Shadowtraders

Full story here. From Bronte Capital. A nice, well-documented piece about the Vice President’s son and brother apparently working in and around some rather shady hedge funds…you’ll have to go to the link to see the pictures. Tricky deal that–hedge funds putting their marketing info in pictures, not text. Can’t be captured or searched on by Google–which you’d think would be desirable from a marketing standpoint. If you are curious, you can read more here and here.

If you are fed up with high risk and no returns then join Shadowtraders and learn to trade the Futures Market.

“I have been following the Paradigm Global/Ponta Negra and Stanford links for some time.

The first post – on Ponta Negra – got heavy lawyers letters – so I disappeared. There were lots of posts I did not make.

However here is one – quite tame really – that I did not make only a couple of days ago. It was labelled “A service to the clients of Onyx Capital”.

A service to the clients of Onyx Capital
Onyx Capital is updating its website. Onyx Capital is – as their website used to say – a marketer of hedge funds. All it has on the site is a picture of some text. I duplicate it here.

It’s a “picture of text”, not “actual text” which means that it is not findable by Google – nor will it be archived in the Google cache. So when removed it will disappear forever from Onyx’s site but will be stored for posterity here. It is strange to construct a website of entirely pictures rather than searchable text – but that is the way that Onyx seems always to operate.

The current “picture” says that they are updating their personal contact details. At the moment the website contains no phone numbers, no address and no way of contacting Onyx.

If you have your money allocated by Onyx you might find that unacceptable. So I am going to help you out.

Here are the contact details of Onyx before they chose to update their website. It was also in the form of a picture (not text) so you will not find these contacts archived in the Google cache. This makes it very hard indeed for clients to find contact details for Onyx. I copied that picture about a month ago.

Strangely even these marketing details contain no street address – only phone numbers.

Now – Onyx is a financial services marketing organisation. And like all marketing organisations it wants clients to be able to find it. But strangely their contact details have always been in the form of “pictures of text” rather than plain text – and hence have never been archived by Google – making them difficult to find.

To help Onyx in its marketing I have chosen to repeat three of the contact details.

Jeffry Schneider
Principal
512 617 6335
jschneider@onxy-cap.com

Justin Hare
Director of Investor Relations
713 320 2767
jhare@onyx-cap.com

Alla Babikova
Managing Director
New York Office
646 594 7598
ababikova@onyx-cap.com

I have also sought some information about these people – again for the benefit of Onyx clients.

Jeffry Schneider is a hedge fund marketer and financial professional with some standing. He has several CVs on the internet (one of which I have repeated below). He is quoted in this Wall Street Journal story explaining the business relationship between Paradigm Global (a fund of hedge funds) and a certain Alan Stanford. The relationship is minor. Stanford used to market Paradigm’s products (including a cobranded product) and Paradigm held some Stanford moneys. There is no evidence that Paradigm ever allocated any of their client moneys to Stanford. There is no evidence of wrongdoing – only that Paradigm Global are less careful than they should have been about whose name they attached to their product. As there is no evidence of wrongdoing the relationship would not be worthy of an article in the Wall Street Journal except that Paradigm Global is owned by Hunter Biden and James Biden who are Vice President Joe Biden’s son and brother respectively. The link between Stanford and the Bidens is tenuous – at least in the WSJ article. The link between Onyx and the Bidens is strong.

Schneider is also listed as a contact on other funds marketed from the 17th Floor of 650 Fifth Avenue New York. (It turns out that the other funds included Ponta Negra.)

650 Fifth Avenue (17th Floor) is the address of Paradigm Global so he has managed to garner other clients on that floor. If he got clients knocking door to door or by word of mouth on that floor – good luck to him.

Justin Hare has had a dual career. He has worked for Onyx as the head of investor relations (sales) whilst simultaneously working in “relationship management” (sales) for Stanford (which is widely believed to have been a pure ponzi scheme).

I am guessing that the Stanford relationship is the reason that Onyx needs to update its contact details. That however is a pure guess.

Alla Babikova – who works in the New York office of Onyx also sometimes gives her career as the head of marketing for Paradigm Global. The only CV I can find on the web suggests she joined Onyx in September 2009 – something that appears impossible. That said – the CV on the web speaks to a long marketing career.

Jeffry Schneider also acts as the marketing agent for other hedge funds – sometimes with Jared Toren who is not mentioned on these contact details.

Jeffry Schneider and Jared Toren were once sued for allegedly stealing a hedge fund marketing database. They then – alledged in this lawsuit – set up Onyx Capital. The lawsuit gives Onxy’s address – something that is also missing from the contacts page:

6835 Bee Caves Road
Suite 245
Austin Texas

For the benefit of Onyx clients I have repeated – for searching by Google – the physical address of Onyx’s Austin Texas operations. The website did not contain the NYC office address and I do not know it.

I hope this helps Onyx’s clients keep in contact with Onyx. Meanwhile Onyx should – at a minimum – give some contact details on their website and I am looking forward to the website’s next update.

John”