Caribbean Resort Fraudster Jailed

David Ames has been jailed for 12 years.

His speciality scam was with the front company Harlequin Group which used celebrity endorsements and aggressive sales tactics to con 8,000 investors out of £226 million.

He secured the backing of tennis star Pat Cash, golfer Gary Player and others and of course they had no idea it was all a scam.

His company had 186 accommodation units to sell, such as beach cabanas, villas and hotel rooms.

But he sold each an average of 40 times over – a total of 8,200 sales.  Those extra sales of non existent properties and hotel rooms were his profits.  It could be called a Ponzi scheme.

The customers of course got nothing and it was only a matter of time before he was caught and convicted.

He was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

That is little comfort to the many people who lost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. In many cases that was their life savings, put down expecting a retirement home but instead being conned out of everything.

Some ‘lucky’ losers may get as much as 2% of their capital back.

Be very careful who you invest with and place your trust in celebrity endorsements- they are paid advertisers.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Most Common Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are where the scammer tries to get your confidential information by subterfuge of some kind.

e.g. you get an email saying you have won the lottery and just need to fill in your details to claim the money or you have an overdue tax payment to make immediately and you have to login to make the payment (on a fake website)  or …..

The most common categories of phishing in 2021 were :

Spear Phishing

This is where phishing is targeted at specific individuals or companies.

Perhaps an email arrives, claiming to be from a trustworthy source and the sender knows your full name, job title and department for example. The scammer has done their homework to get this information about you to give the scam a higher chance of success.

A link in the message takes you to a bogus website made to look like the expected website. The fake website looks legitimate but only exists to take the users confidential information and pass it to the scammer.

Whaling

This is where scammers target a “big fish” like a business executive or celebrity. These scammers often conduct considerable research into their targets to find an opportune moment to steal login credentials or other sensitive information. If you have a lot to lose, whaling attackers have a lot to gain.

Vishing

One scam on the rise is ‘vishing‘, or voice phishing. Con artists phone people and pretend to be bank staff or the Police or some other authority figure and have a story that lets them try to get the subject’s personal details, credit card details, bank account password etc. depending on the specific scam.

For the bank account scam, they typically warn of fraudulent activity on your account. They then persuade you to move your account to a safe place (which happens to be an account owned by the scammer) and they convince you to give them the details necessary for the transfer or convince you to move the money yourself.

Stay safe.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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What is Hacktivism ?

Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the subversive use of computers and computer networks to promote a political agenda or a social change. Its ends are often related to the free speech, human rights and freedom of information movements.

Some people believe hacktivism is a growing force and will become more active and take on bigger challenges. But, others believe it is a spent force and will die away slowly over the coming years.

Mr. Robot

“Mr. Robot” is a TV series that tells the story of hacker Elliot Alderson  and his role in an anarchist collective called “fsociety,” whose followers wear masks that resemble “Rich Uncle Pennybags” from the Monopoly board game.

The series was inspired by a notorious computer hacker named H who has gone from trying to bring down the authorities — to working for them.

As a key member of the hacking group known as Anonymous and a founder of its elite “LulzSec” unit, Hector Monsegur helped launch cyber attacks on government and corporate targets including the US Senate, the FBI and major credit-card companies.

But when he was arrested in 2011, Monsegur — known online as “Sabu” — began secretly cooperating with an investigation that led to a wave of arrests across the US, Great Britain and Ireland.

Today, Anonymous still goes by the motto it unveiled in 2009: “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

Hector Monsegur

But Monsegur, 35, says society has little to fear from the online anarchists in Guy Fawkes masks as “Anonymous is irrelevant.  “All it is now is a figment of hipsters’ imagination.”

Monsegur pleaded guilty to seven felonies as part of his deal with prosecutors and spent nearly eight months in Lower Manhattan’s infamous Metropolitan Correctional Center before being sentenced to time served in 2014.

The following year, Monsegur, landed a job working remotely as a “white-hat hacker” for Seattle-based Rhino Security Labs, helping companies identify vulnerabilities in their computer systems.

He admits that in comparison to what he used to do before, it’s not the same kind of thrill.

The article at http://www.fightbackonline.org/index.php/guidance/12-explanations/108-is-hacktivism-a-force-for-good has more information on Hacktivism.

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