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GLOBAL PROSPERITY?

November 12, 2007

A founder of the "Institute of Global Prosperity" will have his ideas put to a tough test. He is likely to have to pursue prosperity in the confines of a federal prison for promoting a tax scam. From The Seattle Times:

Struckman was a co-founder of the Institute of Global Prosperity, which sold audiotapes and tickets to offshore seminars promoting "sovereignty" — the notion that taxpayers could choose to become free of the federal government's jurisdiction, federal prosecutors said in court papers.

The institute advised clients to discontinue the use of Social Security numbers and conceal income with the use of trusts and foreign bank accounts.

Mr. Struckman, shown above on his way back to the U.S. after a visit to Panama, argued that he thought this stuff really worked, so he couldn't have intended to violate tax laws. If he was so confident it worked, why would he need to conceal what he was doing?

The Quatloos website has long warned against the Global Prosperity scheme. They describe the Institute thusly:

At the bottom of multi-level marketing -- a scummy business at best -- lurks Global Prosperity. The slimy-est of the slimy, Global Prosperity marks the absolute rock-bottom low of the MLM programs. There simply is no MLM program which is more of a scam, or has such a disreputable background, as Global Prosperity and its many equally-sordid spin-offs.

The people associated with GPG are the bottom of the bottom, too. Many of the people have criminal pasts, others are lifelong network marketers. In other words, you have to be a total scumbug to be affiliated with GPG -- that is, creating relationships with hardened criminals and a programs which has a reputation for scamming young and old, rich and poor alike. If somebody actually admits they are in Global Prosperity, you know you are dealing with a lowlife, so run!

Global Prosperity's reputation is so bad that other network marketers will often add a disclaimer to the bottom of their own spams and advertisements which says "Not Global Prosperity" -- now that is pretty bad! And Global Prosperity really had to work at being the Black Sheep of the multi-level marketing industry, which is like being the really dislikeable guy in a lineup of child molesters.

Russ Fox has more at Taxable Talk.

Tags: David Struckman.Global Prosperity.tax crime.

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