Anne Darwin hit the headlines when she helped her husband John Darwin fake his own death.

Scammers …

The stranger in the English seaside town of Seaton Carew had arrived from nowhere several years ago. But with his marked limp and flowing bird’s-nest beard, it didn’t take long for him to attract attention. At least one resident also noted he was soon keeping company with Anne Darwin, whose husband John, a prison guard, had been declared dead in a 2002 kayaking accident. One neighbour, who moved in after John’s disappearance, recalls seeing the stranger scores of times. “I thought it was her boyfriend,” says the neighbour, who had never met John. “He looked like he was out of ZZ Top.”

In the days ahead the stranger, who it now turns out was none other than John Darwin, was singing the blues. Darwin, walked into a London police station, claiming he had been suffering from amnesia and could remember nothing since 2000. But the heartwarming tale of a man returned from the dead went sour when a quick Internet search turned up a photo of John and Anne, 55, living it up in Panama. Police quickly announced the couple would be charged with faking the tragedy in order to collect on John’s insurance policies. But, as they tell it, no one was more deeply deceived by the alleged scam than the couple’s two sons, who had apparently been left to grieve for years over their father’s disappearance. “How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?” said the furious boys in a joint statement.

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If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck…then it is probably a duck.

Or in this case a pyramid scheme.

The Commerce Commission has received seven complaints about gifting circles in New Zealand, but has not investigated any such groups here, it says.

Gifting ‘circles’ involve women paying thousands of dollars to join a group for friendship and spiritual guidance, and are told their money will grow as the circle does.

Christchurch journalist Anke Richter began looking into the groups after she was invited to join one.   Read more »

The Long Con

Phil Ferguson pulled off one of the biggest frauds in Indiana history, duping clients out of millions of dollars and staying one step ahead of the law.

If you’re trying to escape your past, there have always been two options: You go South, or you go West.

Phil Ferguson went West.

Ferguson, the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in Indiana history, with ill-gotten gains estimated at $14 million, wound up with a bullet in his head on a ranch in Eastern Oregon after twelve years on the run. The law had finally caught up, and he took his own life.

But for 10 years as a fugitive he was Roy “Vernon” Cox of Burns, Oregon, beloved surrogate father and honest, penurious rancher (if a bit too enamored of the wrong sorts of ladies), and he left behind people who refuse to think of him as a criminal.

Aside from the holes he left in a lot of people’s bank accounts, the story reveals Ferguson’s legacy to be a cryptic, rambling 70-page manuscript stored in a Portland house where Bush lives with his wife and about 10 others. The book seems to be simultaneously a death note and a treatise on how to make tons of money trading commodities. The Bushes also named their baby after Ferguson’s alias, Vernon, and induced birth so the kid would have Ferguson’s birthday.

 And as for the location of that $14 million? Still a mystery

The day Phil Ferguson killed Vern Cox, late spring was turning to summer in “The Big Empty,” an expanse of high desert in Eastern Oregon where the earth stretched lonesome and wide. By midmorning, temperatures near the remote outpost of Burns, the Harney County seat, were in the 70s, even as the Steens Mountains clung to their snowcaps off in the distance. Center-pivot irrigation systems watered fields of alfalfa. Sagebrush filled the unworked land. Here, a man could see things coming for miles: people, possibilities, trouble.

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Fifty-two-year-old Richard Beasley and his protegé, 16-year-old Brogan Rafferty, were charged with using Craigslist to lure men with false job postings. The men, all of whom were single and without families, would respond to the ad that claimed they would also have room and board while working on a cattle farm that didn’t exist. One victim, who was shot in the elbow, was able to run away to safety, but when police responded they found three other bodies at the scene in shallow graves.

Murder by Craigslist

Most people go to Craigslist to find apartments, job openings, and cheap furniture, while others use the popular classified advertising website to do their dirty work. In recent years, Craigslist has become a hotbed for predators and scam artists looking to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. What’s worse is no Craigslist section is safe from criminals. Whether you’re browsing the personals, for sale, or jobs section, you never really know who’s on the other end and what kind of danger you might be in.

The preacher placed the ad:

Wanted: Caretaker For Farm. Simply watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows, you get 300 a week and a nice 2 bedroom trailer, someone older and single preferred but will consider all, relocation a must, you must have a clean record and be trustworthy—this is a permanent position, the farm is used mainly as a hunting preserve, is overrun with game, has a stocked 3 acre pond, but some beef cattle will be kept, nearest neighbour is a mile away, the place is secluded and beautiful, it will be a real get away for the right person, job of a lifetime—if you are ready to relocate please contact asap, position will not stay open.

More than a hundred men applied; four were hired. The preacher and his “nephew” offered each a ride down to the farm. The men never knew what was going on—what bizarre scheme they’d stumbled upon. What happened next was almost too terrible to believe.

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Norman Baker, Holding A Subjects Head, At A Demonstration Of His Hypnosis Treatment, 1900. Born November 27, 1882, in Muscatine, Iowa, Norman Baker, was the last of 10 children delivered to wealthy factory owner John Baker and his wife Frances. Young Norman left school at the age of 16 to work as a machinist in his father’s factory. Baker became fascinated, however, by a hypnotist act that he saw as part of a vaudeville show that had traveled to his small, rural town. Baker soon began his own vaudeville act in 1900, called The Madame Pearl Tangley show, where he had a beautiful woman “read” the minds of spectators in the audience.

Crescent Hotel History

 Norman Baker Struck Snake Oil

Norman Baker had worked at a myriad of careers—magician, inventor, radio evangelist—in his lifetime, none of which qualified him to be a medical doctor. But this didn’t stop him from opening up a medical practice in his home state of Iowa and later in 1937, when he had been run out of town, in a hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The Crescent Hotel, where the notorious “Doctor” Baker treated his patients and promised to cure them of cancer, still exists after all these years. Most of Dr. Baker’s patients, however, barely lasted a few weeks under his care…

Perched on the crest of West Mountain above the Victorian village of Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the historic 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa. The 78-room resort hotel is not only known as one of America’s most distinctive and historic destinations, but it is also renowned for a bevy of spirits that are said to continue to walk upon the palatial grounds.

Built by the Eureka Springs Improvement Company and the Frisco Railroad, the hotel was designed by Isaac L. Taylor, a well-known Missouri architect who had designed a number of famous buildings in St. Louis. Twenty-seven acres at the north end of West Mountain was chosen for its majestic location overlooking the valley.

It was an important time in Eureka Springs’ history as the “healing waters” of the Ozarks had become well known across the nation. People from near and far were swarming to the area in hopes of curing their ailments and easing their pains. The developers of the Crescent Hotel & Spa planned to take advantage of these many travelers by building the most luxurious resort in the country.

Powell Clayton, a former governor of Arkansas from 1868 to 1870, formed the Eureka Springs Improvement Company in hopes of taking advantage of this prosperous period. Along with a number of other investors, the Frisco Railroad joined in on the plan, knowing that the resort could only spur their business.

Numerous stonemasons were brought in from Ireland to begin the construction in 1884. Due to the density of the magnesium limestone used to build the hotel, special wagons were constructed to move the massive pieces of stone from the quarry site on the White River. Designed in an eclectic array of architectural styles, the masons built 18 inch walls, a number of towers, overhanging balconies, and a massive stone fireplace in the lobby.

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James Delingpole has always been at war with warmists, now he has declared that he is going to advance the fight against them.

Let’s start the New Year as we mean to go on: by dancing joyfully and triumphantly on the grave of man-made global warming.

Climate change is over. It’s a busted flush. The alarmists now have all the credibility of bewildered Harold Camping followers shivering on a mountaintop the morning after the night before, looking all shifty and embarrassed as they realise the Rapture their models so confidently promised just ain’t going to happen…

He then goes on to highlight three pieces of information that people should make themselves familiar with.

The first – modestly titled The Most Comprehensive Assault On Global Warming Ever – was written by a US physics professor called Mike van Biezen. It lists ten of the reasons (though there are many more) why man-made global warming theory no longer has any credibility.

[…]

Then there are two pieces on what, for me, is the single most persuasive argument against man-made global warming theory: the (considerably more dramatic) fluctuations of climate long before mankind was in any position to influence it.

Here are the key points of an essay on the subject by Ed Hoskins…

[…]   Read more »

WE’RE BEING heard – finally

Over the past six months, we’ve been relentless in our pursuit of Anmol Seth.

We’ve interviewed countless victims, meticulously reviewed thousands of pages of written material and like most people following this story have arrived at one conclusion – the man is a ruthless and calculating conman.

We’ve willed authorities to hold this ‘fraudonaire extraordinaire’ to account for the money he’s stolen and the lives he’s ruined.

We’ve been to the police, Inland Revenue, the Banking Ombudsman, the Serious Fraud Office, the Law Society and the Financial Markets Authority demanding action.

So far there’s been no sign of anything resembling action.

As frustrating as that might be, we’ve been heartened by the news that not all our efforts have necessarily been in vain.

We’ve been reliably informed this week that the decision by Pita Pit to seize control of one of the Singh’s Botany stores was because of concerns they had about what they’d read about Anmol Seth on Whaleoil.     Read more »

Nigerian scammers are really going for gold, or in this case bitcoins.

Usually there is some long lost relative with a sealed crate of gold and if you just pay them a few thousand dollars you can inherit it.

Now they are just resorting to plain old stand over.

Police are investigating a threatening email from people claiming to be the terrorist hackers Syrian Electronic Army.   Read more »

The leftwing would have us all taxed and living in the stone age in order to save the planet from ourselves.

Some leftwing blogs have even suggested that the SIS are stupid in saying the biggest risk to NZ for security is Islamic terrorism, and not climate change.

They implore us to lead the world even though our emissions are just 0.2% of the world’s emissions.

Meanwhile China has pulled a Volkswagen emissions scam on us all.

China has shown the world how much it truly cares about global warming by burning significantly more dirty, carbon-unfriendly coal than it previously pretended.

According to shock data  released, without fanfare, by China’s statistical agency, its coal use has been about 17 per cent higher per year than earlier official figures admitted. This may have pumped an extra billion tons per year of CO2 into the atmosphere – more than the total house gas output of the entire German economy.

In 2012, China burned through an extra 600 million tons of coal: about 70 per cent of the amount used annually by the US.

The new figures make a nonsense of China’s publicly-expressed commitment to wage war on climate change.    Read more »

The Vatican has embraced the lunacy of climate change, and declared that the Paris talkfest is our “last chance” to save the planet.

Plenty of other useful idiots are making the same claims.

But how many last chances have we had? It seems a lot.

Watts Up with That reports:

Bonn 2001

A Global Warming Treaty’s Last Chance. That teetering edifice that is the Kyoto Protocol gets some emergency repair work this week as delegates from 180 countries gather in Bonn to work out problems that threaten to scuttle the deal altogether.
Time Magazine, 16 Jul 2001

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Montreal 2005

In an open letter to delegates at the Montreal environmental summit, beginning today, campaigner Mark Lynas explains why action on climate change can no longer be stalled.

“I’m scared. For 15 years I’ve watched international progress on climate change get slower and slower, even while the pace of global warming seems to get ever more rapid. With time running out for the global climate, your meeting in Montreal represents a last chance for action.”
The Independent, 28 Nov 2005

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Bali 2007

World leaders will converge on Bali today for the start of negotiations which experts say could be the last chance to save the Earth from catastrophic climate change. Bali could be the last chance to avoid the worst effect of global warming, said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth.
The New Zealand Herald, 3 Dec 2007     Read more »