|
|
It's not just Neteller that's coming under fire by the Feds these days. Back in late April, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicted two companies, E-Gold Ltd and Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc, and their owners Dr. Douglas L. Jackson, Reid A. Jackson and Barry K. Downey on charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
E-Gold has had a long but somewhat unsuccessful venture in the world of Internet gambling. Over the years, they've barely made a dent in the industry whereas payment process Neteller and firms such as FirePlay have practically dominated up until earlier this year when nearly all pulled out of the US facing market that made up more than 80% of their customers.
There was some bad news Monday on a private email list which stated that last week’s motion by e-gold defendants to release their seized gold funds had been denied, as reported by Mark Herpel of American Chronicle
The actual text was reprinted:
MINUTE ENTRY ORDER denying [35], [36] Defendants’ Motion to Vacate Seizure Warrant and to Modify Restraining Order and Request for an Evidentiary Hearing. For the reasons stated at the June 21, 2007 hearing, in open court, the Defendants’ Motion is hereby DENIED. This is a final appealable order. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a).
Signed by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer on June 22, 2007. (cdw)
The seized assets shall remain frozenm, Herpel explains.
At the time of the indictment, the DOJ also issued two dozen seizure warrants on something like 60 e-gold accounts which they said currently held property involved with the alleged money laundering and/or the alleged unlicensed money transmitting business.
This appears similar to what Neteller is going through. That company has failed to return any funds to US customers, though they claim it is just a matter of time. E-Gold customers dilemma may be worse.
Mark Herpel:
"One or several of the seized accounts held the e-gold that was backing 1MDC (the fast and convenient payment system built around e-gold). 1MDC was a great online system that offered storage of your digital gold without monthly fees. Unfortunately, if you had a 1MDC account at the end of April, you lost all account value during the government’s seizure of the e-gold accounts!
"1MDC accounts are still intact, but the units no longer have any value. Over the past few weeks, there has been some buying and selling of 1MDC between existing account holders below market prices. Not surprisingly, a few people had hopes that if 1MDC came back from the dead, they could profit from it’s resurrection.
"If last week’s hearing had vacated the seizure and released the funds, 1MDC may have taken it's first steps towards value. That did not happen and I think any tiny hope of a 1MDC comeback is now fading.
"The hearing, which occurred last Thursday, was to vacate the Seizure Warrant and release the funds from the entire asset seizure. Unfortunately, the Judge denied it and consequently 1MDC shall remain worthless. All of these seized funds (all 58 accounts) holding an estimated $11-$16 million is still being held by the government pending an outcome from this mess."
Herpel does not see a plea arrangement in the works either. |
|
发表于 2007-6-29 05:09
