Wuo ignores resignation calls & distraught USFIA victims
Another two weeks, another action-packed Arcadia City Council Meeting.
Packed to the rafters, the September 15th meeting saw multiple calls for John Wuo’s resignation, along with teary testimony from USFIA victims.
The second public speaker of the night, Shone Wang, kicked off calls for Wuo’s resignation:
[1:13:30] I’m here today to plead for Mr John Wuo’s resignation from our city council.
Arcadia city council is a quintessential southern California democracy at its best. We elect prominent public figure for our community who are willing to serve on a volunteer basis.
This is not a money-earning job and it’s not a job for job per-say…
This good tradition has kept Arcadia… great and proud for decades.
Until came this Mr. John Wuo, with a big time big time, big boy, big city politician manner, and to try to strike for the fame and fortune that he thinks he deserves in our city.
Tonight I’m Mr. John Wuo’s character witness. I’ve known John for more than 20 years.
This is not a personal vendetta that I come with, I come with great regret. Because, like many other Arcadian Chinese Americans, I chose to keep silent for years when I see a bad apple got rotten.
I know this turmoil of this Gemcoin scam has been brewing for quite a while.
And I read the script of the July meeting of this city council and Mr. Wuo tried to white-wash his involvement in this scam. He even had our city attorney validate his conduct.
There’s no mea culpa moment here. There’s not the slightest (indecipherable) … this is totally out of line.
I know what we call, innocent until proven guilty. And I know this scam is still under ongoing investigation. Whether Mr. John Wuo will get indicted or not is still unknown.
Yet this (Arcadia Highlands) multi-million dollar lawsuit already has (cast) a big cloud over over Arcadia. And our reputation has been deeply, seriously dampened.
With an effort to restore our reputation and our proud tradition, I urge you Mr John Wuo to step down.
If he still has one ounce of decency in him, which I doubt it.
(Otherwise) it’s then up to this council to come up with some kind of resolution to preserve our good names.
Because you’re not dealing with a naive man who inadvertently stepped out of bounds, shaking the wrong hand, cutting the wrong ribbon, This is not about a man cutting the wrong ribbon, endearing to the wrong people.
This is a savvy business man. Maybe not that successful as we all know, he has tried to entangle himself from head to toe with the money pit that he can find and tried to grab whatever comes his way.
So if we keep giving him the benefit of the doubt by doing nothing, when the big bubble bursts, one day you will say then what the 50 some victims say now: “Gee, we should have seen it coming”.
Chimed in another speaker shortly after:
[1:25:00] Councilman Wuo, you sir are a disgrace to our city.
You say you know nothing about GemCoin. You say it is a political attack because of an upcoming election.
This issue was brought up months ago and the election isn’t until April, 2016.
This isn’t politically driven.
I don’t understand how you can say I can’t understand how you say you are not endorsing GemCoin, but support the company at numerous events as Mayor of Arcadia – only to wish them good fortune.
You have publicly said GemCoin is a breakthrough and cutting-edge technology, that sure sounds like an endorsement to me.
You say it’s up to an investor to do the research. Sir, the apparent endorsement from you as Mayor gave that confidence on GemCoin.
Those investors believed in you. Maybe they were naive in doing so, but they did – due to your position as Mayor.
That is why your comments don’t make any sense to me.
The gentlemen then proceeded to hold up the now infamous photo of John Wuo signing documents with USFIA owner Steve Chen.
Just before this meeting I was made aware of an article from the Arcadia Weekly.
This includes a picture of you with the GemCoin executives, in which you are all signing documents.
Sir, you have shamed our city. You should do the right thing and resign your position as councilman, before our city goes through any further embarassment and scandal.
Frequent speaker David Arvizu was next to address the John Wuo GemCoin scandal, who used his time to pave the way for two Chinese USFIA investors to speak:
[1:35:30] The reason I’m here today… is to discuss John Wuo’s involvement with GemCoin.
My main concern, and the issue that I’ve brought up, was the seemingly endorsement from a political figure, a councilman from the City of Arcadia, endorsing a private company.
The company seemed to be kind of shady… that’d going to be decided by whoever decides to investigate this in terms of the judicial departments.
One of the most difficult things about what is going on and understanding the complexity of this operation is the fact that it preys on at it preys on Chinese immigrants, who have come over from either Hong Kong, Taiwan or mainland China.
They are used to speaking in either Mandarin or Cantonese and English is a second language to them. It is very difficult for them to express themselves.
In having conversations with these people… we’ve learned that not everything that we’ve tried to communicate to them crosses over very easily.
I think it’s shameful that John Wuo has used his grasp of the English and Chinese language to manipulate these people.
The stories that they’ve told us, and it’s not just one person or two people, many people have told us stories that they’ve been encouraged, led to believe and told that this was a solid investment, that was backed either by the City of Arcadia and the United States Government.
These are words coming from people who have directly spoken with John Wuo.
The reason that I ask the two speakers to follow me is that this is very difficult for them to do what they are doing.
There have been threats made against these people. They’ve been discouraged from contacting the press (and) from contacting the authorities.
When they attempted to contact the Arcadia Police Department a year ago, possibly because of a language barrier, they were turned away.
When they tried to readdress that issue last week, they were told that the statute of limitations had expired and that they could no longer file a complaint against the threat that was made against them.
Two speakers tonight were turned away by police. They were told statute of limitations had expired when they tried to file reports of violent threats made against them.
These next two people have had personal experiences with GemCoin, with Steven Chen and with John Wuo.
I think their stories are very important for the City Council to understand the magnitude of what has been going on.
This is not from me, they have come to me. They came and searched me out, I did not search them out.
(addressing John Wuo personally) When all this settles in the end, however it plays out, I want you to understand that whatever happens here, it’s your responsibility.
Your actions, whatever you did, whatever your level of involvement is, however you interacted with these people; that was your choice.
And one of the main things that you have to accept is responsibility for your actions.
Mayor Kovacic did not permit the two USFIA investors to speak directly after Arvizu (instead opting to run through the speaker cards as submitted), but did issue the following statement in response to Arvizu’s public address:
Our Chief of Police, Bob Guthrie, is right there… if somebody feels intimidated about… something, and needs to speak to a police officer, tha’s about as good a police officer as you can find.
So if anyone in the audience has a problem that they think deserves some kind of police protection, please go to Chief Guthrie right now, if it’s that serious.
The USFIA investors did finally get to speak, making up the last two public speakers for the night.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Wong, laid out his USFIA story:
[2:00:22] I’m an Arcadia resident. I’m very happy and proud to live in Arcadia City but this is a little bit changing.
Because our councilor John Wuo has stood beside the business USFIA.
I invested, put the money in $128,000 into this company but have no return so far.
So this is about more than 300,000 people in the world and about the amount of $300 million dollars involved.
Wong then held up a USFIA brochure featuring John Wuo.
This is the brochure when they introduced the investment to us, and (it) has councilor John wuo involved. His picture is in this brochure.
I want to get an explanation from John Wuo, this is what I want today. And I have no idea what’s going to happen or what to do from this point.
The second USFIA investor, a woman named Li Li, spoke next.
She also pleaded with Wuo for answers:
[2:03:45] I invested around $20,000 in USFIA in 2013. This company is located in Arcadia City.
Today I represent alot of people who invested in this company, to make this presentation here.
I invested (in) this company because I saw Mr. John Wuo, who attended a lot of events and also presented to lots of investors and media at lots of USFIA company events.
He also talked about GemCoin and that the boss (Steve Chen) is (a) believable (person).
I also saw Mr. John Wuo always go to work in USFIA company very frequently, every week.
So now we found this company has lots of fraud issues.
Even we found it’s a Ponzi scheme because this company defrauded a lot of investors money and they changed lots of things.
Around more than 300,000 people around the world have invested in this company. Most of them are from Asia, like China Singapore and Hong Kong.
Right now we think we need Mr John Wuo to help us get our investment back, because we think you are one of the owners of the company.
We have some evidence.
I’m not sure what the evidence held up was (above right), but I think it’s related to Wuo’s business dealings with USFIA boss Steve Chen.
Right now I’m pregnant and need to raise my baby…
Li Li visibly broke down at this point, taking a moment to compose herself before continuing…
What we really want is Mr Wuo as mayor to stand up to support us investors. To let the company to return and compensate this loss.
We hope you can take (up) this responsibility.
Li Li’s recounting of her USFIA experience was indeed difficult to watch.
We often talk about the victims of Ponzi fraud in absolute numbers, but hearing personal experiences adds a whole other dimension.
You really get a graphic illustration of the damage financial fraud wreaks across communities.
Having heard testimony from one USFIA investor who doesn’t know what the future holds, and another with a baby on the way break down into tears… Wuo’s response was brief and decidedly chilling:
[2:24:13] I’m not gunna comment.
Wuo went on to share that he “was real busy” because his youngest son was getting married next month.
While Wuo’s answer to Arcadia citizens who say he played a big part in their investment in USFIA might seem heartless, there’s potentially more to the story than we’re currently aware of.
Speaking to reporters last Monday outside of USFIA headquarters, Wuo said
he hired an attorney who advised him not to speak with the press.
It seems that GemCoin wall of silence has been extended to Arcadia’s residents and Wuo’s fellow members of the City Council.
And if you’re wondering why John Wuo was at GemCoin HQ earlier this week, well… apparently that’s off limits too:
On Monday, Wuo was seen in the lobby of USFIA headquarters, located at 135 E. Live Oak Ave., where he declined to comment on why he was there.
In the same Pasadena Star-News report, it was also revealed that the FBI aren’t the only ones investigation USFIA and GemCoin.
Among the agencies conducting investigations are the FBI, IRS, SEC and the California Department of Business Oversight, a consumer protection agency that regulates financial services.
Officials from the Department of Business Oversight confirmed Tuesday that it is conducting an investigation into USFIA and its dealings.
At least one investor, Ning, said he and his wife Bonnie have been contacted by an FBI field agent in West Covina, as well as representatives from the IRS and SEC.
Sgt. Brett Bourgeous of the Arcadia Police Department said it is also investigating complaints filed by other investors over the past week.
The detective said the claims are related to fraud and perceived threats, but could not provide any further details as the investigation is ongoing.
Yet despite the regulatory attention USFIA and GemCoin appear to be getting, all is still apparently well over at Arcadia City Hall:
Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said he and the city attorney regularly review all concerns related to GemCoin, but to date, they had not found any direct evidence of criminal activity.
Possibly in reaction to said regulatory attention, the publication ChineseDailyUSA has removed all references to GemCoin and USFIA from their website:
And not only is the content gone, but so too has Google’s cache of it. Typically Google will cache deleted content for weeks, even months, after it was deleted, before finally letting it expire.
The owner of a web property however can request Google expedite this expiry, through their Google Webmaster Search Console.
Last month the Sierra Madre Tattler reported that ChineseDailyUSA was owned by fellow Arcadia City Council member, Sho Tay.
Given Tay is now actively scrubbing the internet of Wuo’s involvement in GemCoin, you’ve got to wonder what might of been happening at USFIA HQ these past few weeks.
Do they have the paper shredders running day and night figuring a regulatory raid is all but imminent? Was Wuo there earlier this week to to personally oversee the shredding himself and ensure all traces of his involvement in USFIA were removed?
Stay tuned…
whoa these guys are pretty thorough in their work. we are definitely not dealing with some half assed scammy types.
who can believe all this is happening in a small quiet town in california known for its good school education. an international ponzi scheme being run quietly in full public view, with the help of the former mayor, and long deadly sniper guns, and fake amber squeezy rings and death threats.
fox11 news should follow sho tay to his front door and ask him about the missing article on the chinese daily newspaper.
and since the handling of the arcadia police of the gemcoin scam and it’s victims, falls short of satisfactory, i don’t know how thorough their investigation of ning pan’s death was.
they ruled out foul play on the night of the incident itself on may 11th, 2015. they were sure there was no foul play, even Before conducting an investigation and that makes their conclusion questionable.
if they saw the shooting incident on a security camera recording then i can understand their conclusion, but the newspaper reports do not mention anything about the accident being recorded by a security camera at the la puente firing range.
fox11 should chase sho tay down to his front door and ask him about ning pan.
Police don’t do much on major fraud cases. They deal with physical crimes. Civil Fraud is generally left up to state or federal level agencies, esp. when it’s as big as USFIA.
The claim of lethal threat is just that, a claim. APD will look into it, and “Zhang” will deny it, and we’re left with nothing.
correct. but if the APD could drive down to USFIA headquarters and check the premises for guns and their licenses, they could probably uncover something illegal going on?
there are arcadians posting on the sierra madre tattler blog, that the type of long range sniper gun which chen posed with, are illegal to possess?
if the APD cannot deal with ponzi fraud they can surely look into the death threat angle at least?
were they waiting for all the guns to be carted out from the USFIA office? i bet, the guns and the security men with machine guns would be gone by now already!
The gun is likely one of the California legal variants.
APD could go down and ask if there are any weapons there, but Chen could say “No” and without the presence of some crime a warrant would be needed. Even if Chen or one of his associates has one of those weapons registered to him/her a photo doesn’t mean he has the gun. It could be at a show (or more likely ‘Sho’)
Threat’s are difficult to prosecute and even more difficult to prosecute when a great deal of time has elapsed between when the threats were made and when they were finally reported.
We all ask a lot from our Officers and Police Departments. It’s good to have a large number of agencies looking at this from other angles with various resources available to make a solid, tight case.
Most likely this will end up in Federal court and all of the agencies will be able to present their part of the case.
On the google cache of Tays site, asp pages cache differently than others.
Not to worry though, some crawlers are just plain mean, ignore robots.txt and just bulldoze their way through a site.
That’s why the pages aren’t really ‘missing’ (a few of you will get the reference 😉 )
Just because someone CLAIMED to have been threatened a year ago is not enough to get a search warrant, and if there’s no search warrant cops have to stop at the door and maybe the lobby and it’s a pretty f***ing big place, unless Chen offered to take the cop on a tour, but then he runs the risk of police noticing something ELSE illegal going on. So that won’t happen.
ok, i’m getting that.
i hope the FBI investigation will include the threat angle in their case, as they have been/will be interviewing victims.
we see so many ponzi/pyramid schemes get busted, but we do not see such Fear in the victims that they will be Harmed.
the victims that visited the arcadia police station were covering their faces and wearing dark glasses, i think their perception of threat is real.
this just takes the criminality of steve chen and gem coin to a level which is beyond mere theft of money. this is like armed robbery!
Or they were acting to bring sympathy to their cause, by dredging up half-remembered events and embellishing them for TV.
Not saying they are, just playing devil’s advocate.
Point by point rebuttal of USFIA’s 9 denials…
1) WHICH of Steve Chen’s entities is the so-called “legally registered in California” entity? WHICH one accepted the money of the alleged investors?
2) Why does the pamphlets passed out at recent meeting doesn’t say anything like that? WHO organized the event? WHO was scheduled to appear? Who created the marketing material?
3) This directly conflicts with the comp plan as shown by victims, old plans archived in China, and so on.
4) So who made the pamphletts that was distributed? Who was scheduled to speak? What did Leonard Johnson talk about at the Toronto and other meetings?
5) So is Zhang a part of the security force or not?
6) What amber, inspected by who, and evaluated by who? Where is this alleged mine you kept mumbling about? Mexico or DR?
7) Don’t bull****. In January promo event in Toronto Johnson said USFIA has USFIA Gemcoin FUND. That’s investment. Throw him under the bus. Go ahead.
8) Gemcoin TM is filed by USFIA, and Johnson stated that he’s standing in for Steve Chen, head of AFG, owner of USFIA, and USFIA Gemcoin Fund, in toronto meeting.
9) What is “Great Eastern Immigration Services”, also at USFIA address? Is it another Steve Chen company?
Proof of Toronto event:
life416.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13750:2015-01-24-02-20-37&catid=207:2011-06-21-20-24-18&Itemid=342
With Lenny telling the reporter: “公司副总裁Leonard S. Johnson宣布了美国富豪货币基金珍宝币的正式发行并介绍美国AFG集团公司背景及旗下富豪货币基金”
Translated: “Company VP Leonard S Johnson announced USFIA Currency Fund Gemcoin’s official release and introducing US Alliance Financial Group (AFG) background and under its flag its USFIA Currency Fund.”
Go ahead, throw Lenny under the bus. 🙂
y’know if zeek victims had made gun threat complaints against paul burks, i would have taken it with a pinch of salt.
but steve chen looks like a propa gangsta, and has a fondness for guns.
it’s not ‘surprising’ that victims say they have been physically threatened. it seems entirely possible.
an article today on arcadia weekly says:
steve chen&party are telling such bald faced lies, it’s a wonder they think they can get away with it.
according to the article, poor innocent council member sho tay [who secretly deletes gemcoin articles from his ‘chinese daily’ newspaper], said:
i wonder if sho tay can answer questions about the gun death of ning pan on his la puente shooting range, or will he defer questions about it to the um, FBI?
the reason for the non attendance of vociferous gemcoin protesters at the city council meeting is also explained:
i wonder if the arcadia police department is tracing the calls made to ning and liu? or, will they too, send ning and liu to david arvizu and say ‘whoa, talk to this guy’!!
it seems david arvizu is expected to handle gemcoin investor problems in arcadia, as the city govt is apparently helpless.
is he the new one man APD?
read this great article from arcadia weekly:
arcadiaweekly.com/featured/gemcoin-investors-share-fraud-concerns-with-arcadia-council-residents-call-for-councilmans-resignation/
With coverage by LA Times, the USFIA story is blowing up the MAJOR Chinese newspapers, not just Epochtimes (a relatively small news, wide distribution, but not well recognized). WorldJournal and Tsingtao News both have articles covering the accusations, death threats, and what not.
NOLINK://www.singtaola.com/396286/post-%E3%80%8C%E7%8F%8D%E5%AF%B6%E5%B9%A3%E3%80%8D-%E6%B0%91%E4%BA%8B%E8%A8%B4%E8%A8%9F-%E6%8A%95%E8%B3%87%E8%80%85%E5%86%8D%E8%B5%B4%E8%AD%A6%E5%B1%80%E5%82%99%E6%A1%88-%E6%93%AC%E7%B5%84%E5%BE%8B/?variant=zh-hk
NOLINK://www.worldjournal.com/3430880/article-%E3%80%8C%E7%8F%8D%E5%AF%B6%E5%B9%A3%E3%80%8D%E8%BE%A6%E5%85%AC%E5%AE%A4%E4%BA%BA%E4%BE%86%E4%BA%BA%E5%BE%80/?ref=%E6%8E%A8%E8%96%A6%E9%96%B1%E8%AE%80
And I found attorney Liu’s website. 🙂
NOLINK://www.theliulawfirm.com/#!news/c146e
Which brought me to a promo they did in Taiwan, where apparently few people cared. They got a celebrity to wear amber necklace and amber ring, and told all the news outlets that the set is worth 300 million TWD (about 927K USD)
While the amber beads are pretty large, who’s to say they are even real? And even if they are, who set the price?
NOLINK://sites.google.com/site/leadernews201412/ji-pai-mei-mei-guo-tou-zi-lian-meng-ji-tuan-zhen-bao-bi-tai-wan-qi-dong-da-hui-xing-gan-liang-xiang/%E9%9B%9E%E6%8E%92%E5%A6%B9%20%20%E7%8F%8D%E5%AF%B6%E5%B9%A3.JPG?attredirects=0
Seems Sho Tay is about to throw Wuo under the bus, at least publically, and gently.
Not unless the victims requested it, then they have to subpoena the phone company. And if they really are criminals they’d be using burner phones.
And now, this (footage dated 1st September, 2015)…
But remember, USFIA and Steve Chen have nothing to do with GemCoin…
(Mannix enjoys dousing those old ladies with champagne waaaay too much…)
Steve Chen’s tag reads:
Great Wall
(photo of Chen)
Public Safety
Also check out that holster and toy store badge!
This is the grand opening of USFIA Club, so it should be that May 29th event. It also matches the uniform Mannix wore and posed with the Southwest Patrol guys.
Wasn’t that event at the motorcade place?
That’s the USFIA HQ, this one is at some McMansion (???).
What’s even funnier is this is one of Steve Chen’s mansions. @ 4:53 the guy in the suit said
我很高興能來到老闆的別墅剪綵
I am very happy to come to boss’ mansion for ribbon-cutting.
oops, you’re right, it’s dated 9/1. at 5:06 the guy specifically said it’s 9/1.
The guy who announced the date also said
今天呢，是珍寶幣全世界家友們的好日子
Today, is a great day for the Gemcoin family and friends
Need I say more?
So basically that’s the house that GemCoin victims built…
Article updated with transcript quotes of the Arcadia City Council Meeting on September 15th, 2015.