options-rider-logoA legitimate business triggering money laundering filters? Not likely.

For the businesses that inhabit the MLM underbelly, it’s just another day at the office.

With investors continuing to not be paid and wondering where their money is, Options Rider’s latest excuse sees them blame financial regulations.

In an affiliate email published November 10th, Options Rider’s Bob Roberts writes;

I would like to sincerely apologize to all the rest of our clients who have been waiting on their withdrawals.

Due to heavy pressure from the New Zealand regulators, we have become aware that due to new restrictions, individuals with personal bank accounts who deposit into a managed fund are creating issues with the banks.

We were told by the regulators that clients need to have a corporate account in order to deposit and withdraw funds because when personal accounts are receiving tens of thousands of dollars of profit gains, the transactions are being flagged as fraud and money laundering.

Even though the regulators know that we are trading and the gains are from successful winning trades, moving money around to the payment banks and then sending it to multiple individual personal accounts are being flagged.

To clarify, it’s not the transactions themselves that are triggering the money laundering filters. Rather it’s the pattern of transactions Options Rider are conducting.  Or at least trying to.

Given that Options Rider solicit funds from investors on the implication they’ll receive a passive ROI, it’s easy to see why Options Rider’s transactions have set off regulatory alarms.

As to New Zealand’s regulators, strange that they’d be pressuring Options Rider given they have no physical presence there.

At launch Options Rider claimed to be registered with New Zealand’s SEC, despite there being no such agency.

The Financial Markets Authority (SEC equivalent in New Zealand), published an Options Rider warning late last month.

Rather than work with regulators to prove Options Rider is not simply shuffling newly invested funds to pay off existing investors, Roberts instead encourages to help them avoid regulatory detection:

To all the clients who already have the e-wallet now, please keep your withdrawal requests under $10,000.

For anyone that has NOT yet received their request, please send in a withdrawal to (removed) and include a corporate bank account.

Trusts, partnerships, LLC are all ok. It MUST NOT be a personal account. Again please be patient, your funds will be on their way shortly.

Personal accounts leave a money trail that can be traced. Corporate accounts could be registered to anyone, anywhere.

The mention of keeping transactions below $10,000 should be off particular concern, with this exact behavior attracting felony indictment in another scheme.

Late last year Charles Wang and Francis Yuen, owners of the eAdGear Ponzi scheme, were indicted by a grand jury on one count of conspiracy.

Both men were sentenced to 46 months in prison last month.

See if you can spot similarities with what Roberts is asking Options Rider investors to do:

Wang and Yuen knowingly and unlawfully combined, conspired and agreed to … structuring financial transactions to evade currency transaction reporting requirements.

The Object of the conspiracy was to conduct, with at least $200,000 in cash invested by eAdGear members, banking transactions in amounts under $10,000, such that they would not cause the relevant financial institutions to generate a currency transaction report.

Bob Roberts doesn’t want the banks Options Rider are using to trigger currency transaction reports either.

Roberts’ attempts at structuring financial transactions culminate in his asking for more money, sent to Options Rider in combined transactions of at least $100,000.

Because of a whole list of new regulations that are coming down on the Binary Options Industry soon, Options Rider has changed a few of the requirements in order for a client (both new and existing clients) to deposit into the program.

Accounts must now be combined together into $100,000 Combined Deposits so that the small deposits don’t catch the eye of regulators.

How this would work is an affiliate would put together a number of deposits totaling around $100,000. This may be one deposit of $100,000 or up to 10 deposits of $10,000 each and then send it in to us in one large deposit.

How this would work is the affiliate would have his clients deposit directly the affiliates own company account.

Once those CD’s reach a total of $100,000 the affiliate would then ask for bank wire details from his account rep here at Options Rider.

Once he received deposit details, he would take 10% off of the deposit total and bank wire in the remaining 90% to Options Rider along with a list of the clients that the deposit would be for.

In addition the affiliate would receive an additional 10% into his own trading account.

We feel that this would reward the affiliate for his hard work without waiting for payouts on commissions several months down the line.

What Bob Roberts is effectively asking Options Riders affiliates to do is aid and abet a conspiracy to commit structuring.

Structuring includes the act of parceling what would otherwise be a large financial transaction into a series of smaller transactions to avoid scrutiny by regulators or law enforcement.

Structuring often appears in federal indictments related to money laundering, fraud, and other financial crimes.

Sure, Options Rider investors might not ultimately face an indictment themselves… but here’s what they can look forward to:

Sums of money resulting from deposits of less than $10,000 may be seized after a warrant is issued based on a suspicious activity report.

Legal proceedings, which may cost in the vicinity of $20,000 or more, may be required for an innocent party to retrieve his or her money.

You’ve got a Ponzi scheme that purportedly was going to stop new affiliate registrations months ago and rely on alleged trading revenue.

That never happened and now you’ve got withdrawals down the gurgler, regulators clamping down and the owners openly encouraging financial felonies.

The Ponzi play by play should be pretty obvious at this point. And you know how this ends…