I found this historical tidbit of interest:
Offshore Alert, 30 June 1998:
"As alleged frauds go, it would be hard to conceive of anything more audacious than creating your own phony country, promoting it as a major offshore financial center and charging people for bank and insurance licenses, IBCs, trusts and even bar qualifications. And why not throw in an 'international stock exchange' with several listings of fake companies with fake trading, all displayed on an elaborate web-site? Yet that's exactly what the people behind the Dominion of Melchizedek appear to have done, with some apparent success, judging from the fact that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the US has had to go so far as to warn people not to do business with any 'banks' claiming to be based in DOM, as the 'country' is known, and has closed down DOM 'banks' operating in the US, including at least one from an address on Wall Street."
"In Hong Kong this year, an Austrian baker who tried to cash checks totaling $500,000 drawn on Asia Pacific Bank of Melchizedek was jailed for six months for fraud. According to US press reports, DOM was invented by convicted swindler Mark Logan Pedley of California, who may have since faked his own death. Anyone wishing to see the amount of work gone into creating the Melchizedek illusion should visit www.melchizedek.com, which is a website registered to David Korem of Foster City, California."
-- Offshore Alert, 30 June 1998 Edition, at p. 9.
quatloos.com
=====
Faked his own death? Has anyone checked with the Melchizedek coroner's office to verify this? ;^)
- Jeff |
