Stock Fraud, Drug Trafficking, & the 'Alt-Right' — MadCow · 2020. 8. 20. · madcowprod.com Stock Fraud, Drug Trafﬁcking, & the 'Alt-Right' — MadCow By Daniel Hopsicker - 8-10

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Stock Fraud, DrugTrafficking, & the'Alt-Right' —MadCowBy Daniel Hopsicker -

8-10 minuti

When Donald Trump’s campaignmanager Steve Bannon wasrecently exposed for using a vacanthouse in Miami as his legalresidence, he hastily changed hislegal address to a beach house inSarasota, Florida owned by a writer

Stock Fraud, Drug Trafficking, & the 'Alt-Right' — MadCow about:reader?url=https://www.madcowprod.com/2016/09/28/...

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at his Breitbart.com website.

His hurried move— made moreurgent by Trump’s adoption of ‘voterfraud’ as one of his signatureissues— has unexpectedly given agift that keeps on giving toinvestigators probing the financing ofthe newly-emergent “Alt-Right.”


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America’s “most dangerouspolitical operative”

Bannon,who Bloomberg recently called TheMost Dangerous Political Operativein America, had repaired to a beachhouse owned by Andy Badolato,who claims on his website to be an“entrepreneur, senior levelexecutive, venture capitalist and


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seed stage investor” who hasfounded companies with a marketcap of $26 billion dollars.”

However an investigation revealsthat Bannon’s buddy and roommateBadolato has long-time links to anest of financial fraudsters that raisequestions of whether money takenfrom investors through Badolato’sseries of stock scams — whichoperated on an almost industrialscale—had been pocketed by financiers of the Breitbart.com-led“alt-right.”


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The group of racketeers, swindlersand flimflam men may even havelinks to fraudsters in SouthernCalifornia associated with a manwho has been profiled here on manyoccasions.

Does anyone remember disgracedRepublican Congressman Randy“Duke ” Cunningham?

Fleecing Haitian immigrants forfun and profit


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AndyBadolato was involved in a stockfraud cum Ponzi scheme at a PalmBeach Gardens, Floridacompany, Industrial BusinessVentures Group, (IBVG), where hewas Senior Vice President ofCorporate Finance.

Two of his partners in the scheme—Jonathan Curshen and MichaelMuzio— are currently in federal


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prison. Both men were alsoinvolved, oddly enough, in the drugtrafficking ring in St. Petersburg,Florida responsible for the ill-fated‘drug move’ resulting in the biggestdrug seizure on an airplane inMexican history, 5.5 tons ofcocaine, found on an American-registered DC-9 busted in theYucatan in April of 2006.

Jonathan Curshen

Alt-right Sarasota beachcomberBadolato’s fellow Sarasota resident


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Jonathan Curshen was profiled in astory here last week.

“Curshen is the most intriguing. Heis a dual citizen of England and theUnited States,” reported Off-shoreAlert. “He resides in Sarasota, Fla.,and Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, heserves as honorary consul for St.Kitts & Nevis. He also serves ashonorary consul for “New Utopia,” asham country that exists only incyberspace. It publicly offers‘citizenships,’ ‘national flags,’ IDcards and currency.”

A look at Badolato’s second partnerin the scheme, Tampa residentMichael Muzio, exposes acheckered past and criminal


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curriculum vitae every bit as colorfulas Curshen.

“Andy’s Web”

Muzio and Badolato’s company wasinvolved in what was called “a


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classic Ponzi scheme,” made evenmore despicable because it targetedpoor Haitian immigrants.

According to an FBI press release announcing Muzio’s conviction, thescheme “stripped $14.3 million frommore than 600 gullible investors,most of them Haitian-Americans inSouth Florida and New Jersey.”

“Muzio issued false and misleadingpress releases,” said the FBI, claiming International BusinessVentures Group had deals to offerpre-paid debit cards and pre-paidcalling cards in Haiti, where thecompany also had exclusive rightsto market pre-paid electric meters.


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Muzio once complained to“colleagues” about how costly it wasto run a stock scam, Palm BeachBusiness magazine reported. “He’sabout to find out exactly howexpensive it can be when you getcaught.”

For his part in the fraud Muzio wassentenced to 163 months in prison.

Muzio may have been a littlepreoccupied

In what authorities like to think is arelatively unusual situation for acorporate officer, Michael Muzio also


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found himself the target of a Mobhit. Testimony in an extortion trial inTampa named Muzio as theintended victim of a Mafia hitordered by a business associate,Joseph Forlizzo of Queens, andClearwater, Florida.

The Forlizzobrothers contracted Muzio’s murder,court testimony revealed, withAnthony “Pee Wee” Lanza, acaptain in New York’s GenoveseMafia crime family.

“Pee Wee” was involved, according


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to the NY Daily News, in everythingfrom prostitution, where he wasrunning “a high heel-clicking streamof hookers reporting to the upperEast Side headquarters of a mob-controlled prostitution ring,” toextortion, for threatening to beat aman to death if he didn’t pay up aGenovese crime family loan.”

Forlizz o, achiropractor, had been partners withMuzio in a magnetic resonanceimaging company in Clearwater.Deciding the partnership wasunsatisfactory, Forlizzo took certain


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‘measures,’ which became thecenter focus during his trial, whichwas filled with accusations of Mafiaties, hit men and extortion.

Testimony showed that Forlizzo andthe “boys from New York” decidedto kill Muzio and have another man,Philip ‘Philly’ Bova, of Largo, Florida, pose as Muzio to empty his bankaccounts.

Court transcripts offered littleexplanation for why Muzio ‘needed


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killing,’ or ‘had it coming,’ two often-cited reasons for contract hits.

But when officers of publiccompanies need key man insuranceagainst the prospect of being rubbedout, business almost invariablysuffers.

In a cautionary note, Tampa Mobexpert Scott Deitche, author of CigarStore Mafia reports that Pee Wee,after being convicted of extortion,died in prison.

“A troubled existence”


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AndyBadolato’s companies have allfloundered like unwanted babiesflung off a cliff. But IndustrialBusiness Ventures Group had aparticularly troubled businesslife, facing problems most newconcerns never encounter, likeattrition, which became an issuewhen Muzio and three of thecompany’s officers went to prison atthe same time.


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Muzio, called “a Tampabusinessman” in news accounts,was at the time on probation for a2006 grand larceny conviction inNew York.

“The Saga Ends In Jail” was theheadline on an article by one stockanalyst:

“The fact that the company hasbeen involved in suspiciousschemes should be of no surprise topeople who have spent time toreview the biography of thecompany’s management team. Allthree of them: Brian Taglieri, AbnerAlable, and Ronnie Bass, arecurrently in jail facing theirsentences.”


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Initially, the trio started its businessas an investment club calledHomePals, based in North MiamiBeach. In the spring of 2008,HomePals managed to strip almost$14.5 million from hundreds ofHaitians living in Florida and NewJersey by means of a Ponzi-likescheme.

Then in July 2008, HomePalsbought International BusinessVentures Group, which until thenwas a public shell company. Thelarceny…involved pumping upIBVR stock price as much aspossible and then dumping it on thepublic.

As his trial was about to start,


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Ronnie Bass, 36, of Delray Beach,pleaded no contest to 14 charges inconnection with the HomepalsInvestment Club. He faced 20 yearsin prison.

Multi-tasking “hyena pack” big instock fraud, drug trafficking

The real question is the one askedin “Butch Cassidy & the SundanceKid:” Who are these guys?


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At Play in the Fields of the Lord

In addition to Mob links, we will seehints of U.S. intelligenceinvolvement. Does Steve Bannonhave national security ties?

According to Bloomberg News,Bannon joined the Navy right aftercollege, and then spent four years atsea, including working as anavigator in the north Arabian Seaduring the Iranian hostage crisis. Heleft the Persian Gulf just as the ill-fated U.S. mission to rescue thehostages in Tehran, Desert One,died in the sands of the Iraniandesert.

Bannon became an assistant to the


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chief of Naval operations at thePentagon, earned a master’s degreein national security studies atGeorgetown University at night, thenheaded to Wall Street, where hewent to work at Goldman Sachs.There he worked on a series ofleveraged buyouts, including a dealinvolving Bain Capital and MittRomney.

“The camaraderie was amazing,”he told reporter Jeff Goldberg “Itwas like being in the Navy, in thewardroom of a ship.”

The subject of rogue U.S. intelassets joining the Mob inwidespread stock fraud warrantscareful consideration. According to


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L.J. Kolb’s “Overworld,” an eye-opening account of growing up asthe son of an American spy: “There’s a secret world all aroundus. You just don’t see it unless youknow where to look.”


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Stock Fraud, Drug Trafficking, & the 'Alt-Right' — MadCow · 2020. 8. 20. · madcowprod.com Stock Fraud, Drug Trafﬁcking, & the 'Alt-Right' — MadCow By Daniel Hopsicker - 8-10