Hi All,
Have been preoccupied with other matters for the past year or so, so was not able to spend time on TNet. Glad to be back. I want to provide an update about the so-called Cortes emerald treasure shipwreck supposedly found by Victor Benilous back in 1992. There have been several web sites over the years selling emeralds from this supposed 1757 Cortes family shipwreck, including EmeraldTreasure.com and ArchaeologicalDiscoveryVentures.com. Victor claimed to have found the wreck in international waters off Cape Canaveral with the help of a psychic and to have recovered more than a billion dollars of treasure from it. He was selling emeralds and jewels supposedly from the wreck initially, and then went on to seeking investors for a supposed museum to house a major exhibition of the treasure. I have posted several times over the years, trying to find if anybody could confirm whether or not there was there was actually a shipwreck. I had a vested interest, which I declared, in that I am the sole agent and representative of the current heir to Hernan Cortes, who would be the legal owner of the shipwreck if Victor's story was true. After some time, I concluded that there was probably no shipwreck at all, and that the story was just a cover for selling imported modern emeralds at a premium on the basis that they were from an old shipwreck. However, I could never prove it, one way or the other.
However, I am now absolutely certain that there never was such a shipwreck, and that the whole thing is a scam, and one that goes far beyond selling emeralds and jewelry at a premium price. I want to bring this to the attention of TNet members (most of whom suspected that this was the case) and to ask anybody who has been caught up in the scam to contact me. I was recently contacted by a West Palm Beach, Florida man who had been conned out of $180,000 by Victor and his cronies, and asked to help him expose Victor and try to recover his money. The story is told in a Palm Beach Post story that is currently on their web-site and will be in the hard copy newspaper in the next week. The following is the link for the digital story:
The way the scam has been working is that victims are offered loosely defined business opportunities with the likelihood of doubling their money in a very short period. They are also given a guarantee that if those opportunities do not pan out, they will be given emeralds from the supposed Cortes shipwreck to the value of 150% of their investment. When the investment opportunity turns sour, they are offered a small number of poor quality emeralds at highly inflated appraised costs, offering them effectively only a few cents on the dollar for their investment. The entities offering the guarantees are all LLCs, which if necessary are simply put into liquidation. One victim was given a judgment for $110,000 but has not been able to actually get his hands on the money. The person I am helping has been given the run around with his $180,000 and is pursuing a claim in court. The West Palm Beach Police are investigating the fraud. Another victim almost lost his $3 million dollar yacht, and there are others. Two emerald experts recently had the opportunity to inspect some of the emeralds and jewelry supposedly recovered from the Cortes shipwreck, and confirmed that the emeralds are very low quality, modern emeralds, many of them from Brazil, where emeralds were only discovered in the 1900s, and that the jewels and supposed Aztec treasures are poor quality modern imitations. It was meeting them that finally convinced me that there was no shipwreck, only cover for a scam.
The scammers are currently lookers for suckers to invest in the supposed museum and exhibition, and are involved in the film industry, where investors' money is supposedly guaranteed by the bogus treasure. If anybody has come across any of these scams, or knows anybody who has been conned out of their money, please contact me with details.
These guys are giving the treasure industry a big back eye and severely damaging its reputation. Any help in seeing them get their just desserts would be greatly appreciated.
Have been preoccupied with other matters for the past year or so, so was not able to spend time on TNet. Glad to be back. I want to provide an update about the so-called Cortes emerald treasure shipwreck supposedly found by Victor Benilous back in 1992. There have been several web sites over the years selling emeralds from this supposed 1757 Cortes family shipwreck, including EmeraldTreasure.com and ArchaeologicalDiscoveryVentures.com. Victor claimed to have found the wreck in international waters off Cape Canaveral with the help of a psychic and to have recovered more than a billion dollars of treasure from it. He was selling emeralds and jewels supposedly from the wreck initially, and then went on to seeking investors for a supposed museum to house a major exhibition of the treasure. I have posted several times over the years, trying to find if anybody could confirm whether or not there was there was actually a shipwreck. I had a vested interest, which I declared, in that I am the sole agent and representative of the current heir to Hernan Cortes, who would be the legal owner of the shipwreck if Victor's story was true. After some time, I concluded that there was probably no shipwreck at all, and that the story was just a cover for selling imported modern emeralds at a premium on the basis that they were from an old shipwreck. However, I could never prove it, one way or the other.
However, I am now absolutely certain that there never was such a shipwreck, and that the whole thing is a scam, and one that goes far beyond selling emeralds and jewelry at a premium price. I want to bring this to the attention of TNet members (most of whom suspected that this was the case) and to ask anybody who has been caught up in the scam to contact me. I was recently contacted by a West Palm Beach, Florida man who had been conned out of $180,000 by Victor and his cronies, and asked to help him expose Victor and try to recover his money. The story is told in a Palm Beach Post story that is currently on their web-site and will be in the hard copy newspaper in the next week. The following is the link for the digital story:
HTML:
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/local/lawsuit-treasure-hunters-scammed-me-out-of-190000/npMgp/?icmp=pbp_internallink_referralbox_free-to-premium-referralThe way the scam has been working is that victims are offered loosely defined business opportunities with the likelihood of doubling their money in a very short period. They are also given a guarantee that if those opportunities do not pan out, they will be given emeralds from the supposed Cortes shipwreck to the value of 150% of their investment. When the investment opportunity turns sour, they are offered a small number of poor quality emeralds at highly inflated appraised costs, offering them effectively only a few cents on the dollar for their investment. The entities offering the guarantees are all LLCs, which if necessary are simply put into liquidation. One victim was given a judgment for $110,000 but has not been able to actually get his hands on the money. The person I am helping has been given the run around with his $180,000 and is pursuing a claim in court. The West Palm Beach Police are investigating the fraud. Another victim almost lost his $3 million dollar yacht, and there are others. Two emerald experts recently had the opportunity to inspect some of the emeralds and jewelry supposedly recovered from the Cortes shipwreck, and confirmed that the emeralds are very low quality, modern emeralds, many of them from Brazil, where emeralds were only discovered in the 1900s, and that the jewels and supposed Aztec treasures are poor quality modern imitations. It was meeting them that finally convinced me that there was no shipwreck, only cover for a scam.
The scammers are currently lookers for suckers to invest in the supposed museum and exhibition, and are involved in the film industry, where investors' money is supposedly guaranteed by the bogus treasure. If anybody has come across any of these scams, or knows anybody who has been conned out of their money, please contact me with details.
These guys are giving the treasure industry a big back eye and severely damaging its reputation. Any help in seeing them get their just desserts would be greatly appreciated.
