Police Seeking Couple in Investment Scam |
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October 02, 2003 – NORFOLK – Lee-Hope Thrasher spent more than 10 years helping crime victims, both as director of the Virginia Beach victim witness program and as president of the Tidewater Victims Assistance Coalition. A crime victim herself, Thrasher once said after her home was burglarized that the crime ``takes away that feeling of invincibility. You know somebody can get to you.'' Now, Thrasher finds herself on the other side of the law. Court papers filed over the past four months show that she and a male companion obtained $31 million in what the pair called a ``divinely inspired'' investment plan. Federal authorities now say it was a scam. One unidentified investor lost $8 million, authorities say. The scheme, according to the court records, was so effective that some investors who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars continue to support the pair as they travel the world. It took the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service 2 1/2 years to gather enough evidence to obtain arrest warrants for Thrasher and her companion, Howard Welsh. By the time those warrants were issued, late Tuesday, Thrasher, 49, and Welsh, 59, had been long gone. Authorities say they were last known to be in Belgium. The investment operation began in a house in the 1900 block of Cranborne Court, Virginia Beach, where Welsh and Thrasher lived. Authorities can't pinpoint the exact date, but they believe it was sometime in 1999. What drew the two together is a mystery. Welsh is believed to be from England, according to court records. Thrasher, a Chesapeake native, quit her victim witness job in July 1998, after meeting him, authorities said. The two first offered their investment plan to friends and family members. From there, through word of mouth, including e-mails, it spread across the country, authorities said. Within two years, more than 1,000 investors had signed up. Their names have not been released. As the operation expanded, complaints started piling up at state and local consumer protection offices. The FBI, the IRS and the Treasury Department took over the case in 2001. Agents said they quickly suspected they were dealing with a Ponzi scheme. Such schemes, named after a 1920s Boston figure, Carl Ponzi, work by offering unusually high interest-rate returns in a short period of time. In this case, Thrasher and Welsh dangled a more enticing carrot in front of investors -- tax-free returns -- according to authorities. The two created several corporations, but the main one was called ``Living Your Sole Purpose,'' according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. They called the investment a ``Corporation Sole, a divinely inspired mission that behaves like a diocese, a church, a mission or assembly,'' according to promotional fliers handed out to potential investors. According to the fliers, there was no need for accounting and no reporting requirements. The tax-free endowment would act like a pension, the literature said. ``Some people will say, `If this is not a business, what tells me that they won't take my money and run?' and you would be right to ask,'' one flier said. ``In this case, I would say, `Do you have enough faith to see this through for a year?' If your answer is `Yes,' then you will see your deposits triple,'' the flier said. One flier promised a 12 percent return each month on a minimum investment of $50,000. Another flier said a $2,000 investment would be worth $6,260 after a year, $19,580 after two years and $1.8 million after six years. As part of the application process, which included a $1,500 fee, investors were asked to have passport-size photographs taken of themselves and sent along with a sample signature. In some cases, investors were asked for thumbprints. Thrasher and Welsh, accord ing to court records, received millions at their Cranborne Court home. One family of investors, a husband, wife, son and daughter, invested $600,000 to $700,000, the records indicate. In October 1999, Thrasher and Welsh opened bank accounts in the name of a nonprofit entity, Dominion of Heaven on Planet Earth, doing business as Living Your Sole Purpose, court records say. The following month, Welsh opened three bank accounts in the state of Washington. The records say he used two mailing addresses, one in the Bahamas and the one on Cranborne Court. In March 2001, $2.5 million of investors' money was transferred from those Washington accounts to a bank in Williamsburg, court records say. Another $1 million was transferred to Hong Kong, the records say. That raised eyebrows among officials at Key Bank in Washington state where money had been held. That month, Key Bank filed a ``suspicious financial activity report'' with the IRS. ``It appears the activity that was occurring on the accounts could indicate a pattern of money laundering,'' Key Bank wrote. ``Millions of dollars have moved through the accounts in a short time.'' The government was able to seize nearly $1 million in a civil proceeding that alleged investor fraud, but agents soon learned that $500,000 was spent by Welsh and Thrasher and the rest transferred to offshore accounts, according to court records. Welsh rejected efforts by two unidentified individuals to contact agents, according to the criminal complaint. Instead, he and Thrasher told investors that the money seized did not belong to investors, the complaint says. By the time agents realized the scope of the scam, according to court records, $31 million had been transferred to 13 countries from U.S bank accounts controlled by Welsh and Thrasher. Welsh used the fictitious name Albert D. White on some accounts, the court records say. For example, on Feb. 15, 2000, $430,000 was transferred to a bank in Lebanon, the records say. Other countries to which millions of dollars were transferred include China, Taiwan, France, Switzerland, Nigeria and Yugoslavia, court papers say. Federal agents said they have been in contact with Welsh, but he and Thrasher have remained elusive. The warrants filed Tuesday will be sent to Interpol, the international police organization that helps track down suspects. Authorities said some investors continue to support Welsh and Thrasher with the belief that they will receive profitable returns. ``We feel very good about everything,'' said one e-mail believed sent by Thrasher to investors and obtained by the FBI. ``So just take deep breaths with us'' and be ``surrounded in God's brilliant white light,'' the e-mail said. ``Folks considering a lawsuit will only exacerbate the situation,'' another e-mail, signed in the name of Thrasher, said. ``We are up to our ears here and if you can assist us with diffusing the fear of others it would be helpful.'' (The Virgian Pilot)
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