Third Place Match:
Brazil(2):
"Stunned, friends rally behind TelexFree cofounder; Family man James Merrill surprises some as alleged co-author of massive fraud" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff July 08, 2014
Neighbors knew James Merrill as the guy always playing ball with his kids in the yard or jogging with the family’s rescue dog, Hunter. He coached Little League for years, and provided a well of support for a friend stricken with ALS.
He sometimes had to travel for work, but the Worcester native much preferred being home with his wife of 23 years and their three children.
Today, that consummate family man is wearing an electronic ankle bracelet in his Ashland home. Federal law enforcement officials say he helped mastermind one of the largest business frauds of all time, a $1 billion scheme that lured hundreds of thousands of people around the world to invest in TelexFree Inc.
“It breaks my heart,” said Pam Cahill, a next-door neighbor of the Merrills. “This is not the kind of guy who belongs in jail. They’ve got the wrong person here.’’
People who know Merrill say the alleged swindler in the headlines bears no resemblance to the man they’ve known and admired. Merrill, 53, was arrested in May and held for six weeks in a Rhode Island jail as a grand jury was convened to investigate and prosecutors warned there was a risk he would leave the country — as his longtime business partner, Carlos Wanzeler, did.
I don't get it, either. Money-addicted crooks are to be put on a pedestal for being rich. Who cared how he got the dough? Do you see the SEC wailing about how Wall Street bankers got their bonuses?
Doesn't matter how you $core the goals, just that they go on the $coreboard.
Friends and relatives rallied to support Merrill, sending 32 letters to federal court in Worcester. Even the minister from his church wrote. A judge released him on bail last month after Merrill pledged his family’s home, as well as his sister’s and a friend’s, to meet the $900,000 bond. He had to surrender his passport and promise to stay home every night after 8 p.m.
Meanwhile, his TelexFree co-owner, Wanzeler, is living in relative freedom in Vitoria, Brazil, the seaside city where he grew up and where the company once had its headquarters. In Brazil, Wanzeler faces two years in prison, at most; here, both men face up to 20 years if they are found guilty.
“I was truly shocked when I learned of his legal troubles,’’ wrote one longtime Merrill friend, Warren F. O’Donnell Jr. of Dorchester, in a letter to the court. “It just is not in Jim’s nature to harm anyone, and I really do not believe that was his [intention] or that he would ever try to accumulate wealth at the cost of anyone else.’’
Those who rub elbows in these elite circles don't $ee them$elves as mon$ters.
But prosecutors, as well as state and federal securities regulators, allege the two men oversaw an enterprise that could stay afloat only with an ever-growing ring of promoters bringing in new investors who were eventually duped.
Lawyers for Merrill and Wanzeler say the men did nothing wrong. They were running a legitimate business, their attorneys say, selling cheap Internet-based phone service to immigrants with family in far-flung places.
“Mr. Merrill steadfastly maintains his innocence,’’ said his lawyer, Robert Goldstein. He said he has offered “voluminous evidence undercutting the government’s contention that he has engaged in any wrongdoing.”
As recently as March, when the alleged scheme was unraveling, Merrill assured a crowd of TelexFree promoters at a Boston hotel, “You’re going to get paid.’’ Weeks later, Merrill moved millions of dollars to himself and his business partners, prosecutors allege, just before the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
In court, prosecutors called Merrill the American face of TelexFree. He did not speak Portuguese, the language of Brazil, where the company had started. But they say he was greeted at business conferences around the world as a rock star, with music blaring and loud applause.
The adulation could not have helped the $elf-aggrandizing.
So sick of rock stars and celebrity dominating the imagery and illusion of ma$$ media.
Related: Portuguese bank fears rekindle euro market tension
They were one of the first dominos to fall from the tournament with the beating they took from Germany.
In an interview with state regulators, Merrill professed not to know all the details of the business’s structure. He could not say, for instance, why his 20 percent stake in the company rose to 50 percent in 2013, as Carlos Costa, their Brazilian partner, transferred his share to Merrill.
“It was a legal decision on his part,’’ Merrill said. “I’m not 100 percent sure of why that happened.’’ Merrill also said he did not pay for the added stake in the company.
In court, Merrill’s wife, Kristin, said she also did not know all the details of her husband’s work. She knew he had traveled to Brazil on TelexFree business trips but said she was unaware of the stature he enjoyed at company events.
In a letter to US District Judge Timothy S. Hillman seeking her husband’s release, Kristin Merrill wrote of a simple family life built on respect, honesty, “a deep, abiding love for one another and first and foremost, for God.’’ She said her husband would never abandon the family, in part because “Jim adores me, as my friends often remind me.’’
(Cue the maudlin and somber violin music)
Now, Merrill is legally in his wife’s custody, a condition of his release.
Merrill, called Jamie by friends and family, did not finish college. He is a son of teachers, born and raised in Worcester, with four sisters and a brother. Some people called him Max as a young teen, according to friends who wrote letters to the court, because Merrill was small and had to work “to the maximum’’ to keep up with his peers on sports teams.
He's an AmeriKan $ucce$$ $tory, the little $hit.
He graduated from Doherty Memorial High School in 1979, where he was a member of the finance club. In his yearbook, he listed his favorite song as Bruce Springsteen’s “The Promised Land,’’ a rock anthem about a frustrated working man searching for something more.
Another kind of Promised Land the Globe did not like.
Merrill went on to attend Westfield State University for two years but never graduated. Starting in 1981, he took “different sales jobs, nothing that worked,’’ he told state regulators investigating TelexFree. “I took some more classes at a community college that never really went anywhere, unfortunately,’’ he said.
In 1986, Merrill started Cleaner Image Associates Inc., an office-cleaning business that grew to nearly $1 million in annual revenue at its height. That’s how Merrill met Wanzeler, who went to work in the business along with other family members in 1993. Wanzeler initially toiled as a cleaner for Merrill for $6 an hour, joining him later as a partner in the business.
Merrill was a tinkerer, inventing a button to unplug vacuum cords easily for his workers, according to a friend’s account. Later, he moved into telecom sales ventures with Wanzeler and the two eventually established another company, Common Cents Communications Inc., to handle the work. In February 2012, they changed the name to TelexFree, and money soon started flooding in.
Merrill’s biography on the TelexFree website says he earned a degree at Westfield, an inaccuracy he told investigators he repeatedly tried to correct. He said he even sent a rewritten version to Wanzeler and Costa because what appeared online was “horribly written. It’s embarrassing.’’ But the change was never made.
Yeah, being caught in a lie usually is. So not only is this wonderful guy a looter, he's a liar!
Court filings show Merrill started to make a lot of money from TelexFree last year, including $3 million around Christmas. The family remodeled their kitchen and improved the porch, but they still had a mortgage to pay. Wanzeler, by contrast, reaped $13.7 million in just over a year and spent millions on real estate, luxury cars, and boats.
Even as TelexFree grew, friends said, Merrill remained the same down-to-earth person they had always known.
Trish Miller, owner of the Learning Center of Hopkinton, a day-care center and longtime client of Merrill’s cleaning company, said he still jumped to help customers, even as he grew busier with TelexFree.
“If I had a problem he’d come right over,’’ Miller said. “You don’t find a nicer family or a man with more integrity.”
In the court letters, old friends told of Merrill’s dropping everything to help empty their Quincy apartment after a fire. Others called him an empathetic listener who helped a friend through a divorce; a nephew said Merrill helped him stay on the straight and narrow.
Merrill visited his childhood friend Steve McManus in Dallas when he discovered McManus was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. After his friend died in 2007, Merrill raised money for ALS in road races.
“He did a lot for my brother,” said James McManus, Steve’s brother. “I’ll never forget it.’’
Other friends talk about Merrill’s providing many jobs to immigrants, like Wanzeler, at his cleaning company. His wife would cook for the workers at their annual Christmas party.
I know it is in bad taste to ask right now, but how many were illegals imported from Brazil?
But TelexFree ended up preying on the very immigrants the TelexFree’s founders professed to want to help, prosecutors allege.
That's odd; they get the same treatment from the U.S. government.
In Massachusetts alone, participants in the marketing scheme believe they are owed $90 million, according to regulators. Most of them live in Brazilian and Dominican immigrant communities here and throughout the country.
The scale of the TelexFree fraud was massive and global, prosecutors say, with as many as one million victims believing they are owed at least $1 billion. It created a tidal wave of transactions for TelexFree to process. Many large banks would not do business with the company, so Merrill went to smaller institutions. One of them was Fidelity Bank of Leominster, where his brother, John, was president.
Years earlier, John and James had stood together to give their father’s eulogy. John’s daughter called her uncle a hero in a letter to the court.
It’s unclear how much John Merrill knew about his brother’s business. He is well known in the Worcester business community, an officer at the Greater Worcester Chamber of Commerce and a board member at several nonprofits. In his role at the bank, he was recently subpoenaed by state securities regulators. The bank has denied any wrongdoing. John Merrill has declined to comment to the Globe.
Former lieutenant governor Timothy Murray, now chief executive of the Worcester Chamber, vouched for John Merrill, as his neighbor. He described the banker as a “next-generation community leader in Worcester. A solid guy.’’
Considering his ties to McLaughlin, the guy is steeped in scandal.
If he was the next generation, we are $o f***ed.
As the pressure mounted this past spring, Merrill and Wanzeler assured their investors all would be well, even though TelexFree had been shut down by a judge in Brazil last year. But on April 11, Merrill and Wanzeler’s wife, Katia, went to a Connecticut bank to withdraw $27 million in cashier’s checks.
But nothing untoward or out-of-the-way was going on. Weren't trying to loot the entity before it collapsed or nothing.
Four days later, Department of Homeland Security and FBI agents arrived at TelexFree’s Marlborough office with search warrants. Merrill was not there, according to court records. Wanzeler was in a car headed for Canada, where he would board a flight to Brazil.
It’s unclear if Merrill knew Wanzeler was leaving. Two years ago, at a company “extravaganza” in Brazil, Merrill called Wanzeler and Costa his friends, and “two of the greatest leaders I’ve ever met in my life.’’
Today, those friends are far out of reach of US authorities, ensconced in a country with the roar of the World Cup in its ears. Merrill sits in quiet Ashland, under curfew, waiting for the findings of the grand jury.
Well, not this afternoon after what happened Tuesday.
--more--"
Brazil sure had possession for a long time, 'eh?
Another shot.... missed the net!
"Brazil’s saddest fan offers lesson in sportsmanship | July 10, 2014
The so-called saddest fan in Brazil offered a powerful lesson in classy sportsmanship during his country’s humiliating defeat Tuesday against Germany in the World Cup. Images of Clóvis Fernandes — a superfan who is also known as “Gáucho da Copa” and a well-known fixture in the stands — were seen around the world; his emotions escalated as quickly as the stunning German goal count. There he was cuddling a replica FIFA World Cup trophy with a big smile on his face — and then crying in despair as he mourned the 7-1 loss. Strikingly, Fernandes gave away his trophy to a German fan sitting nearby, reportedly saying: “Take it to the final . . . You deserve it, congratulations!” Other Brazilian fans joined in congratulating Germany. Brazil was the favorite, and its wounded fans must now take some solace in being passionate hosts for the World Cup. If nothing else, this tournament has prompted the famously soccer-mad country to discuss its social struggles and reflect on its priorities. Brazil is out of the World Cup, but its soul searching may just be beginning.
What was that last link about?
--more--"
Time to forget about Brazil after today.
Netherlands(0):
Dutch court: Black Pete figure is offensive
Web Globe missed that printed shot.
Related: Santa Claus Is Black
I'm surprised he isn't Jewish.
Championship:
Germany(4):
"Germany angry over new spying tiff" New York Times July 07, 2014
BERLIN — With mystery enveloping a German intelligence service employee accused of spying — reportedly for the United States — German officials and commentators on Sunday angrily demanded a response from Washington, warning that an already troubled relationship was at risk of deteriorating to a new low.
A tempest in a teapot.
The demands for a statement from the United States were nevertheless couched in cautious terms, suggesting that the scandal, which exploded Friday when Germany’s federal prosecutor reported the arrest of a 31-year-old employee of the Federal Intelligence Service, might not be as bad as initially feared.
The chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into US intelligence activities told German radio that it seemed there was no breach of security surrounding his committee’s work, as some news reports had suggested.
Still, the anger was palpable. Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a trip to China, kept silent on the matter, although reporters traveling with her cited unidentified people in her circle as saying she was “surprised” and “disappointed.”
That's where my print ended.
Perhaps the most striking sign of the strained relationship was Germany’s decision to summon the US ambassador, John B. Emerson, to the Foreign Ministry on the Fourth of July, just before the US Embassy’s holiday party for hundreds of guests.
The newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that the ambassador had smiled and greeted guests, but that the tension was noticeable: “It was as it has so often been recently when official America meets official Germany. The facade was perfect, but behind it there was little accord.”
An American whom Germans did hear from during the weekend was Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Berlin to promote the German-language edition of her recent book, “Hard Choices,” about her years as secretary of state.
A lot of people had gripes with the book.
While carefully skirting judgment on the new espionage scandal, she emphasized at a Saturday reception at the ambassador’s residence that the relationship between the United States and Germany was valued, and should not be “sidelined, downgraded, or destroyed.”
At an appearance Sunday, she said, “Let’s find out what the facts are,” noting that relations “should not be put at risk.”
I doubt they will be.
--more--"
"German police widen search in scandal over US spying" by Alison Smale | New York Times July 10, 2014
BERLIN — Police on Wednesday searched the Berlin-area office and apartment of a man suspected of being a spy, the federal prosecutor’s office said, deepening the espionage scandal that has damaged relations between the United States and Germany.
I'm sure they will kiss and make up quick.
No one has been arrested yet and the investigation is continuing, the prosecutor’s office said in a terse statement.
The statement did not specify that the suspect had been spying for the United States. But a joint investigative reporting unit of the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and two public broadcasters cited informed sources as saying that the suspect worked in the “military field” and had spied for Washington.
Lieutenant Colonel Uwe Roth, a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry, confirmed that federal prosecutors were carrying out an investigation involving his ministry, but declined to give further details.
If a second German is found to have been spying for the Americans, it would deepen the trans-Atlantic quarrel that erupted over an employee of the German foreign intelligence service who is said to have been run by the CIA after volunteering information two years ago. That case, revealed last week, deepened the mistrust that has clouded relations between Washington and Berlin for more than a year after revelations of US intelligence activities in Germany, including eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.
Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, declined to comment on the continuing cases.
“The German government is in contact with the American side on many levels, the federal prosecutor and the investigators are continuing their work,” Seibert said.
“If the accusations are proven true, then it is a very serious course of events which stands clearly in opposition to what the chancellor understands as trustworthy cooperation between services and from partners,” Seibert added.
Blah, blah, blah.
John B. Emerson, the US ambassador who was summoned to the German Foreign Ministry on July 4 to discuss last week’s spy revelations, was again in the ministry on Wednesday and met Merkel’s foreign policy adviser, Christoph Heusgen, the US Embassy said. A spokesman said both meetings took place at the Americans’ request.
Thomas Miller, the embassy’s top public affairs officer, declined to detail what was discussed.
The newspaper Die Welt, which has well-placed sources in the German government, said the second suspect was a Bundeswehr soldier suspected of passing information to US military intelligence.
Norbert Röttgen, a senior member of Merkel’s conservative party and head of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said he had told US officials about the political damage the scandal is causing in Germany.
The ability of the U.S. through the NSA to blackmail foreign leaders looks bad to the people.
“At some point, the ‘no comment’ will not be enough,” Röttgen said by phone from Washington, where he and other lawmakers have been meeting with US officials.
At the same time, he cautioned his German colleagues to understand Berlin and Washington have profoundly different views on the role of intelligence services, and not to let these differences permanently hurt otherwise strong ties.
“We should not let the intelligence service stupidities be the measure of our relations because German-American relations are essential,” he said.
Meaning this is all a $hit show for public consumption.
--more--"
"US official ordered out of Germany" by Aalison Smale and Melissa Eddy | New York Times July 11, 2014
BERLIN — Germany’s relations with the United States plunged to a low point Thursday, with the government demanding the expulsion of the chief US intelligence official stationed here because, it said, Washington has refused to cooperate with German inquiries into US intelligence activities.
What would we have to hide from a friend?
“The representative of the US intelligence services at the United States Embassy has been asked to leave Germany,” a government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement.
German officials have been frustrated in their efforts to receive clarification from Washington since last summer, when it was reported that the National Security Agency had been monitoring the digital communications of millions of Germans. The government tamped down that uproar, but fury flared anew when it was revealed last fall that the NSA had been monitoring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.
The political cla$$ only gets upset when it affects themselves, and even then not too much at their monitoring ma$ters and $tring-pullers.
Although President Obama has offered assurances that the United States will no longer spy on Germany, two cases of suspected US espionage that have come to light in the past eight days have sparked a fresh round of outrage.
Like anyone on this planet would ever believe a word that lying piece o-s**t sphincter says at this point.
“The request occurred against the backdrop of the ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors as well as the questions that were posed months ago about the activities of US intelligence agencies in Germany,” Seibert said. “The government takes the matter very seriously.”
Seibert said Germany continued to seek “close and trusting” cooperation with its Western partners, “especially the United States.”
As is usual with intelligence matters, the US Embassy had no comment on the expulsion request. But in a statement, the embassy also said it was essential to maintain close cooperation with the German government “in all areas.”
“Our security relationship with Germany remains very important,” the statement said. “It keeps Germans and Americans safe.”
(Blog editor was about to unleash a diatribe of expletives, but fuck it. Why bother responding to the outrageous absurdities anymore?)
Merkel, speaking two hours before the expulsion request was announced, said in response to reporters’ questions that spying on allies was “a waste of energy.”
That is what I am doing here.
“We have so many problems,” she said. “We should focus on important matters.”
Illegal spying on you innocent people of Germany is thus NOT IMPORTANT!
Thank God Hitler lost the big war, huh?
Despite the apparent effort to keep relations on an even keel, the expulsion development marked a low point between two allies just as they need strong cooperation not just to combat terrorism and strengthen security measures in the digital age, but also to reach a broad trans-Atlantic trade agreement that is seen by both sides as a chance to create a single market of almost 800 million people.
And the NEW WORLD ORDER just ROLLS ALONG, huh?
Clemens Binninger, a member of Merkel’s center-right party, said the move was “a political reaction of the government to the lack of willingness of US authorities to help clear up any questions” arising over the past year in connection with the surveillance of Germany and its leaders.
And that's all it is. According to your government, you German people can go eat scite.
--more--"
"Berlin aims to stay friends with US | Associated Press July 12, 2014
BERLIN — Germany’s foreign minister said Friday he will tell Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting this weekend that Berlin wants to reinvigorate the two countries’ friendship ‘‘on an honest basis’’ after asking Washington’s top spy to leave.
Did they invent anal sex in Germany, or.... ??
Thursday’s decision to demand the departure of the intelligence representative at the US Embassy in Berlin was ‘‘the right decision, a necessary step, and an appropriate reaction to the breach of trust that has taken place,’’ Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.
It followed reports over the past 10 days that US intelligence had recruited two Germans — a man who worked at the country’s foreign intelligence agency and a defense ministry employee. Steinmeier said those reports were ‘‘troubling.’’
They added to friction and frustration about reports last year that the US was intercepting Internet traffic in Germany and eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone calls.
The government is more concerned with its privacy than yours!
Steinmeier said he will meet Kerry on the sidelines of talks in Vienna about Iran’s nuclear program. The US State Department confirmed that a bilateral meeting would take place.
Deciding when the WWIII will be official are they?
There is ‘‘no alternative’’ to Germany’s longstanding partnership with the US in view of challenges in Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, Steinmeier stressed.
The whole affair is like a soccer match: A lot of oohs and aahs and nothing much happening.
--more--"
At least Germany wasn't shut out.
Related: Robot writes the Torah at Jewish Museum in Berlin, but without blessing
Foul! Foul on Germany and a penalty kick!
Argentina(0):
Must be no shots on goal for Messi this match.
Not surprising. Argentina has always run cover for Nazis. He was their last hope.
And, finally, Germany rules the world!
"Here, some say that day in 1994, the day Italy took on Brazil in the World Cup final, was the old neighborhood’s symbolic final whistle. The geography was changing, and the well-documented gentrification continues."
I didn't know Italy was playing today. I thought they were knocked out already.
"Italy navy finds 30 bodies in migrant boat" Associated Press July 01, 2014
ROME — The bodies of some 30 would-be migrants were found in the hold of a packed smugglers’ boat heading to Italy, the latest deaths in a surge of immigration to Europe, the Italian navy said Monday.
The boat was carrying nearly 600 people, the navy said. The remaining 566 survivors were rescued by the frigate Grecale and were headed to Pozzallo on the southern tip of Sicily.
Overall last weekend, the navy said it rescued more than 5,000 migrants, adding to the nearly 60,000 people who have made their way to Italy since the beginning of the year, compared with 42,000 in all of 2013.
Most are African or Middle Eastern refugees who pay hundreds or thousands each to smugglers in Libya who pack them into unsafe fishing vessels. Officials say the numbers have swelled this year due to increasing instability in Libya.
Thank you, Obummer!
He's creating them all over the planet!
The estimated 30 bodies were discovered in the bow of the boat during the rescue, according to a navy statement. The victims were believed to have suffocated or drowned.
Neither way is a nice way to go.
In a separate sea rescue operation, navy officials isolated a migrant suffering from an infectious disease but did not identify the ailment.
Oh, they are bringing you those like the migrant kids are bringing them to AmeriKa!
At least pharmaceuticals will benefit from the end-game genocide all this is adding up to. The immigrants, the CDC loosing anthrax and viruses, the ebola on the loose, the famine and hunger. Think about it, and then think about how unruly the planet is becoming for the globe-kickers.
Italy beefed up its sea rescues last October after a migrant boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, killing more than 360 people.
--more--"
This article is presented to push the immigration (and thus economic) integration narrative, but it's a one-day wonder because all these refugees are fleeing EUSraeli-created wars.
Also see:
Abuse victim calls meeting Pope Francis a ‘life changing experience’
Diocese faults abuse claim, settles anyway
Changes to Vatican bank unveiled
Pope better be careful there.
So who do you think will be ble$$ed with the World Cup trophy?
