Surprised no one has mentioned this yet.
http://www.toledoonthemove.com/news/story.aspx?id=645020
IRS agents on Wednesday raided a building on North Saint Clair Street in Downtown Toledo. Shortly before noon, agent's from the IRS' Criminal Investigation Division, clad in bulletproof vests, descended upon 19 S. St Clair St. and entered the building.
The building houses Frickers Restaurant, North Haven Development Group, Commercial Energy Products, Savage and Associates and Success Marketing Group.
Frickers was open for business at that location, so I doubt they were the targets. I'd also bet money that it wasn't Savage and Associates. So who was the target and what are they suspected of?
It was NOT Savage and Associates and North Haven Group - PLEASE be aware of that.
i don't know, but i sure be upset to have my name in the paper of the possible offenders.
Jeez that turned out terrible. I meant to say: "I don't know, but I would surely be upset if my company name were listed in the paper as a possible offender."
A well placed source I know told me they raided the BH Group, which has been touting a dubious investment scheme in Iraqi dinars. Also, the WNWO has old information on current tenants.
The Blade has a more accurate story on the raid, at least as far as current tenants. Also, someone in the comments section of the Blade's article claims to have more specific info on the BH Group's investment strategies.
I am looking around for a brochure that a stuident gave me about the BH Group last year, but I cannot find it. I tried to talk the young man out of the currency scheme, but he was convinced he was going to make his money back several thousand times. The sad part of this story is that the student was rather poor, and he was scraping together all of his life savings on a get-rich-quick scheme. By the way: in the past eight years the revalued Iraqi dinar has appreciated a total of 23 percent. By most standards, that would be a lousy investment, especially after the brokers take their hefty cuts.
More reading on the Iraqi dinar scam with the hopes of dissuading another inexperienced investor from getting fleeced.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that beyond the scams there are very few people actually buying Iraqi dinars. That means you will pay a high discount to convince someone to buy them back from you, since inflation in Iraq has been both high and wildly unpredictable. If you wanted to unload a bunch of dinars right now, you would probably lose 20-30 percent of the face value.
That is, IF you can find a buyer. You would need to hold onto the dinars a loooooong time to break even.
Didn't a TT user post something a year or so ago about investing in Iraqui dinars?
If memory serves me correctly, I think a friend or relative had tried to convince that TTer to get in on the "investment"?
I have a good friend who invested in the dinar. She told me that she was keeping it a secret from a lot of people because most people think it's a scam. I guess if I feel the need to keep it a secret because most people think it's a scam.... should be pretty obvious that it probably is.
Has anyone heard anything else about this? I've scanned the local news and not seen or heard any follow up. Monday morning the street was blocked off and people were loading up a box truck parked outside. Just curious.
There have been some issues with the way business was conducted. One big one is that they claimed to be licensed by the US Treasury to do this. They're listed as licensed to be money changers, but not foreign currency converters, which is what the business was designed to do. Kind of like showing your fishing license when you get pulled over... doesn't quite qualify you.
Also, the whole dinar thing isn't really bad in theory. It's easy to see how you could get caught up in the potential. Yes, at some point, their economy will eventually boom. They're sitting on oil, there's no way it won't. However, it's the same thing as playing the stock market. Buy low sell high sounds really easy in theory, but it's total guesswork a lot of the time trying to determine when those times are.