent June 15, 2014
VITORIA, Brazil — In this bustling port city, with its long sand beaches and rocky hills rising from the sea, Carlos Wanzeler is taking refuge from the US authorities who want to put him in jail.
Good for him!
There are worse spots for a businessman on the run.
Morning walkers stroll the boardwalk on the shoreline of the upscale Praia do Canto neighborhood, while rowers glide across sun-streaked water. As a boy, the TelexFree Inc. co-owner sold ice cream on these beaches to help support his family.
Today, Wanzeler is a wealthy fugitive, separated by 4,800 miles from his wife and son in Northborough, Mass., but safely beyond the reach of US law.
U.S. can't send in a SEAL team on this one?
From most any vantage point here, he can take in bands of palm trees, ships lined up on the horizon to take iron ore to China, and a 16th-century convent perched high on a peak.
His longtime business partner, James Merrill, has a different view. He is sitting in a Rhode Island jail cell awaiting trial.
Both men are accused of running a pyramid scheme that topped $1 billion, one of the largest in history. Federal prosecutors say Merrill and Wanzeler lured at least 1 million people around the world to invest in TelexFree, which sold a long-distance phone service meant to appeal to Brazilians and others with far-away relatives. In the United States alone, people allegedly poured $300 million into the company.
On April 15, TelexFree unraveled with a flurry of events. US law enforcement officials and securities regulators closed in just after the company moved to protect its remaining assets in bankruptcy court.
Why did they wait so long?
Federal agents raided TelexFree’s Marlborough headquarters and stopped an executive from walking out the door with $38 million in checks. The raid came 10 months after a Brazilian judge in the remote western state of Acre had closed TelexFree’s parent company, Ympactus, calling it a pyramid scheme.
Wanzeler, 45, was not at the office the day of the raid. He was headed for Canada with his daughter in a BMW, crossing the border at about 11 p.m., enroute to Toronto for a flight to Brazil, according to court records. When the authorities showed up at his house two days later, his wife, Katia, said he was staying at a hotel.
Wanzeler’s lawyers and relatives in Brazil insist he did nothing wrong. They say his late-night departure was part of a routine trip to his native country. But with a possible 20-year prison sentence looming in the United States, there is little chance he will return to Northborough, Brazilian law enforcement officials, lawyers, and family members said.
“He is not afraid of facing justice,’’ Wanzeler’s brother-in-law, Marcio Barbossa, said during a recent interview at the pizzeria in Vitoria where he is a chef. “The real story is a story of struggle, a story of hard work.’’
Barbossa and others close to Wanzeler portray him as a man who overcame steep odds to find success and wealth, and now stands on the verge of losing everything....
His life story if you want it.
It's right about where I decided to lose this piece due to indifference.
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Also see:
Wanzeler's Wife Released
Free to Telex
DHS Secured Telex
Telex Tax Forms
Telex Story Keeps on Ticking
Boston Globe Telex
SEC was slow again, huh?
What I found while I was wandering through my Globes:
"Fervor for TelexFree swayed thousands; Testimonies won trust in immigrant community" by Maria Sacchetti and Beth Healy | Globe Staff June 13, 2014
FRAMINGHAM — Nubia Gaseta had never expressed an interest in TelexFree, but for months company representatives pursued her through phone calls, e-mails, and visits to the florist shop she owns. Friends and family, including her husband, kept prodding Gaseta to invest in TelexFree, which sold long-distance phone plans at discount prices, targeting Brazilians and Dominicans....
Eventually, the tide of enthusiasm proved too much. Gaseta, promised a quick and easy profit, invested $2,500....
It was the unbridled enthusiasm in the immigrant community that sold many people on TelexFree....
What did Barnum say, $ucker born every minute?
Business troubles intensified last year when a judge in Brazil shut down TelexFree’s operations there after ruling it was a pyramid scheme. In court records, the company later said that some promoters had been abusing the compensation system, straining its accounts.
Investigators tell a markedly different story....
When TelexFree began publicizing its phone service business two years ago, many were skeptical of its offers to deliver sky-high profits in return for modest investments and minimal work. But doubters became believers once they saw friends buy new cars or renovate homes using TelexFree payouts....
TelexFree focused primarily on Brazilians and Dominicans, two of the largest immigrant groups in Massachusetts. But Secretary of State William F. Galvin said the alleged scheme also involved Haitians, Salvadorans, and Americans. Galvin filed a civil complaint against the company, which was followed by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s filing, and federal criminal charges.
Investors pitched TelexFree as a path to a better way of life for immigrants, who often work long hours for low pay....
It was for $ome.
As for the re$t of us, immigrant or no, we are all the $ame! Wanzeler is part of the 1%, which is why if I were part of that cla$$ in Bo$ton for whom the Globe is written, I would be very, very interested in reading his story. But I'm not, so....
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UPDATE: Judge says TelexFree co-owner can go free on bail
