Ghosts of RV Past

In the famous Dickens novella "A Christmas Carol" Ebenezer Scrooge encountered the ghost of Christmas past as he was confronted with his evil deeds.  Well I thought this Christmas might be a good time to take a look at an old conference call featuring convicted dinar fraud Rudolph Coenen. 

In this interview from three years ago Rudy says that he trades the mark.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-ryajHTxE (16-19 minutes in)  Problem is the mark was replaced by the euro as the official currency of Germany 15 years ago.  How did we miss that?  The guy sounded so convincing.  It seems that we were fixated on his apparent expertise and didn't bother to factcheck what he was saying.  Lesson learned.  When you hear a guru sharing their vast knowledge of all things financial with you in a conference call, blogtalk broadcast, video presentation, or YouTube video just remember that this guy Rudolph Coenen was indicted and convicted for defrauding dinar investors.  Among the lies he told were:

1. He served and was wounded in Desert Storm
2. He served as VP of foreign currencies at J. P. Morgan Chase
3. The currency reform plan of the CBI is a revaluation
4. He was establishing a hedge fund for dinar investors for post-RV investments

http://www.realscam.com/attachments/f12/1576d1348185792-bayshore-capital-investments-bh-group-bhgroup_indictment.pdf

I have to admit that I was fooled for awhile.  Not everybody was taken in by Rudy, however.  One of my readers who goes by DaveD called him a fraud long before the authorities took action.  In this thread he posted by the name of Stew and called the douchebag on his BS. 


While we're at it, we might as well go back and listen to some calls conducted by the alleged co-conspirators Brad Huebner and Charlie Emmenecker, who are once again awaiting trial on similar charges.

http://thebhgroup.org/dinar/weekly-call/archived-calls.html


$23.8 million in dinar sales would equal over 10,000 people if the average purchase was 2 million dinar.  That's a lot of people to defraud, don't you agree?  No doubt many of them bought after listening to Rudy on their calls.  (They've removed the Rudy calls from their archives for obvious reasons.) 

Once again we see the need to stick with verifiable facts rather than following gurus.  It's your money, folks.  Be careful with it.

Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year to one and all (except for the scammers).


   

BH Group Re-Indicted

From the Toledo Blade:



As federal prosecutors had promised, new indictments were handed up this week against three Toledo businessmen accused in a $23-million fraud scheme. 

Bradford L. Huebner, 66, of Ottawa Hills, Charles N. Emmenecker, 66, of Sylvania, and Michael L. Teadt, 67, of Maumee were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday in connection with the sale of Iraqi dinar currency and two allegedly nonexistent hedge funds.

All three are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud, while Mr. Huebner, owner of BH Group in Toledo, also faces multiple counts of money laundering and structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements.

The trio were originally indicted on similar charges in 2012, but on Nov. 27 — just days before their trial in U.S. District Court was to begin — Judge Jack Zouhary “regretfully” dismissed the indictment, citing a technicality raised by defense attorneys.

Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said in a news release that investors lost some $23.8 million from dinar sales and more than $700,000 from the sale of nonexistent hedge fund seats and placements.

Beginning in 2010, the trio allegedly made false statements to investors about the U.S. Treasury Department’s holdings of dinar and involvement in the Iraqi dinar investment market.

“These defendants made false statements time and again to convince people to part with their savings and hard-earned cash,” he said. “The fact that they falsely claimed one member of the conspiracy was wounded while fighting in Iraq is particularly egregious.”

A fourth co-defendant, Rudolph Coenen, 47, of Jacksonville, Fla. pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and five counts of money laundering, but he has not yet been sentenced. Coenen owned Bayshore Capital Investments LLC in Jacksonville.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Courts/2013/12/20/3-local-men-reindicted-in-fraud-scheme.html

Let's Talk About Iraq

The vast majority of my posts have been about scammers, lies, and numbers regarding currency valuation.  But I think we need to remember that we're also talking about a country.  The IQD is the currency of Iraq, and it's often stated that a currency is only as good as the government behind it.  According to this chart there are only six countries with more corruption than Iraq.

http://www.transparency.org/files/content/pressrelease/CPI2013_map-and-country-results_english_embargoed.pdf


Currencies tend to reflect the confidence in the country behind them.  What is Iraq like today?  Is it blossoming into the quasi-paradise of its neighbors in Kuwait or United Arab Emirates?  It is becoming the land of bounty, the reborn Babylon of old?  Well according to this article, not even close. 

http://m.vice.com/read/the-new-slums-of-baghdad?utm_source=vicetwitterus


Since coalition forces left Iraq the country has slid into the cultural abyss. How anybody could take an honest look at today's Iraq and conclude that they're going to have one of the most valuable currencies in the world in the forseeable future is mind-boggling.  The gurus won't tell you this, but Iraq is a disaster.  Far from the emerging nirvana presented in your typical dinar conference call, this is a country that is struggling to avoid civil war and a total collapse into a failed state.  Sure, they have tons of oil.  But as the article points out the oil industry produces comparatively few jobs and does little to improve the quality of life for the typical Iraqi.  With widespread unemployment and poverty Iraq is fertile ground for anti-western sentiment and radical ideology. 

In another article newly published, the escalating violence is reported to be responsible for 2,720 deaths since April 24.  (Thanks to CFO for this link too.)

http://data.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/a-wave-of-violence-sweeps-iraq


Corruption, deplorable living conditions, widespread carnage from terrorist activity ..... barring a lop, is there really any reason to expect this country's currency to do anything other than languish around a tenth of a penny for the foreseeable future?

A New Twist on the Reno Scam

I just came across this article from Forbes.  It's another great effort from John Wasik whom I've discussed before.  You can find the entire article here.

-Sam


---------------------------------------------


I recently received a series of emails from a reader describing one of the most convoluted and troubling stories I’ve heard in some time. 



“My 82-year-old mother bought [Iraqi] Dinar about 6 years ago.  A friend of hers told her that their entire church had invested in the Dinar and it was going to make everyone a millionaire very soon.  She didn’t buy a lot of it, but spent about $6,000.  She even got me to put in $1,000.  I have it still sitting in my little safe.  Its fun to look at but I have set my expectations fairly low on this currency ever making me a millionaire. After the stock market took most of my investment in 2008, I decided hard work tended to yield better results with my investments!

A few days ago my brother contacted my mother and told her that he had gotten an inside scoop regarding exchanging the Dinar.  He said that he was told that the US government was currently converting the dinar at an exchange rate of $8.  I questioned this as it just didn’t seem to make sense.  I mean isn’t the government kind of broke right now?  He is not sure either, but says that he is being told this is a definite fact.  At first she was told that she had to fly to Reno, Nevada but that has since changed and now it is to a military base in Washington DC?  So close to the capital!   When I google Dinar Scams – Reno pops up so I am inclined to think that this is just a new location for an old scam.

I have told both my brother and my mother I think this is a scam.  That they will take her passport and her identity.  They will give her back fake Dinar that will look like the real one.  They will then re-sell her Dinar and make a few thousand. But the real bonus is having her identity as well!”

There are a number of fuzzy details that make this set-up even more bizarre, but it smelled fishier than a Maine trawler, so I told her to call law enforcement authorities. She then called the FBI and enrolled her mother in an identity protection service.

“When I spoke to the FBI, they were unaware of the Iraqi Dinar scam (it was kind of like calling in to some local hotline and not terribly helpful).  But the guy I talked to said that typically after the scammers have all the identity information, they fade out of the picture as far as making good on their promise. Right now, the good news is that she is not going to travel to DC as there has been no contract presented for the Dinar purchase.  And so far, no movement on her identity.  I’m just holding my breath….”

The Dinar has Revalued

Hundreds of thousands of people have been waiting for the dinar to revalue over the past ten years.  Perhaps millions.  Many have given up, sold their dinar and moved on.  But just like like P.T. Barnum is quoted as saying, there's a sucker born every minute and two to take him.  When one person exits the dinar "investment" it seems that there's always somebody new to take their place, and plenty of scammers to service the RV dreams of the newbie. 

The fact is the dinar has already revalued.  No, I'm not doing the guru "intel" thing where they say we're just waiting on the activation.  I'm going by established and verifiable facts.  In the following chart you can see that there was a substantial increase in the value of about 20% from Nov.1, 2006 to Jan. 2, 2009.  That was an increase of about 9% a year.  (Chart is taken from XE.com)  The CBI parted from their policy of exchange rate stability for 26 months and went to a crawling peg regime as a means of reducing the rate of inflation.  They then returned to their policy of stability and have followed that policy for five years now.

(These charts show the rate of currency vs. the USD so as the line descends the value is increasing.  I tried to make it simpler by using the inverse but the charts didn't display right.)

(12-18-2013  UPDATE!!!  I took the figure of 20% from the US Treasury document I've cited in the past, but according to the XE chart it's closer to a 26% increase.  The point I'm making in this post isn't affected by the 6% difference, but I always try to be as factual as possible and felt obligated to address this.  Whether it's 20% or 26% though, it was a big revaluation and a greater one is extremely unlikely.)


Another revaluation that received a lot of attention in recent years was that of the India rupee.  From July of 2006 to January of 2008 it too increased in value about 20%.  XE Chart

This is typically how major revaluations are carried out.  When I asked currency expert John Jagerson about the largest revaluation in history in my first interview with him two years ago, he responded that it was the ongoing revaluation of the Chinese yuon which at that time had revalued at about 30% since July of 2005.  In the two years since that interview the yuon has added another 5% against the USD for a total revaluation of 35% or so over an eight year period. 

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CNY&view=10Y

That's an increase of about 4.1% per year, and it's the largest RV in history.  Think about that for a minute.  If the largest RV in history only yielded an increase of 4.1% a year, and the RV of the IQD yielded about 9% a year, why would anybody expect a return of 100,000% or more with the IQD now?  The increase from 2006 to 2009 was huge as far as currencies go.  If you got in early and didn't pay too much of a markup you might have made a few bucks.  But if you bought after Jan. 1, 2009 you missed it.  I missed it, too.  I never even heard of the dinar until after the RV took place. 

The dinar community has been sold a bill of goods.  They've been convinced that a revaluation of impossible magnitude is forthcoming.  It's not.  The big revaluation has already occurred.  They have now stabilized the exchange rate and the focus is on redenomination rather than revaluation.  All of the articles talking about deleting the zeros or removing the zeros are talking about redenomination, not revaluation.  Their focus is now on replacing the IQD with a new dinar and demonetizing the IQD.  The dinar community calls that a lop, and like it or not that's the CBI's stated plan for the IQD.  When it will happen I can't say.  It might never happen for all we know.  But whether they lop or not, to expect any increase beyond the one from 2006-2009 is wishful thinking. 

And to our friend Dinarbeleiver (who seems to confuse billions with trillions), if you're saying that a country's M2 doesn't prevent them from revaluing their currency I actually agree.  If Iraq wanted to start bumping the value up less than 1% a month like they did from 2006-2009 I'm sure they could do that by simply stabilizing the M2 while their reserves grow.  They could certainly raise the value 4.1% a year like China has with that approach.  The question is why would they want to?  What would they accomplish by doing that?  China raised the value because of international pressure.  Iraq raised the value to combat inflation.  Neither one of those are factors with Iraq today.  But if you're saying what you appear to be saying that the M2 is irrelevant I would ask how you draw that conclusion from anything discussed here?  Nobody here said that Iraq isn't capable of increasing the value in the sense of a conventional revaluation of a few % here and there.  The consensus here is that Iraq isn't capable of revaluing to an extent that would make anybody rich, and nothing in any previous revaluation would contradict that.  Cheers!

 

December Update

Well here we are in December.  Boy has this year gone by fast, and still no RV!?!?!??  What up wit' dat?  I'm starting to have my doubts about this.  LOL!!!

Actually I'm just mimicking what I've read on many of the dinar forums.  People are starting to express their doubts more freely than in the past, and this blog's readership has surpassed every expectation I had when I started writing about these douchebags two years ago.  A couple of weeks ago the total views hit half a million.  I realize that many of them are repeaters but many aren't, too.  I'd estimate that upwards of 30,000 people have visited this blog.  I've recently seen a week where the daily average was almost 2,000 hits!  For a lopper site that's unheard of.  I'd love to attribute that to my wit, charm, and brilliant intellect, but I'd say that's probably an overreach.  People are looking for answers and when they type in dinar related keywords my blog shows up in the results.  Here are a few examples of keywords used to draw people to the blog.

dinar scams
is the dinar a hoax
tony renfrow
dinar scam
is the dinar a scam
tony breitling
dinar rv scam
dinar scam 2013
dinar guru adam montana

They wouldn't come here if they didn't suspect that something is up.  The popularity of the blog is surely more of a testament to the disillusionment of dinarians than it is to any of my skills.  Regardless of why, I'm happy to see the awakening taking place.


One of my readers sent me this recently:

I work at a call center for one of the "major four banks" that's supposedly participating in the IQD buy-backs (we're not, of course).  Specifically, I'm a specialist in foreign currency.  You know, I sell Euros to people who are going on European cruises and give out exchange rates.  Or at least, that's mostly what I do.  I'd say around 15-25% of our phone calls are regarding currency speculation.  It's frustrating to deal with them because when presented with facts, they respond by accusing us of being part of a conspiracy (one caller said to my coworker "I know you guys have a gag order or whatever and can't talk about it...").  Plus, it's a sales department.  We have goals to meet and they are wasting our time with these pipe dreams! 

This is the blog I would write if I didn't think I'd get fired for posting that stuff.  This bank takes it's reputation very seriously and doesn't stand for their employees blogging about work.  I was especially intrigued by your post regarding revenue from web traffic.  That hadn't occurred to me at all.
 
I've shared your blog with a bunch of my coworkers and we're all getting a big kick out of it.  I told them, "I'm gonna email that guy and tell him he's my hero!"     



And another one sent this:

I stumbled upon your website a few days ago and have read some of your blog entries.  I must cheer your efforts and congratulate you for your objective and logical reasoning while using verifiable evidence.

I must tell you a quick anecdote that you may think is too unbelievable to be true; I assure you, it isn’t!  I have a friend that invested in the Iraqi Dinar in January 2013.  She is in the lower middle income bracket and lives in Vancouver, BC.  She flew to Nevada in order to meet a rather large congregation of fellow ‘investors’ from Florida, Australia, and England.  She asked me for financial aid in order to help pay her rent in Vancouver so her 18-year-old son would not have to live without a roof over his head.  I lent her $1,200.00 in mid February.  I am completely astonished that she is still living out of her suitcase in a Nevada motel awaiting this hypothetical RV.  I email her every few weeks requesting an update, however, she always responds with the same old stories… “soon, soon, soon…”.  I have yet to receive a single dime of my owed monies.

Beyond the good deeds of your website, it truly is a sad reality that some very good-natured people get caught up in this Dinar scam!  I want to thank you for espousing the truth respecting this global investment scam and truly wish that more people come to their senses after reading your blog entries.

I get emails along these lines frequently, but these two stood out as they reveal the extent of the lunacy that is the RV myth.  While I'm amazed at this kind of insanity, I'm equally baffled as I read on the boards about people who have been waiting for the RV for five years or more.  Seriously?  How long does it take to catch on, guys?  It took me less than two years and I thought I was slow.  I can't imagine people listening in on conference calls, logging on to their favorite dinar site, and checking the CBI website every day, week after week, month after month, year after year since 2008 or so.  It's time to move on, people. 

In November a guru named TD shook a lot of people up with this:

11-23-2013 Iraq is making it known publicly to the world their intentions be absolute and put to rest whether or not there will be a LOP...and he also confirmed (emphatically !!) that the LOP of the existing notes will be done.

A concerned caller asked BGG about this and his response was:

there are plenty of anti-pumpers as well as there are pumpers being paid by the same dealers ... a dealer makes 20% on the way in and 20% on the way out, and they don't care which direction you're going ..... technically it can't happen ..... they would have identical notes with two different values in different places - that's just not gonna happen

Well first of all, I've probably been called an anti-pumper as much as anybody, and no dealer has ever offered me a stinking dime.  It's nonsense to say that people are being paid to bash the dinar.  Dealers have no trouble buying the stuff from suppliers.  If they did, it wouldn't be such a hassle selling it back to them.  The only reason they offer a buyback program in the first place is to ease liquidity concerns on the part of speculators since they can no longer sell them to the banks.

And second, the notes wouldn't be identical in a lop.  The new notes would be issued in lower denominations and they would have different designs as the lop articles have clearly pointed out.  They will also have the Kurdish language on them.  And most redenominations over the past 50 years have been carried out exactly this way.  Two series of notes with different valuations co-exist for a time until the old notes are no longer in circulation.  Anybody who has researched the history of redenominations knows this.  BGG is either ignorant or lying. 



But the biggest buzz in November was the announcement of the CBI's bond initiative.  Apparently they're going to begin using bonds as a means of managing the internal exchange rate and controlling inflation and interest rates.  Some are reading RV into this of course, since they assume that it will lead to a reduction in the money supply.  I really don't see any more reason to expect a reduction in the money supply with bonds than we've seen in all the years that they used the actions to accomplish their monetary objectives.  It's just a monetary policy change, like when our Federal Reserve raises or lowers interest rates or pursues quantitative easing.  Anybody here ever seen any big celebration taking place over any of that?


In closing, I'd like to issue a reminder that this is the time of year when the gurus talk about the RV making it a very merry Christmas.  They say that every year and they're always wrong.  They'll be wrong again this December, because the CBI's policy is stability.  But I'd still like to wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.
 

Happy Holidays!!!

Dinar Fraud Case Dismissed

I just got got word about this case being dismissed on a technicality.  It looks like they intend to re-indict.  I'll update as more info comes in.

------------------------------------------------

Federal indictments charging three Toledo businessmen with duping investors out of millions of dollars in the sale of Iraqi currency and hedge fund shares were dismissed Wednesday on a technicality.
U.S. District Court Judge Jack Zouhary dismissed the indictments against Bradford L. Huebner, 66, of Ottawa Hills; Charles Emmenecker, 66, of Sylvania, and Michael Teadt, 67, of Maumee citing speedy trial concerns raised by defense attorneys for the trio. Their case had been scheduled to go to trial Monday.
Mike Tobin, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said the development has delayed the trial again.
“We fully intend to seek to re-indict this case at the earliest possible time,” Mr. Tobin said. “It was surprising to see defendants who were repeatedly asking for delays in their trial date complaining that their trial was not speedy enough.”
Attorney Rick Kerger, who represents Mr. Huebner, said the defense team was prepared to go to trial next week, but wanted to raise the speedy trial violation before trial rather than after.
“When we became aware that there existed a basis to obtain a dismissal of the indictment, we were really duty-bound to raise it,” Mr. Kerger said.
While it was the defense that asked for several continuances in their clients’ cases, Mr. Kerger said the court did not use the required language in granting the continuances, which resulted in the dismissal.
“Nobody’s implying any bad faith on the part of the government, the court, or anybody, and it is a technicality, but it is a technicality that is sufficiently important that led to the dismissal of the indictment,” Mr. Kerger said.
Judge Zouhary granted the dismissal “regretfully.”
“As should be obvious, this court is most reluctant to grant this motion, which only serves to delay, not speed, the trial of this case,” he wrote in a 10-page opinion. “Defendants, on the eve of trial, filed a motion to dismiss knowing a dismissal will likely result in another indictment which will restart the clock.
“For what purpose? To delay the inevitable trial? How does this make sense?” he asked.
Mr. Heubner, the owner of BH Group, 17 N. St. Clair St., and two of his employees — Mr. Teadt and Mr. Emmenecker — had been charged with conspiring to defraud investors in the sale of Iraqi currency, called dinar, and in the sale of hedge fund shares between August, 2010, and September, 2012, resulting in losses of more than $23 million.
A fourth co-defendant, Rudolph M. Coenen, 47, of Jacksonville pleaded guilty last April to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and five counts of money laundering. The owner of Bayshore Capital Investments LLC in Jacksonville, Coenen has not been sentenced.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Courts/2013/11/28/Iraqi-currency-case-tossed.html#TZEHvg44fMTPMTJy.99