Man hides $20 million ponzi cash in apartment bed
A man has been arrested and charged with one count of conspiring to commit money laundering.
Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, 28, allegedly stashed $20 million inside a bed in an apartment in Westborough, Massachusetts.
The cash stash was discovered earlier this month when police raided the apartment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Monday released an image showing $20 million in cash that authorities found stashed in a box spring in the apartment.
The money is believed to be linked to a $1 billion pyramid scheme involving TelexFree, a Massachusetts-headquartered company that claimed to provide Internet phone services. Authorities allege that it was a pyramid scheme that operated from January 2012 to March 2014.
“TelexFree purported to aggressively market its VOIP [voice over internet protocol] service by recruiting thousands of ‘promoters’ to post ads for the product on the Internet,” the Department of Justice said in a statement on its website.
TelexFree reported sales of $1.02 billion in 2013, but roughly all that revenue came from people who bought into the company’s scheme, authorities said.
