USFIA offices raided, SEC granted TRO
Details are sketchy, but from what I’ve been able to put together the SEC filed for a sealed Temporary Restraining Order against USFIA, Steve Chen, Alliance Financial Group, Aborell MGMT LLC, Aborell Advisors LLC, Aborell Reit II LLC, Ahome Real Estate LLC, Amkey Inc, US China Consultation Association and Quail Ranch Golf Course LLC on the 22nd of September.
The TRO was granted by an Arizona District Court Judge on the 28th of September. The case however is still under seal so I don’t have any further details at this time.
The image of the order granting the TRO above is courtesy of the Sierra Madre Tattler.
Citing local sources, the Tattler has also published the following updates:
The FBI and SEC are now in the USFIA offices seizing assets. FBI showed up at 1PM and cleared out the building. Everything is going into boxes and being taken out.
Several FBI officers were at John Wuo’s house today. Arcadia PD was brought in as backup.
At the time of publication, Wuo doesn’t appear to be listed as a defendant in the SEC’s TRO request.
The SEC’s filing against USFIA marks the first regulatory action we’ve seen against an MLM cryptocurrency opportunity in the US.
Stay tuned for updates once the SEC’s case against USFIA is unsealed.
Update 30th September 2015 – As part of the granted TRO several USFIA related bank accounts have been frozen, including:
- four USFIA Inc. accounts with Bank of America
- one USFIA Inc. account with East West Bank
- two accounts with Bank of America in the names of Steve Chen and Luyang Li (???)
- one account with Far East National Bank in the name of “Li Chen aka Steve Chen”
- one account with Chase Bank in the name of Steve Chen
- one account with Chase Bank in the name of “Wei He or Li Chen”
- one Amauction Inc. account each with Bank of America, National Bank of California and East West Bank
- two AHome Real Estate LLC accounts with Bank of America
- one Amkey Inc. account each with First Regional Bank, National Bank of California and Far East National Bank (2 accounts)
- four Amkey Inc. accounts with Bank of America
- one Amkey VOIP account with First Regional Bank
- one Aborell Investment Associates I LLC account with Bank of America
- one Aborell REIT II LLC account each with Torrey Pines Bank, Bank of America (2 accounts), JPMorgan Chase
- two Apollo Advisors I LLC accounts with Bank of America
- one Apollo Investors account with Bank of America
- one Apollo Mgmt I LLC account with Bank of America
- one Alliance NGN Inc. account with HSBC and four accounts with Bank of America
- one Ammine SRL account with Far East National Bank
- one Aborell Management I LLC account with Bank of America
- one Apollo REIT I account with Bank of America
- one Apollo REIT II LLC account with JPMorgan Chase
- two US China Consultation Association accounts with Bank of America
- one Alliance Financial Group account with Bank of America
- two Quail Ranch Golf Club LLC accounts with Bank of America
- one account with Bank of America in the names of “Li Chen & Li Zhao”
How much USFIA GemCoin Ponzi funds Chen laundered through the above accounts is currently unknown.
I’m thinking if raids were carried out today and the above accounts have been frozen, hopefully we’ll get a motion to unseal the case by the end of the week.
Update 30th September 2015 #2 – Responses from Chen and USFIA as to why a preliminary injunction should not be granted are due by the 5th of October.
The TRO itself expires on the 13th of October, by which date a preliminary injunction hearing will have taken place.
Also a Temporary Receiver has been appointed, as per the order granting the TRO:
Thomas Seaman is appointed as temporary receiver of Defendant USFIA Inc. (and the rest of Chen’s companies), with full powers of an equity receiver, including, but not limited to, full power over all funds, assets, collateral, premises (whether owners, leased, occupied, or otherwise controlled), choses in action, books, records, papers and other property belonging to, being managed or in the possession of or control of the Receivership Entities.
“Receivership Entities” is defined as all the named defendant companies in the TRO.
Update 30th September 2015 #3 – Photo coverage of the raid and USFIA employee walks of shame:
There was also a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement helicopter flying around while all of this went down.
Photos courtesy of Terry Miller from Beacon Media (Arcadia Weekly), who was at the scene.
USFIA website @ “usfiainc.com” is down…
Bank account seizure documents are now up. Lots of familiar names.
I am awaiting the rest of the SEC document.
sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
wow & wow.
steve chen’s long career in scammery finally ends.
the saving grace may be that he will find lots of ‘queens’ in federal prison to play ‘beauty pageant’ with 🙂
but what, no mention yet of solomon yang and leonard johnson? and bignose john zhang who appears to be chen’s man friday?
Article updated with frozen bank accounts.
Quite the money laundering network Chen had going there.
hmm at no.24 is a bank of america account with the names of li chen and li zhao [john wuo?]
there are so many bank of america accounts!guess they will be in trouble too!
I doubt Wuo will be among the defendants. The question is will his political career survive this scandal. After all he wasn’t caught red handed like Leland Yee.
Some of those accounts may have done legit business at one time…
His house was raided today. Guess we’ll see if they found anything…
Which one? Does that include that Ahome mcmansion we saw earlier?
@anjali that Li Zhao is probably Steve s brother
Wuo’s house. Not sure other than Wuo’s house and the USFIA office of any other raids.
From the Tattler:
I’ve yet to see a copy of the complaint. Looking forward to dissecting this one.
luyang li seems to be a partner or employee of Ahome Real Estate LLC:
From the TRO order, arguments against a preliminary injunction from USFIA and Chen are due by the 5th of October.
Presumably there’s a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled not too long after.
TRO expires 13th October, there’s your preliminary injunction hearing date (or possibly Monday 12th).
I believe a Temporary Receiver has also been appointed.
Article updated confirming appointment of Temporary Receiver.
john chiang, who is the serving treasurer of state [california], received donations for his political campaign last year, from:
USFIA
Ahome real estate
eiji sakuarada [solomon yang]
john wuo [president – golden apple group]
On the Same Date ie 28th march, 2014.
‘great eastern immigration service’ [steve chen VISA company] gave a donation on april 9th, 2014.
after being elected john chiang visited arcadia, in march 2015, and was felicitated by mayor john wuo.
it seems steve chen, solomon yang and john wuo, did their politics together, along with their business relations. wonder what john chiang’s view about arcadia masonization is, and whether he will return the donations?
what were the business activities of john wuo from 2014 onwards, that he paid almost 6000$ in donation to john chiang’s campaign? when did he resign from the ‘golden apple group’?
electiontrack.com/lookup.php?committee=1333963
I wouldn’t bet on it.
* We have no idea how many Suspicious Activity Reports will have been automatically filed by the BoA.
Under the terms of the Bank Secrecy Act, banks cannot reveal any SAR it has filed and is protected, should it do so:
I’m guessing, Suspicious Activity Reports played a not insignificant part in what’s happened today.
It’s not surprising the TRO has the degree of accuracy WRT accounts held by the defendants when you consider the SAR requirements of US banks.
Yep, that case is sealed alright; nothing on PACER, ‘cuz I just looked.
Coverage from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:
Includes photo of FBI staff in the USFIA head office and a USFIA staffer doing the walk of shame with a box of “personal artifacts”.
sgvtribune.com/general-news/20150929/government-seizes-arcadia-business-in-gemcoin-fraud-case
be hilarious if ‘Johnny Gemcoins’ is a Wuo nickname.
john wuo’s ‘first avenue education inc’ also made a 3000$ donation to john chiang’s campaign on the same date of march 28th, 2014.
at a total of over 10,000$ this puts john wuo as a top donator from arcadia.
it seems john wuo was making plenty of money in 2014, to be able to back his political choices.
with arcadia having such a heavy chinese population, it ‘sticks out’ that john wuo along with his gang [steve chen, solomon yang] were among the biggest supporters of john chiangs campaign [over 20,000$].
i think it was the Sierra Madre Tattler which first anointed john wuo with the nickname ‘Johnny Gemcoins’.
You could even say they… coined it.
HAWHAWHAW.
Article updated with photos of the raid.
Chinese report from the Epoch Times: epochtimes.com/gb/15/9/30/n4539436.htm
Got the Receivership’s website from that report, although it’s not ready yet (currently using template information from another case).
Registered less than 24 hrs ago: usfiareceiver.com
Well, here’s my part 2 on Steve Chen’s “career” before USFIA… From end of Amkey to USFIA:
amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2015/09/usfia-update-continued.html
I think that first picture, woman in black with red suitcase, is Wang Wei.
That’s some pretty solid research. These guys operate for years and we only hear about it when they try to go English.
Amazing world we live in…
Guess what, Steve has a Bloomberg profile:
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=758225&privcapId=528253&previousCapId=528253&previousTitle=ASPAC%20Communications,%20Inc.
So what I called “Kaichi” is “Catch Paging (Beijing)”. No idea who’s ASPEC or AMTEC. Can’t find any thing on them, too long ago. The way he left even before China Unicom was even established was really suspicious, IMHO, and the fact he never went back, even for a visit.
Guess I should tear up my tickets to the beauty pageant finals..
According to some photos, Long Z Liu, the attorney representing the protesting victims, was in USFIA parking lot watching the employees leave and making calls.
Epoch Times apparently got in touch of him. Here’s latest bit from the article:
Hmmm… No Solomon Yang?
According to Blockshopper, a real estate tracking service, Luyang Li and Steve Chen bought a house from Steve Chen’s own AHome for 1.25 mil in late 2014.
NOLINK://losangeles.blockshopper.com/property/5777020010/849_balboa
And another familiar name on the same property, Li Zhao. Hmmm…
Commendable indeed, but ….this attorney must suspect/know the receivership will get first claim on any USFIA sourced assets. Why commence a subordinate action?
Publicity, probably. He also sued Luca group Ponzi, IIRC.
Personal opinion: I don’t think Chinese victims want to be bothered with filing their own reports for receiver… if the time comes. They don’t know law, and they’ll probably just sign and let this lawyer handle it as long as it’s nothing out of pocket.
AND the guy gets a bit of fame and glory, i.e. “I told you so!” his lawfirm is now famous for having been in the paper multiple times as “champion of justice!’ 😀
Apparently Sho Tay has weighed in with Singtao Daily, one of top two Chinese papers in the US…
singtaousa.com/528022/post-%E7%BE%8E%E6%B4%B2%E7%A4%A6%E6%A5%AD%E8%A2%AB%E6%9F%A5%E5%8F%97%E5%AE%B3%E8%80%85%E6%8B%8D%E6%89%8B%E7%A8%B1%E5%BF%AB/?variant=zh-hk&fs=16
This seems to be a summary and I haven’t gotten the whole paper yet.
Interesting. In a Chinese article dated 17-SEP-2015 on HuarenOne, they claimed that Steve Chen was sued for his Amkey scam and settled out of court in 2007. Any one got PACER can check on this?
The same article claimed that Steve Chen pulled the protostock scam with Amkey (“food supplements”), Alliance NGN (“telecom”), AFG (doing real estate / REIT), and USFIA (“Amber” / “Gemcoin”), i.e. he’s a four-time repeat offender. Sources cited are varied.
USChinaPress weighed in. TRO has 20 pages, and receiver Tom Seaman didn’t say much, other than he’s to take inventory of USFIA and related company’s assets, to help ascertain if the company’s a fraud, and he wants to see where did the money go, and to repay if that’s what the court decides.
Nobody was arrested. He hopes to have update within 10 days on the official receiver website. It took him 6 hours. (He apparently didn’t leave USFIA office until it’s after dark)
Long Z. Liu, the lawyer for victims, opnined that sooner or later US attorney will file criminal charges against Steve Chen.
NOLINK://news.uschinapress.com/2015/0929/1038723.shtml
@Kasey
There indeed was a case:
Settlement terms not available for download. My guess is Chen paid up (less than the $10 million sought).
sho tay seems super eager to distance himself from USFIA/gemcoin.
he says that as early as last year, ‘friends’ had asked him about USFIA, but he had no idea how to guide them? as a city council member and a voice of the chinese community in arcadia, why did he not tell his ‘friends’ to complain to the arcadia police department?
and now, sho tay is losing no time running around offering explanations to the press?
i smell stinky poo.
I’d guess that the press reached out to him, one of the other Chinese-American on the city council, for comment.
LATimes article is day late, but has extra details:
and
NOLINK:www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-federal-seize-assets-arcadia-20150930-story.html
Can we haz indictments now?
And how did the LA Times get a copy of the SEC complaint? Shit is still sealed!
My guess? They got a LOOK at it. They don’t possess a copy.
Oh, and one more item:
news.uschinapress.com/2015/0930/1038823.shtml
The weird part is searchin on Google shows multiple “404” articles on USChinapress website that showed some interesting headlines, like “WUO: I hired lawyer to take care of the case” dated only 15 hours ago. But they can’t be accessed any more.
And a “Statement” from Steve Chen appears (via 1diq.com)
wondering why singapore USFIA still operating but no more doing transaction now.
This new setup company has the same address with the singapore USFIA. Doing all over the same things but still not started. promised members that the platform will starts within 3-6 months.
What a ‘Joke’ again. even it can starts, reckon is P2P and whoever wants to sell their points (gemcoin) will need to find victim to buy form you. haha