Pyramid scheme head challenges the Colombian state

Excellent article posted on Semana

http://www.semana.com/noticias-print-edition/pyramid-scheme-head-challenges-the-colombian-state/117861.aspx

Not since the time of Pablo Escobar, when he acted like a philanthropist and won popular acclaim with his program Medellín sin Tugurios (Medellín without Shantytowns), has Colombia seen such an enigmatic and controversial figure such as David Murcia Guzmán.

Of course there are great differences between the two. Back then as time went by, Escobar stopped appearing to be a Robin Hood and declared a bloody war against the state, while the only thing that Murcia has announced is that he will send his thousands of investors into the streets and warns that he has all of his legal artillery prepared to make his economic emporium respected, a business which he says has completely followed the law.

Where there are similarities -given their differences in proportion- is that in both cases they became targets of the state. At least that is the way it was declared on Friday, when President Álvaro Uribe decided to lead the entire state apparatus to criminally confront DMG and try to expose the magic formula that hides behind that multimillion dollar business.

The country just became aware last week of the existence of David Murcia Guzmán, the head of the skyrocketing firm DMG, when pyramid schemes throughout the country collapsed and left nearly 2 million victims who, whether because of ignorance, foolishness or ambition, had entrusted the schemes with their savings.

None of the pyramid schemes that collapsed belonged to DMG. But the eyes of the government and of justice are focused on DMG because it has been the source of inspiration of the nearly 250 pyramid schemes that the government has identified nationwide. With its philosophy of multiplying money and thus feeding a mafia-like culture of easy money, DMG gained the confidence of its clients. It also showed the way for many other unscrupulous types who found a market willing to bet on this risky business.

Last Friday the country discovered the true character of Murcia – and just how far he seems prepared to go – when he addressed Uribe as equals, as no Colombian would dare, or at least no other businessperson. He told him on the La W radio talk program, “No, Mr. President, that’s not the way it is and I hope that you are listening to this. Because if you are going to take arbitrary measures, then allow me to tell you that I also will do arbitrary things.” And, immediately after that, he made a subtle declaration of war. “And allow me to say to you that I will also turn the people against the government.”

One of the worries of the government with DMG is that, in addition to being a pyramid scheme, it could serve as a tool for the drug trafficking business through money laundering, because it is able to introduce cash into the legal market, or by financing drug shipments. The authorities are investigating a possible link with the drug trafficker “Chupeta” through a money exchange business which opened branches in DMG offices.

Murcia immediately rejects any accusation and repeats, as he said in his first interview granted to SEMANA in February of this year, that what he has built is a brand -like Coca Cola or Google, he says- because, among others, it saves on publicity costs and for that reason it can offer great benefits to its clients.

But the story of David Murcia Guzmán goes beyond the gimmicks of pyramid schemes. For journalists who have followed his dizzying career in the last year it is clear that he is an extremely intelligent man who has evident political ambitions. His financial conglomerate is not an end unto itself, but rather a platform to build it into a social phenomenon. “Believe in God and in David Murcia Guzmán” is one of his most repeated slogans.

Murcia has had a meteoric career. He left his birthplace, the town of Ubaté in the Cundinamarca department, very early on. With only a high school degree he received in Bogotá, he traveled from city to city dedicated to earning a living. In 2003 he arrived in La Hormiga (Putumayo) and he didn’t have enough money to even pay for a room for himself in the town’s hotel. But that didn’t last long. In 2005, with an initial investment of 100 million pesos ($43,000 USD), he founded the group DMG in Bogotá. Today, 28 years old, he already has an emporium with more than 200,000 clients, branches in seven countries and partners to open new offices in 99 other countries, according to what Murcia told La W radio station.

Up until now, DMG has surrounded itself with a strategic pool of lawyers, headed by a media-savvy lawyer and known friend of the Fiscal General de la Nación (prosecutor general), Abelardo de la Espriella. DMG has also paid other respected lawyers such as the former procurador (solicitor general) Jaime Bernal and the former vice-fiscal Armando Otalora. At the same time, inside his gigantic organization he is building a cult of personality based on an image of himself as a redeemer for marginalized social classes, who have been abandoned by the state and stepped on by the banks. In a video that each of his clients is required to watch in order to have access to DMG services, he appears in the Colombian swamps helping poor children, saying that he wants to “eradicate hunger in Colombia.”

That is why, during this week’s crisis in many middle class and lower class sectors voices of support were being heard for David Murcia. “With DMG I got a house and the government hasn’t given me anything,” said a man to a television news program. Part of the fanaticism that has grown around him reflects itself in the now recurring marches of followers who protest each time an authority sanctions or questions DMG.

On Friday, for example, more than 2,000 people congregated on the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, the most important square in the city. “We support David Murcia. The only thieves here are the banks that don’t allow poor people to multiply their income,” said one of the protesters.

This obsession with his personality reached its climax perhaps last Wednesday when the pyramid scheme scandal broke out. Upon seeing the hordes of agitated citizens, David Murcia made a video for YouTube in which he appears in front of a backdrop worthy of a president, complete with a Colombian flag and a DMG one as well, where from behind a desk he solemnly challenges the state and the president and declares war on a banking sector which he says is responsible for all the country’s ills.

“The people have to wake up against those abuses and those slanders because the war isn’t against DMG but rather is against each one of the Colombian people,” he says. He says that “it is time for justice” and makes an appeal to “my DMG family so that we can show who really rules in this country.” He concludes with a martyr-like phrase. “I know that they can kill me, believing that eliminating me as a leader could end this family that has become an economic revolution… if I have to die for this cause, I will die proudly and peacefully, but they will never finish off the DMG family.” The state, led by Uribe, has all of its legal artillery prepared to put an end to this story. Hopefully in this transition David Murcia will not commit the error of continuing to stir up the masses and will accept what the law decides.

U.S. Agents Seize Travelers’ Devices

I cam across this interesting piece of news in Washington Post

Makes me feel reassured about my boycott of the USA and any and all travel there.

There are a myriad of wonderful, friendly, non war mongering places on the planet to visit where one is welcomed with open arms by the warm people living there.

One doesnt need to subject themselves to this never ending BS the US Authorities subject innocent people to.

Have a read:

U.S. Agents Seize Travelers’ Devices
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 7, 2008; A01

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter’s calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had “a security concern” with her. “I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,” she said.

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, Lynn Hollinger, said officers do not engage in racial profiling “in any way, shape or form.” She said that “it is not CBP’s intent to subject travelers to unwarranted scrutiny” and that a laptop may be seized if it contains information possibly tied to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography or other criminal activity.

The reason for a search is not always made clear. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which represents 2,500 business executives in the United States and abroad, said it has tracked complaints from several members, including Udy, whose laptops have been seized and their contents copied before usually being returned days later, said Susan Gurley, executive director of ACTE. Gurley said none of the travelers who have complained to the ACTE raised concerns about racial or ethnic profiling. Gurley said none of the travelers were charged with a crime.
“I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,” said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE’s help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.

ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices. “Is it destroyed right then and there if the person is in fact just a regular business traveler?” Gurley asked. “People are quite concerned. They don’t want proprietary business information floating, not knowing where it has landed or where it is going. It increases the anxiety level.”

Udy has changed all her work passwords and no longer banks online. Her company, Radius, has tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.
At least two major global corporations, one American and one Dutch, have told their executives not to carry confidential business material on laptops on overseas trips, Gurley said. In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with “blank laptops” whose hard drives contain no data. “We just access our information through the Internet,” said Lou Brzezinski, a partner at Blaney McMurtry, a major Toronto law firm. That approach also holds risks, but “those are hacking risks as opposed to search risks,” he said.

The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country’s border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.

“It should not matter . . . whether documents and pictures are kept in ‘hard copy’ form in an executive’s briefcase or stored digitally in a computer. The authority of customs officials to search the former should extend equally to searches of the latter,” the government argued in the child pornography case being heard by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

As more and more people travel with laptops, BlackBerrys and cellphones, the government’s laptop-equals-suitcase position is raising red flags.
“It’s one thing to say it’s reasonable for government agents to open your luggage,” said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. “It’s another thing to say it’s reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It’s as if you’re crossing the border with your home in your suitcase.”

If the government’s position on searches of electronic files is upheld, new risks will confront anyone who crosses the border with a laptop or other device, said Mark Rasch, a technology security expert with FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor. “Your kid can be arrested because they can’t prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded,” he said. “Lawyers run the risk of exposing sensitive information about their client. Trade secrets can be exposed to customs agents with no limit on what they can do with it. Journalists can expose sources, all because they have the audacity to cross an invisible line.”
Hollinger said customs officers “are trained to protect confidential information.”

Shirin Sinnar, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, said that by scrutinizing the Web sites people search and the phone numbers they’ve stored on their cellphones, “the government is going well beyond its traditional role of looking for contraband and really is looking into the content of people’s thoughts and ideas and their lawful political activities.”
If conducted inside the country, such searches would require a warrant and probable cause, legal experts said.

Customs sometimes singles out passengers for extensive questioning and searches based on “information from various systems and specific techniques for selecting passengers,” including the Interagency Border Inspection System, according to a statement on the CBP Web site. “CBP officers may, unfortunately, inconvenience law-abiding citizens in order to detect those involved in illicit activities,” the statement said. But the factors agents use to single out passengers are not transparent, and travelers generally have little access to the data to see whether there are errors.

Although Customs said it does not profile by race or ethnicity, an officers’ training guide states that “it is permissible and indeed advisable to consider an individual’s connections to countries that are associated with significant terrorist activity.”

“What’s the difference between that and targeting people because they are Arab or Muslim?” Cole said, noting that the countries the government focuses on are generally predominantly Arab or Muslim.

It is the lack of clarity about the rules that has confounded travelers and raised concerns from groups such as the Asian Law Caucus, which said that as a result, their lawyers cannot fully advise people how they may exercise their rights during a border search. The lawsuit says a Freedom of Information Act request was filed with Customs last fall but that no information has been received.

Kamran Habib, a software engineer with Cisco Systems, has had his laptop and cellphone searched three times in the past year. Once, in San Francisco, an officer “went through every number and text message on my cellphone and took out my SIM card in the back,” said Habib, a permanent U.S. resident. “So now, every time I travel, I basically clean out my phone. It’s better for me to keep my colleagues and friends safe than to get them on the list as well.”

Udy’s company, Radius, organizes business trips for 100,000 travelers a day, from companies around the world. She says her firm supports strong security measures. “Where we get angry is when we don’t know what they’re for.”

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.