Sam Zumbe

A summary of what happened?

Sam Zumbe is a British national who has been implicated in fraudulent financial activities, notably involving an unlicensed entity purported to operate as a bank. His actions have attracted scrutiny from investigative journalists and financial watchdogs.

Major Concerns and Allegations Against Sam Zumbe:

1. Involvement with Fraudulent Financial Entities:
   • Zumbe was associated with Newport Enterprises, a Delaware-domiciled entity falsely presented as a licensed bank. During a 2015 interview with OffshoreAlert, Zumbe claimed that Newport Enterprises was licensed by “the Pentagon,” a statement that lacks credibility and suggests deceptive practices.
     OffshoreAlert
2. Misrepresentation of Licensing and Regulatory Status:
   • The assertion that Newport Enterprises held a license from the Pentagon is unfounded, as the Pentagon does not issue banking licenses. This misrepresentation indicates an attempt to deceive investors regarding the legitimacy of the institution.
     OffshoreAlert
3. Association with Known Fraudsters:
   • Zumbe collaborated with Jean-Philippe Grange, another individual implicated in fraudulent financial schemes. Their partnership in promoting Newport Enterprises raises concerns about coordinated efforts to defraud investors.
     OffshoreAlert
4. Negative Public Feedback and Complaints:
   • Online platforms, such as ComplaintsBoard.com, feature grievances against Zumbe, accusing him of fraudulent activities and unethical behavior. One complaint alleges that he stole £150,000 from his ex-partner’s parents, resulting in a court judgment against him for £250,000.
     Complaints Board

Sam Zumbe’s involvement in promoting unlicensed financial entities, coupled with misrepresentations about regulatory approvals and associations with other alleged fraudsters, has led to significant concerns about his business practices. The allegations and complaints against him highlight the importance of thorough due diligence when engaging with financial institutions and underscore the need for vigilance against fraudulent schemes.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Sam Zumbe trying to hide?

Sam Zumbe‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Sam Zumbe in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Sam Zumbe may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: Sam Zumbe – Allegations, Fraudulent Activities, and Public Complaints

Introduction

Sam Zumbe, a British national, has been at the center of serious accusations involving fraudulent financial schemes and unethical business practices. His association with unlicensed financial entities, particularly Newport Enterprises, and controversial claims about regulatory approvals have drawn scrutiny from investigative journalists, financial watchdogs, and individuals claiming to be victims of his actions. This report delves into the allegations, legal concerns, and public complaints against Zumbe, based on available evidence and accounts.

1. The Newport Enterprises Controversy

Background of Newport Enterprises

Newport Enterprises is a Delaware-registered entity that Sam Zumbe promoted as a legitimate banking institution. Zumbe claimed that the organization was licensed by the Pentagon, an assertion that raised immediate red flags due to its implausibility.

Key Allegations

• False Licensing Claims:
  • In a 2015 interview with OffshoreAlert, Zumbe asserted that Newport Enterprises was licensed by the Pentagon. This statement was widely criticized as baseless since the Pentagon does not issue banking licenses.
  • Financial regulators and investigative journalists found no evidence supporting the claim that Newport Enterprises was authorized to operate as a financial institution.
• Deceptive Practices:
  • By promoting Newport Enterprises as a licensed bank, Zumbe and his associates are alleged to have misled investors and clients about the legitimacy of the institution.
  • This deception is believed to have facilitated fraudulent activities under the guise of legitimate financial operations.

Partnership with Jean-Philippe Grange

• Zumbe worked closely with Jean-Philippe Grange, another individual implicated in fraudulent activities.
• Their collaboration in managing and promoting Newport Enterprises has raised concerns about coordinated efforts to deceive and defraud clients.
• Grange has faced legal scrutiny for similar fraudulent practices, further undermining the credibility of Newport Enterprises.

2. Public Complaints and Allegations

Online Complaints

Numerous online platforms, including ComplaintsBoard.com, feature allegations against Zumbe. These complaints paint a consistent picture of financial impropriety and unethical behavior:

• Accusations of Theft:
  • A particularly striking complaint alleges that Zumbe stole £150,000 from his ex-partner’s parents. The case reportedly resulted in a court judgment against him for £250,000.
  • The complainant detailed how Zumbe manipulated and deceived the victims into transferring significant sums of money.
• Fraud Allegations:
  • Complaints describe Zumbe as a “fraudster” who misrepresents his business dealings to extract funds from unsuspecting individuals.
  • Victims claim they were lured by promises of high returns or secure investments, only to find their funds misappropriated.

3. OffshoreAlert Investigations

2015 Interview

• Zumbe participated in an interview with OffshoreAlert alongside his associate Jean-Philippe Grange.
• The interview highlighted numerous inconsistencies and dubious claims, including the Pentagon licensing assertion.
• The investigative piece by OffshoreAlert categorized both Zumbe and Grange as fraudsters, based on their inability to substantiate their claims and the lack of evidence supporting the legitimacy of Newport Enterprises.

Reactions to the Exposure

• After the OffshoreAlert report, Zumbe and Grange faced public backlash. Grange’s attorney attempted to have the video interview removed from online platforms, which further raised suspicions about the duo’s activities.

4. Patterns of Behavior

Consistent Misrepresentation

• Zumbe’s claims about regulatory approvals, particularly the Pentagon licensing, demonstrate a pattern of misrepresentation designed to instill false confidence in potential clients.
• By leveraging pseudo-authoritative endorsements, Zumbe created an illusion of legitimacy for fraudulent schemes.

Collaboration with Questionable Associates

• Zumbe’s association with Jean-Philippe Grange and others implicated in financial fraud suggests a networked approach to exploiting victims.
• This collaboration enabled him to amplify the reach and impact of his deceptive practices.

Failure to Address Allegations

• Zumbe has not publicly addressed or refuted many of the allegations against him, contributing to the perception of guilt.
• Efforts to suppress investigative reports and complaints further undermine his credibility.

5. Impact on Victims

Financial Losses

• Individuals and families have reportedly lost significant sums of money due to Zumbe’s fraudulent activities.
• The alleged £150,000 theft from his ex-partner’s parents is just one example of the financial devastation caused by his schemes.

Emotional Toll

• Victims describe feelings of betrayal and helplessness, particularly as legal recourse remains elusive in many cases.
• The deceptive use of false endorsements and licenses exacerbated the emotional impact by exploiting trust.

6. Regulatory Concerns

Unlicensed Financial Operations

• Newport Enterprises and other entities associated with Zumbe operated without proper licensing, violating financial regulations in multiple jurisdictions.
• The lack of transparency and accountability in these operations poses broader risks to the financial ecosystem.

Regulatory Loopholes

• Zumbe’s ability to establish and promote entities like Newport Enterprises underscores gaps in regulatory oversight, particularly in offshore financial operations.
• Enhanced due diligence and stricter enforcement are needed to prevent similar schemes.

Conclusion

Sam Zumbe’s involvement in fraudulent activities, particularly through Newport Enterprises, represents a calculated effort to exploit regulatory gaps and deceive investors. His claims about Pentagon licensing and collaboration with individuals like Jean-Philippe Grange reveal a pattern of misrepresentation and unethical conduct. The allegations of theft, fraud, and financial impropriety against him are supported by victim testimonies, online complaints, and investigative journalism.

While Zumbe’s activities have been exposed in part, the lack of decisive legal action and public accountability leaves many victims without recourse. This case highlights the need for vigilance in financial dealings and the importance of regulatory reforms to combat fraud effectively.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Sam Zumbe (or actors working on behalf of Sam Zumbe), we will inform Sam Zumbe of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Sam Zumbe may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Sam Zumbe, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Sam Zumbe to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Sam Zumbe made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Sam Zumbe is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Sam Zumbe

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Sam Zumbe Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Sam Zumbe used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Sam Zumbe could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Sam Zumbe have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Sam Zumbe is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Sam Zumbe creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Sam Zumbe either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Sam Zumbe, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Sam Zumbe is in great company ….

What else is Sam Zumbe hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Sam Zumbe] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Sam Zumbe that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.