Rich guy allegedly uses autobiography to fleece 95 people out millions of dollars

[tarantino]

Found on WP:BLPN

Darin R. Pastor lived a lavish lifestyle.

He purchased a $1.5 million house for himself and his wife in Clarence, where he lived from 2015 to 2019, and bought another home for $738,000 in Florida for a relative.

Pastor allegedly spent $294,000 on jewelry, $95,000 on furniture for a rented home in California and $57,000 on clothing at a high-end men's clothing store in Amherst.

He and a partner, Halford W. Johnson, did all of that and more using other people's money under false pretenses, according to a grand jury indictment.

Their audacious lies, according to prosecutors, stretched around the world, from a purported deal to buy livestock from companies in Kenya and Somalia to sell to companies in Oman, to fraudulent gold deals with companies in Hong Kong and Australia.

A gas-to-liquid-fuel plant peddled to investors with annual $1 billion revenue projections was lifted entirely from a PowerPoint presentation an Arkansas business group pitched to them. Prosecutors said Pastor and Johnson's intentions were as false as the Wikipedia page Johnson created to entice investors with misleading information, including a false representation of Pastor's net worth.

Darin Pastor (T-H-L) was created by KCDPR (T-C-L). Pastor was a partner at KCD PR. Several of the references in the earliest version were to Pastor's Capstone Affluent Strategies. The last edit made by KCDPR was to request a name change to D_PASTOR2014.

[The Blue Newt]

Found on WP:BLPN

Darin R. Pastor lived a lavish lifestyle.

He purchased a $1.5 million house for himself and his wife in Clarence, where he lived from 2015 to 2019, and bought another home for $738,000 in Florida for a relative.

Pastor allegedly spent $294,000 on jewelry, $95,000 on furniture for a rented home in California and $57,000 on clothing at a high-end men's clothing store in Amherst.

He and a partner, Halford W. Johnson, did all of that and more using other people's money under false pretenses, according to a grand jury indictment.

Their audacious lies, according to prosecutors, stretched around the world, from a purported deal to buy livestock from companies in Kenya and Somalia to sell to companies in Oman, to fraudulent gold deals with companies in Hong Kong and Australia.

A gas-to-liquid-fuel plant peddled to investors with annual $1 billion revenue projections was lifted entirely from a PowerPoint presentation an Arkansas business group pitched to them. Prosecutors said Pastor and Johnson's intentions were as false as the Wikipedia page Johnson created to entice investors with misleading information, including a false representation of Pastor's net worth.

Darin Pastor (T-H-L) was created by KCDPR (T-C-L). Pastor was a partner at KCD PR. Several of the references in the earliest version were to Pastor's Capstone Affluent Strategies. The last edit made by KCDPR was to request a name change to D_PASTOR2014.

With the tiniest bit of luck, some greedy bastard of a lawyer (“but I repeat myself…”) will figure out a way to hold the WMF partly responsible.

[tarantino]

From the
Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Western District of New York

From September 2013, through March 2017, approximately 95 investors purchased Capstone stock in private placement offerings for approximately $19,000,000. During that time, in furtherance of the conspiracy, Pastor and Johnson fraudulently represented to investors and potential investors that Pastor had substantial personal wealth, and that Capstone was engaged in lucrative investments, such as gold, equity, and livestock deals, which would generate enormous profits for the investors. Pastor and Johnson maintained an online Wikipedia page for Pastor that misrepresented his net worth, and in soliciting investments in Capstone, encouraged potential investors to research Pastor online. Pastor actually had a negligible net worth and was millions of dollars in debt.

[AndyTheGrump]

I can't help feeling that investors who are that easily fleeced shouldn't have that sort of money in the first place...

[Anroth]

Yeah I did due diligence, I googled him and checked out his wiki page....

[eppur si muove]

Yeah I did due diligence, I googled him and checked out his wiki page....

Five to 10 years ago I was looking for a bond to put some money in a bond. A website that compared ISAs (tax free savings in the UK) had an advert for a bond provided by a firm called London Capital and Finance which was something like 8% when the best ISA was 2% if that.

I gave LC&F a ring and asked if they were covered by the the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. They were not. They sent me a fat glossy brochure which I looked at and the system seemed to work through renting property to businesses. I noticed that all the figures they gave were after 2008. So they showed how well things worked when their wasn't a major property crash.

I received a follow up call and told them that I was not interested.

A few years later the news was full of a scandal regarding a company selling dodgy bonds. I thought the name sounded familiar and found the brochure I had been sent. Investigations since then have indicated that there was both dishonesty going on and regulatory failure

I'm surprised that LC&F hasn't got a Wikipedia article. Obviously financial malpractice isn't as interesting as the latest nerdy television series.

[Mojito]

Is The Signpost done by someone from WO, or just someone who subscribes to the same news alerts?

The reason I wonder is this story and two others from recent WO threads are in this month's Signpost.

[tarantino]

Is The Signpost done by someone from WO, or just someone who subscribes to the same news alerts?

The reason I wonder is this story and two others from recent WO threads are in this month's Signpost.

Andreas, a contributor there, reads WO.