{"id":8064,"date":"2014-12-16T16:49:42","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T00:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=8064"},"modified":"2014-12-16T16:49:42","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T00:49:42","slug":"two-men-allegedly-used-atm-investment-con-make-100-million-charged-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=8064","title":{"rendered":"Two Men Who Allegedly Used an ATM Investment Con to Make $100 Million Charged With Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"u.s.DISTRICT<\/a>LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2013 Two San Fernando Valley men allegedly\u00a0involved in a lease-back ATM business that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme were charged Tuesday with fraud, officials said.<\/p>\n

Joel Barry Gillis<\/strong>, 74, of Woodland Hills, and Edward Wishner,<\/strong> 76, also of Woodland Hills, \u00a0ran a scam for 15 years that collected more than $100 million from nearly 2,000 investors who were told that their money would be used to purchase profitable ATMs, the U.S. Justice Department said.<\/p>\n

Gillis and Wishner were charged with conspiracy, two counts of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud.<\/p>\n

Both are facing up to\u00a020 years in federal prison for each of the four charges.<\/p>\n

According to the criminal information filed today in federal court, Gillis and Wishner operated the Calabasas-based Nationwide Automated Systems, Inc. It claimed to\u00a0install and operate\u00a0ATMs in high-traffic locations, such as hotels, casinos and convenience stores. \u00a0Automated Systems claimed that it operated over 30,000 ATMs and was involved in more than $1 billion in ATM transactions every month..<\/p>\n

Gillis and Wishner allegedly told victim-investors that Automated Systems would lease back the ATMs and pay investors 50 cents for each transaction performed at their particular ATM, guaranteeing annual returns of 20 percent on each ATM.<\/p>\n

In addition to these high-yields, Automated Systems and its salespeople urged some investors to use their retirement savings \u201cby claiming that investments in automated systems sale\/leaseback program would outperform most traditional retirement investment accounts,\u201d according to the information.<\/p>\n

Automated Systems did make monthly payments to investors, but that money came from other investors, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

While Automated Systems did operate a small number of ATMs \u2013 no more than 250, which were owned by the company and not investors \u2013 the overall operation was a sham hidden under the veil of a Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n

Gillis and Wishner provided bogus monthly reports to the investors that falsely detailed the performance of the investors\u2019 ATMs.<\/p>\n

In reality, the purpose of these reports was to conceal that the true source of the payments sent to investors were monies received from other investors. Gillis and Wishner also included a \u201cnon-interference\u201d provision in the lease agreements that prohibited victim-investors from visiting the locations where their ATMs were supposedly located.<\/p>\n

The scheme unraveled this past summer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In August, \u201cNASI bounced approximately $3 million in checks that had been sent by NASI as monthly returns to victim-investors,\u201d according to the criminal information. \u201cBy the end of the month, NASI had drained its bank account, drawing it down to a balance of less than $200,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to hundreds of calls from victim-investors, Gillis and Wishner \u201cfalsely sought to reassure the victim-investors that NASI was only suffering from accounting problems and technical delays relating to system upgrades, and that timely payment of investor returns would likely resume by the beginning of October 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as the Ponzi was collapsing, Gillis and Wishner allegedly continued to raise another $4 million from victim-investors, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Two San Fernando Valley men allegedly\u00a0involved in a lease-back ATM business that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme were charged Tuesday with fraud, officials said. Joel Barry Gillis,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[1072,54],"class_list":["post-8064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-main-slider","category-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-atm-ponzi-scheme","tag-los-angeles"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Men Who Allegedly Used an ATM Investment Con to Make $100 Million Charged With Fraud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two Charged with ATM Ponzi Scheme Fraud in Los Angeles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=8064\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two 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