fraud
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Billy McFarland, the convicted fraudster behind the disastrous unraveling of the Fyre Festival, made an announcement this past weekend that should raise eyebrows. McFarland is promising to bring back the festival and used social media to share the news.
Billy McFarland sent out a tweet on Easter Sunday (April 9) simply stating that the festival will make its return but few other details were shared.
“Fyre Festival II is finally happening. Tell me why you should be invited,” McFarland tweeted.
When one user asked why McFarland wasn’t still jailed for stiffing investors, McFarland fired back saying, “It’s in the best interest of those I owe for me to be working. people aren’t getting paid back if i sit on the couch and watch tv. and because i served my time.”
McFarland leaned into the snark and attacks on his character, showing an unflinching focus on truly getting Frye Festival back on its feet. As some might recall, the original event went afoul with patrons promised certain amenities that didn’t add up to what they actually received. Further, the event dragged the names of others, chiefly, rapper Ja Rule.
It isn’t known how Billy McFarland intends to fund the next Fyre Festival or if he’s found some new investors. Stay tuned.
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Photo: Patrick McMullan / Getty
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The wife of the late great Leonard “Hub” Hubbard believes The Roots are not men of their word. She is suing Questlove and Black Thought for fraud.
As spotted on The Philly Voice Stephanie Hubbard is alleging that the legendary band is withholding monies that she believes are due to the bassist. On December 16, 2021, Leonard Hubbard passed due to blood cancer. Prior to his death, he had claimed that the group was shortchanging him based on a contract he signed stating he was a co-owner of the band. Years later, it seems Mrs. Hubbard has continued to fight his fight.
On Thursday, March 23 she filed a lawsuit to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The documentation states that Ahmir Thompson (Questlove), Tarik Trotter (Black Thought), Shawn Gee (The Roots manager), and Munir Nuriddin (Roots employee) have been violating RICO laws since 2013 with regard to Hub’s earnings.
Specifically, by “forgery, wire fraud, bank fraud, mail fraud, and criminal copyright infringement”. Furthermore, she says all the original members founded Grand Negaz, Inc.; a corporate entity they all started to funnel all their music-related ventures. Additionally, she states Leonard also had a 25% stake in a company that handled The Roots’ publishing and a 33% stake in a company that deals with their touring bookings.
The estate’s lawyer Luke Lucas gave a statement to The Philadelphia Business Journal regarding the lawsuit. “I would hope that these guys would have enough respect and compassion for their former band member… to make sure that he receives compensation for what may have not been given to him in the past, and so that his widow can live a reasonable life,” he said.
The Roots have yet to formally comment on the allegations.
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Photo: EVA HAMBACH
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Carlos Watson, the founder of digital entertainment company Ozy Media, was arrested on Thursday (Feb. 23) and charged with securities fraud. The arrest comes after other members of Ozy Media’s executive team were charged with defrauding investors out of large sums of cash.
As seen in the New York Times, Carlos Watson, 53, was arrested Thursday morning in midtown Manhattan by FBI officials and later appeared in federal court in Brooklyn by the afternoon. Beyond fraud charges, Watson also faces identity theft charges and has pleaded not guilty to all counts and is now free on a $1 million bond.
According to the court filing, Watson, “engaged in a scheme to defraud Ozy’s potential investors, potential acquirers, lenders and potential lenders,” and baked the numbers on Ozy Media’s various holdings and results Eastern District of New York prosecutors wrote.
Along with Watson, Samir Rao, former Ozy Media CEO, and Suzee Han, Ozy Media’s former chief of staff, both pleaded guilty to fraud charges. The Securities and Exchange Commission then brought charges that the trio defrauded investors out of $50 million.
Much of the fall of Ozy Media can be traced to the fall of 2021 after the Times reported that an Ozy Media staffer pretended to be an executive from YouTube during a business call with Goldman Sachs involving a potential investment venture. The staffer sold a tall tale of YouTube being a strong business ally of Ozy Media and that content produced by Ozy performed well on YouTube’s channels.
According to Watson’s legal team, the arrest came as a shock to their side as Watson was reportedly working with authorities on the matter as recently as this week. If convicted, Carlos Watson could face a range of time of a mandatory minimum sentence of two years to a maximum of 37 years.
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Executives at one of the largest independent ticketing companies in North America believe malware hidden inside a tracking pixel used for sending customers target advertisements was the source of two-and-a-half-year credit card skimming operation.
Company officials with See Tickets North America, a subsidiary of French entertainment conglomerate Vivendi, tell Billboard that criminals were able to operate a sophisticated credit card skimming fraud on See Tickets checkout pages. While See Tickets officials didn’t detail which events were impacted, the company is one of the largest ticketing sites for indie promoters in North America with clients that include Pitchfork Festival and Disco Donnie Presents’ Freaky Deaky festival, as well as venues like the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California.
Tracking pixels are typically used to identify customers and share information about the consumer with ad networks and other large technology companies. One popular use of tracking pixels in the events business is to serve ads to fans who visited a music festivals website but did not purchase tickets, in hopes of enticing them to make a purchase.
Company officials believe that an exploit in the pixel See Tickets was using allowed criminals to take snap shots of credit card transactions as they happened without having to break into See Tickets system or database. The malicious code first appeared on the site on June 25, 2019, about nine months before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of the live entertainment industry.
“At See Tickets we take securing customer information very seriously and deeply regret this incident occurred,” Boris Patronoff, CEO of See Tickets North America, told Billboard in a statement. “We also understand how this may have negatively impacted on our clients and their customers. We conducted an immediate investigation as soon as the issue was discovered and communicated with clients and customers the moment it was possible to do so. We have since taken additional measures to further strengthen our security,.”
Company officials became aware of the security breach in April 2021 after being contacted by credit card investigators looking at fraudulent charges linked to purchases on See Tickets website site. Within days of being notified, the ticketing company hired two forensic investigation teams to investigate the breach. In January of this year, the malicious code was eradicated from the site.
Last month, See Tickets concluded its investigation and began notifying state law enforcement officials with the details of the breach. While See Tickets’ own customer and promoter data was not accessed during the breach, criminals were able to obtain details from credit card transactions including full name, address, card number, expiration date and CVV.
See Tickets says a majority of ticket buyers who used the site were not impacted by the breach and note that social security numbers, state identification numbers and bank account information was not exposed due to this incident, as they are not stored in its systems.
The breach is the second major hack of a ticketing company in five years. In 2018, hackers briefly took over the Ticketfly home page and took parts of the company offline for months grinding much of the independent music industry to a halt. Ticketfly users and client data were stolen during the attack and wound up on the dark web because of the attack.