{"id":34549,"date":"2013-03-14T11:00:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=34549"},"modified":"2013-03-14T11:07:09","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T15:07:09","slug":"yet-another-scam-veterans-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=34549","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Scam Veteran’s Charity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looks like we may have yet another scam masquerading as a charity that \u201chelps veterans\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 And it appears this one was no small-time scam, either.<\/p>\n

Florida-based Allied Veterans of the World was founded in 1979.\u00a0 It first ran \u201cbingo games\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s since moved up to internet video gambling.<\/p>\n

It claimed to be raising money primarily for charity.\u00a0 Indeed, in some states (like Florida), that\u2019s the only reason their operation was legal.\u00a0 Some states allow what would otherwise be illegal gambling activities so long as more than half of the proceeds in fact go to charity.<\/p>\n

Allied Veterans was quite successful.\u00a0 From 2007 to 2012, they apparently took in around $290 million.<\/p>\n

The problem is, when authorities looked at their books they could only find about $6 million in charitable donations for the same period.\u00a0 That\u2019s just over 2% of intake.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the guy heading Allied Veterans – a former president of the Jacksonville Bar Association – allegedly also received $6 million.<\/p>\n

Authorities found nearly $65 million in various bank accounts<\/a>; these accounts have been seized.\u00a0 And they also found that the organization\u2019s execs seemed to be living the proverbial \u201cLife of Riley\u201d – complete with boats, beachfront condos, and high-end sports cars (Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis).<\/p>\n

A total of 57 arrest and 54 search warrants were executed in six states in connection with the Allied Veterans investigation.\u00a0 Charges to be filed next week are expected to include racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, and possession of slot machines.\u00a0 Additionally, the owner of what was apparently Allied Veterans\u2019 partner – International Internet Technologies \u2013 and his spouse were also arrested and charged with racketeering and conspiracy.\u00a0 International Internet Technologies supplied the software used in the internet gambling scheme.\u00a0 According to IRS records they apparently made over $60 million dollars from the enterprise from 2007 to 2010.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s current Lieutenant Governor has resigned due to the scandal.\u00a0 It seems she\u2019s appeared in at least one TV commercial (2011) lauding Allied Veterans and their work supporting vets.\u00a0 Prior to being elected, her PR firm also worked for Allied Veterans.<\/p>\n

She resigned a day after being questioned in connection with the investigation.\u00a0 She is not facing criminal charges.<\/p>\n

Investigation reportedly continues – focused on political donations and lobbying.\u00a0 There may well be a second act to this little drama.<\/p>\n

Kudos to the State of Florida and their Attorney General\u2019s office for putting these scammers out of business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like we may have yet another scam masquerading as a charity that \u201chelps veterans\u201d.\u00a0 And … Yet Another Scam Veteran’s Charity?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-vet-charities","category-shitbags"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}