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Thread: Former OHL club owner ready to take his ‘lumps’ for Ponzi scheme
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[quote=MARRIE,463253]The private Millennium Bank was incorporated at a time when thousands of such offshore institutions existed, attracting customers keen to avoid taxes and maintain privacy. It was a “totally different era of regulations,” he says. “It was quite honestly rock ‘n’ roll.” After Sept. 11, regulations tightened up and the market for private banks “got worse,” Wise notes. “In hindsight, it would have been great time to just close. In hindsight, of course I wish I had.” Wise didn’t, he says, because he hoped to salvage investments made by some of his friends who had received his assurances their money was safe. “There were people who would have lost money and you’re trying to patch it, make it work.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges Wise and Jacquline Hoegel — an American Canyon, Calif., resident described as “his second in command” — ran a scheme in which they marketed bogus certificates of deposit (CDs) to more than 1,200 people who invested $129.5 million. As of March 2009, when the SEC shut down the operations, CD purchasers had lost more than $75 million. Hoegel, who ran the Napa, Calif., office where most of the CD purchasers sent their funds, has pleaded not guilty. She has given interviews saying she knew nothing about what was going on. The indictment says the CDs were issued by three entities: Millennium Bank, United Trust of Switzerland, and Sterling Bank and Trust, all set up by Wise. “Extensive and fundamental misrepresentations,” appeared on the Millennium Bank’s website and in advertisements in luxury lifestyle magazines, a 2009 SEC news release says. [/quote]
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