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Back in September last year TelexFree tried to convince a court in Acre that, despite being owned by the same three people, TelexFree should be able to use Ympactus’ funds to pay off Ympactus’ debts, including ROIs owed to affiliate investors.

As part of the injunction handed down against TelexFree, Ympactus’ funds are currently frozen.

Not surprisingly, a judge rejected TelexFree’s bankruptcy application, as it was clear the company was just trying to wriggle free funds it had been blocked from. Practically speaking, other than using a different name, there’s no difference between Ympactus and TelexFree.

Hearing the case, Judge Braz Aristóteles dos Reis firstly pointed out that in the public eye, TelexFree and Ympactus are one and the same company. That withstanding, they both also list James Merril as the owner in official company-related documents.

Furthermore, according to Brazilian law a company provided as a credit source in a Bankruptcy Protection application has to demonstrate active operation for over two years. Ympactus failed on this count with tax filings only dating back to 2012.

Same owners, same business, same AdCentral driven Ponzi scheme.

Now, almost six months later, it appears TelexFree figured they’d try their luck in a different Brazilian state by filing another bankruptcy application. This time filed in Espírito Santo, here’s how TelexFree’s latest attempt to circumvent the Acre injunction went down…

In filing their second appeal, once again TelexFree’s arguments remained consistent with what they presented in Acre. They claimed Ympactus should be granted bankruptcy protection because they had been in business for two years.

The problem with this argument is, as it was in Acre, that while Ympactus was indeed first registered in 2010 (well over two years ago), it was initially registered as a company to ‘market cosmetics, perfumery and toilet personnel‘.

During this time, it was revealed in the Acre bankruptcy hearing that ‘for the months of September and October 2011 at R$63 ($28.63 USD) and R$21 ($9.54 USD) respectively‘.

These amounts, in the Judge’s opinion, clearly demonstrated Ympactus’ failure to meet the requirement of “regular (business) operations) for two years prior.

It wasn’t until March 2012 that owners Carlos Costa, James Merril and Carlos Wanzeler repurposed Ympactus to front the TelexFree Ponzi scheme in Brazil.

March 2012 of course putting us at less than two years (which I believe is counted up until the time the company was effectively shutdown in Brazil in June 2013).

Mirroring the Judge’s decision in Acre and based on the fact that Ympactus’ ‘contract with Telexfree was made less than two years‘ ago,

Judges Lyrio Regis de Souza Lyrio, Janet Vargas Simões and Annibal de Rezende Lima unanimously voted to dismiss (TelexFree’s) appeal.

carlos-costa-angry-telexfree-bankruptcy-youtube-video-feb-2014

Following the rejection, an angry Carlos Costa took to YouTube to declare that ‘he found the decision to be strange‘. Costa claimed that

the obligation of (the) Justice is (to ensure) the firm’s survival, especially thinking of its creditors and the affiliates.

Costa stated he wants to pay the advisers, however (the appeal was) treated more as an attempt to unlock £29 million for Telexfree International.

Whether intentionally or not, with that last statement Costa hits the nail on the head. Underlying the “we want to pay our affiliates’ hookline is the simple fact that, being barred from recruiting or paying out affiliate investors in Brazil, TelexFree is likely to siphon off any released funds offshore. Then, with Costa on board a plane to join fellow TelexFree owners James Merril and Carlos Wanzeler in the US, the company could abandon what’s left of their Ponzi legacy in Brazil.

Evidence of this has already surfaced, with TelexFree closing it’s Brazilian office earlier this month:

Those associated with Telexfree will not meet at the headquarters of Ympactus anymore. Those who invested in TelexFree were surprised by a sign warning that the company will no longer be receiving people at the Brazilian office, only in Massachusetts.

What hasn’t been widely discussed is the obvious, that those affiliate investors who still believe in Brazil are being urged to re-sign up as affiliates fraudulently through the US and other countries. Additionally any money paid out to existing Brazilian investors on the condition that TelexFree be permitted to resume operations would then likely then be re-invested back into the company (to be then paid out to those at the top of the scheme).

And that’s precisely why TelexFree’s bankruptcy claims, along with every other appeal they’ve filed, has been thus far denied.

Reading between the lines, it would appear the frozen funds is the only reason Costa remains in Brazil. It might have originally been on the idea that hoodwinking the Brazilian judiciary into believing they should legalize Ponzi schemes was possible, but as evidenced by TelexFree abandoning Acre and trying their luck in other Brazilian states, the reality of a pending Judgement against the company seems to be finally sinking in.

Meanwhile in other TelexFree news, Public Prosecutors in Acre have tracked down the publisher of false claims that one of their own had been murdered. The claims, published on Facebook back in December of last year, alleged

that a prosecutor involved in the TelexFree pyramid-scheme probe had been murdered. The bogus report was supplemented by photos of a mutilated body purported to be that of the prosecutor.

Turns out using death hoaxes against Public Prosecutors in the vein hope they’ll drop the case against your favorite Ponzi scheme wasn’t the smartest idea

One person, a resident of Rio Branco, was identified as the owner of the computer where the news originated.

According to the prosecutor Adenilson de Souza, member of the Special Action Group for Combating Organized Crime (Gaeco), conductor of the investigation, so the news began to appear, a procedure was established to determine the facts.

The procedure now, according to Souza, is to forward all investigation material to the Special Court under a “crime of threat” complaint. “When the Judgeship receives it, (they) will probably make a complaint and then (the publisher) will have the responsibility of answering in court for this illegal act,” he adds.

Sounds good to me…