GTXC's lost revenue source, DishTV Now

Back in 04, as the PrimeTV debacle was really becoming critical. Employees asked to take a 2 month 20% deferrment of salary (which was to be repaid with interest, "promissory notes" to that effect and David still never accrued for it and never paid it back).. lay offs throughout the Gatelinx empire, the closing of the Cary call center, selling off the leased equipment... all of that, they were actively soliciting investments and sales of the company.

Ad's were posted on "4 sale" web sites for the AI, for the Gatelinx technology, for DishTV Now, everything. And, a number of documents were produced to support these efforts.

NOTE: at least 5 deals were offered, 3 signed LOI's, all of which either David backed out of, or couldn't/wouldn't produce the kind of financial information and disclosures that would allow anyone to buy the company.

One interesting document was a history of DishTV Now and the Satellite sales business. Some interestings quotes from this document include:

"Prime Television Corporation was established in 1997 for the express purpose of marketing satellite TV equipment and services to U.S. consumers. The objective was to target market the 67 million cable TV subscribers, offering these consumers a one-stop shop for ordering satellite TV service. David and Annette Hagen, respectively CEO and General Manager, have had over 20 years experience in marketing and direct sales. They have utilized their expertise in television, direct mail, radio, print and co-op advertising to generate over 10 million inbound customer inquiries regarding satellite TV over seven years. Their management team consists of leaders in direct marketing and sales. Rigorous training and motivation of the sales staff has resulted in superior sales performance. The company sold over 850,000 customers satellite TV equipment and service. The company was the top ranked dealer for PRIMESTAR until it was purchased by DIRECTV. Since this acquisition in 1999, the company remained the top ranked dealer for DIRECTV until the April of 2004 when it lost its dealership with DIRECTV.

In 2003, the Hagen’s formed Dish TV Now, Inc., for marketing and selling Dish Network satellite TV systems and services. Dish TV Now began marketing nationally through several methods proven effective through Prime Television. These methods included direct mail targeted to consumers who have indicated a desire to purchase a satellite TV system within the next 30 days and families currently in the transition of moving, and direct response TV (DRTV) commercials. The initial DRTV commercial was the "Cablesnake" (click on www.calldishtv.com for flash example of the TV commercial), which combines humor and shock, while demonizing cable, and advertising the Dish Network FREE DISH promotion as an exciting, value-packed limited offer. Through the marketing mix, Dish TV Now has generated in excess of 140,000 new subscribers for Dish Network. www.dishtvnow.com

Through their experience with high customer call volume and scripted sales and customer service, the Hagen’s recognized the need to allow consumers and business to communicate with live agents through websites, kiosks and home televisions. The Hagen’s formed Gatelinx Corporation in early 2000 to first develop a proprietary Internet transport application to ride on top of TCI/IP that would be both firewall friendly and sufficiently robust to allow the best in live direct sales and service over any device connected to the Internet. Once the core technology was developed, the next objective was to develop applications to work with this revolutionary Internet protocol application. To meet these objectives, the company recruited and employed top computer scientists specializing in the fields of secure network communication, multimedia streaming, VoIP, collaboration applications, compression technology and Video over IP. After three years, these experts in their respective fields have developed a significant number of patent-pending breakthrough technologies. Utilizing these technologies, consumers and businesses can now directly communicate through any device that can make a connection to the Internet. Through the Gatelinx applications, sales agents and customer service representatives can present their products and demonstrate services using rich multimedia graphic applications. The solutions were further designed to help eliminate the problem of shopping cart abandonment concerning any business attempting to conduct business over the Internet. Gatelinx has combined the most advanced features of business PBX telephone system have with video and the Internet to allow for seamless and rich communication and collaboration. www.gatelinx.com"

Pretty straight ahead (if not completely fluffly) stuff. Left out all kinds of information, like the $3M Pegasus receivable (whcih they also tried to sell, called "factoring" at least twice, at pennies on the dollar to stay afloat.. oh, lookie, and that $3M is on their books as a receivable still), they missed the DirecTV lawsuits and how much they claimed is owed, and yet no one has seen, or will see, a penny of that.. al the insiders know all this.

What's interesting is the things communciated at the end of the document, and throughout the process. They, the Hagen's, claimed and held onto the hope that the call center was a "machine" that if primed with advertising dollars could return to its glory days. This quote says it all...

"Carrying the overhead of Gatelinx exclusively by Dish TV Now in absence of Prime Television has drained the satellite TV business from a $2 million a week business to its current $200,000 per week. A $100,000 per week investment in marketing for 4 to 6 weeks would double plus sales bringing Dish TV Now back to annual sales that would well exceed $25 million. "

Really? wow... if this was so easy, and they had all this demand and investment/licensing/marketing arrangements which clearly could have spit out a measly $100K per week, then why did they sell off the whole thing for $500K? Just another fishy story from the Hagen's. Folks, not one thing about these guys are as they say... it's a scam.

GTXC Moving to Fully Reporting?

The obvious question is "how?" http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060525/nyth149.html?.v=49

GTXC has no employees in the functional areas/departments of: sales, marketing, support, customer service, operations development, product management, Q/A or engineering.

GTXC has no revenue. They sold off DishTV Now (they sold it for only $500K, for a division that had $10M in sales, and actually made a profit too.. more on this in the next blog post)...but that group (DishTV Now) was the only revenue generating entity. And, to date, none of the "licensing" or "marketing" agreements have been consumated or produced (and are unlikely to produce) any revenue. GTXGlobal.. er Gatelinx.. has generated no revenues on their own and they even admit that they have little faith in their receivables (which include the $2M each from Govalin and Heelstrike) are ever likely to be real.

GTXC's previous financial reporting and filings are full of holes, inconsistencies and outright falsehoods.

GTXC's "executives" are ghosts. No history, track record or presence in the marketplace. Their previous "CEO" (Curtis Garth)was the former "sales manager" for the DishTV Now call center. And, before that, he was a sales manager for a car dealership in Fayetteville, NC. (http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=735248545) .. which, his bio in the financial filings do not mention this little gem. Hmmmm... I wonder why?

Wall Street wants 3 things. A plan, a management team, and revenue. GTXC has none of these.

This new addition, Conrad C. Lysiak, Esq., at least has some kind of presence. You can google him and he's actually done securities work. He's in Spokane (which begs one obvious question, Southern Pines NC to Spokane? Given the indictments of all of GTXC's and Hagen's cronies in NC, I guess that makes sense)

But the one big question for Mr Lysiak is.. WHY? Why would you take on this client? They don't pay their bills (every lawsuit, outside of Brady and Stefanik, were default judgments against David and Annette Hagen, GTX Global, GTXC and/or Gatelinx including the state of California for 3 THREE default wage claims and labor commission judgements).

Why would he risk associating his professional practice and standing with these clowns? Is this a "knowing" decision? Is he aware of all this baggage? or is this just a retainer deal that creates nothing but smoke and mirrors? My guess is, given how David Hagen operates (and that his corporate counsel isn't licensed to practice law in NC and never has been licensed in NC.. only Pennsylvania).. my guess is this is just another part of the scam.

Last comment.. the comments and contributions to this blog (and by inference to the detriment of David and Annette Hagen) are greatly appreciated. They've turned, however, to comments about ex-employees (who cares whether or not Eugene Lebedev is falsifying his resume?) Folks, some of them don't address the main issue here. GTXC IS A SCAM.

Please, post whatever you want.. secretly, it is kind of fun to hear (again) some of the dirt... but, if it has some context that further proves that the technology is unfinished, doesn't work, never did, or other "inside" scoop on the financial dealings and operations.. that's better.

Oh, I guess one more thing. To someones comment about the technology "mostly" working. Stefanik published technical specs that said each server would handle 10,000 concurrent users. Making the econmic scale a no brainer, and.. if that was true, the early "pre-optimization" roll-out a technical scale winner too. The reality, however, was that 100 - 200 users at any time couold access the server. Quite the miss, eh?

Candidly, Stefanik made that (10K users per server) up as a "goal" with Hagen's involvement and approval and had no clue as to how to get there. His public announcements (directly in speaking engagements, and indirectly through the sales and marketing organization) would have been, and was by Kelly, uncovered. Since the technology has had little "optimization" it's likely that has also been uncovered by the Govalin's, Heelstrikes, Yadios... and hopefully... the market at large. This thing, HAD potential... it could'a worked. But it doesn't.. it won't... and GTXC IS A SCAM.

GTXC co-conspirator updates

http://www.junkfax.org/fax/profiles/wsp/woltz/WoltzBailObjection.pdf

Looks like the Woltz's (Howell and Vernice) are staying in jail and are gonna be there for a loooooong time.

Remember, Howell and Vernice are good buddies of David and Annette Hagen. They helped them secure residency in the Bahamas, hooked them up with Bryan Kos, Don Oemke and others. We can only hope for, and look for, when the Hagen's show up in a similar indictment...

The final nail in the Hagen's and GTXC?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060525/yahoo_contract.html?.v=3

Some recent comments posted here brought some additional thoughts. I've tried, in this blog, to only deal with facts, links, information and perspective from being on the inside. My personal feelings (as inferred vis a vis Stefanik and others) have been largely kept at bay.

This Yahoo/Ebay announcement, however, sparks the need for some commentary, and I am labeling this post as such.

Execs: A comment (from "carl" I think) mentioned the changing landscape of product definitions coming from "execs." Also a question as to where Kelly Sparks is.... Up until Kelly took on the reins of Product Management, there were no functional or design specifications for any product. There were some real quality exec's... Kelly Sparks, Jack Irving (acting CEO... in name only of course, at one point as David Hagen sought to hide himself from all the scrutiny after the PrimeTV debacle)... Jennifer Harrell, Jessica Flemming. "Carl's" comments about the moving target that David Hagen made Gatelinx caused the issues. Not exacerbated them, flat out caused them.

Sales: You're right about the performance. Just one example to show you how good they were, they actually had On2 (the maker of the audio codec) selling the Communicator. Pretty amazing actually. They had agreements (and announcements too) with Texas Instruments around embedding the software/technology on the TI chips. They had trials scheduled with Disney. They had trials in place with Qwest and proposals and RFP's/RFQ's from British Telecom. Where did it go wrong? Where could it go wrong? Read next "Strategy"

Strategy: Here's the crux of where the Yahoo/EBay(Skype) announcement is the last nail. I remember that the Wall Street Reporter had an audio interview with Jack Irving where he detailed out the strategy of Gatelinx. (don't know if that interview is still available on line, it was almost 2 years ago) He talked about embedding the software in devices, he talked about the concept of embedded "calling" for ad's so that you like what you see, you get routed to a call center/sales person. He talked about a more "ubiquitous" and connected environment where PC's call cell phones, land lines, TV's, PDA's and internet sites. Folks, this was 2 years ago. What is amazing is to think back on where the strategy was, versus how the execution (lead by Hagen, and he let Stefanik get away with his mismanagement for 5 years) was completely out of synch with this strategy. All the things that are still up on GTXC's web site(s) were Gatelinx, and created by those execs mentioned above. And now.. read some of the things that EBay/Skype/Yahoo are talking about.

Click-to-Call" Advertising Functionality:
Yahoo! and eBay will explore developing and deploying "click-to-call" advertising technologies on their respective Websites in the U.S., accessible by users of both Yahoo! Messenger with Voice and Skype. "Click-to-call" is a product feature link included inside an advertisement that consumers can use to directly call that advertiser to pursue a transaction.

Skype already has VoIP, and VVoIP...now the "embedded" strategy. 2 years after Gatelinx's efforts, but because Hagen couldn't get out of his own way, allowed Stefanik to run the developers completely F'd Up, and didn't trust the exec's brought in from the outside who clearly had more experience, smarts and focus... Hagen screwed it up.

As recent as last year, I still thought they had a chance. Technology wise, never with David Hagen at the helm... but a chance. NOW? no way.. it's dead and gone. The standards people have persevered and overcome technical challenges and Gatelinx, er GTXC... um.. GTX Global is done. Put a fork in it.. send Hagen to jail.

GTX Global Communicator Uncovered

It's clear from the comments to my posts that everyone, and anyone, who was in the belly-of-the-beast, knew then.. and still knows that the development of the "flagship product" the "Communicator" was badly managed, badly directed, way over spent, over promised and under delivered.

Apparently, this blog, and posts around the net, are taking a toll. Share volume, after the dump of the shares after the restrictions lifted, have slid downward. Share price, as a result of not being able to pump this POS up, is stagnant. No technology or partnership announcements, good or bad. (Bad for GTXC would be Heelstrike, Govalin and Yadio PUBLICLY pulling out of any deal) And, the market (which Gatelinx could have, if they executed well, owned) has passed them by.

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/

Game over.. skype wins. I've DL'd this Skype (with Video) product and used it the past few days.. it works, and works well. The interface, set-up and features set are easy to understand, set up automatically and.. this is the big thing.. have virtually no interface or device conflicts, unlike the Gatelinx.. um.. GTX Global product. Lets compare...

(NOTE: since we all know that the Gatelinx product has been simply been "renamed" the GTXC product, but none of the literature specs have changed, and there's been no development... I can quote from Gatelinx spec's for this comparison and analysis)

Skype: This is the entire list of systems requirements...PC running Windows 2000 or XP. (The new video feature requires Windows XP.) Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection). Speakers and microphone — built-in or separate. A webcam, if you want to make video calls. We also recommend that you have at least 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM and 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive. Thats it.. nothing more.

Compare this to Gatelinx.. er.. GTXC. PC Running Windows 200 or XP.. check. Minimum CPU, we used to say 1Ghz, but in reality it was a 2.5Ghz min to get anything approaching usable video. We published a CPU tuning document (in October of 04) because of the disparity between chips, speeds and PC's performance. Limited video cards and interfaces...We had to test and "tune" or certify which video cards worked, and all the conflicts that different versions of those cards and drivers caused was legendary. Limited Webcam's.. I just bought a $49.95 Creative Labs laptop camera (very cool by the way) that in no way would work with the Gatelinx product. (I know this because if you ever had a Gatelinx user name and password you can still both get/DL the communicator and use it as well)

Diskspace, because Rick Stefanik couldnt figure out version control, the entire software package had to load and be reloaded every time a patch came out. About the same amount of disk space, but lots more RAM was required to get any of the app sharing or file transfers to work. 1Gb was about right.

The Skype product installed and configured itself in less than 10 minutes. Heck, the self test (which was only developed after sales screamed about the inconsistencies in implementations) from Gatelinx took 4 minutes to run, and that was after it DL'd and installed.

Skype uses the same GIPs codec as GTXC for audio, don't know what they (skype) use for video, but it's pretty darn good. I wonder if GTXC still uses the ON2 codec? Doug Macintyre has been booted out of there, so maybe they're not looking to collect on the licensing fees David Hagen stiffed them (On2) on. (Note, On2 tried to buy the Gatelinx product, but David passed on that as well. Of course, the deal was pretty slim and would have left Hagen with no way to hide the inadequacies of the product and his "vision" for the future, e.g. AI, kiosks, etc)

The Skype product worked wirelessly, traverssed my NAT and firewalls. It has a PSTN gateway for both domestic and international "calls." In short, this thing works.. it's free.. easy to DL.. and aparently doesn't have the same configuration issues as the Gatelinx/GTX Global product.

Net net folks, is that opportunity to develop a product was badly managed by Hagen and Stefanik. I remember sales had something like 15 partners ready to sell the darn thing, but Stefanik couldn't get it to install consistently, operate consistently, scale operationally, and be anything more than a pretty good beta/demo technology. Game over.. Skype wins.. but more importantly, Hagen loses.

GTXC Vype and a little History

A recent comment about Skype's new windows based Voice AND Video player (see comment on post GTXC GTX Global nee Gatelinx Time for a Re-cap) caused me to think about history.

In late 2004, as David and Annette were stiffing suppliers, vendors and employees... even going so far as to take leased equipment for their ill-fated Cary call center (David would go and visit his girlfriend in nearby Raleigh) .. anyway, take the leased PC's, telco equipment and... SELL IT. Oh, but as juicy as that is.. I digress

David Brady, a local player in and around Southern Pines, was first going to invest in Gatelinx.. then decided that (after Rick Stefanik was fired) the technology could be a winner (remember folks, this is now almost 2 years ago, before VVoIP was even on the radar for most folks) so he was going to buy the technology assets.

Brady took the developers (at a 20% reduced pay rate.. and Rick Stefanik) and created.. are you ready? VYPE... Yep.. Skype, but Video... hence.. Vype. For about 8 weeks or so, as the deal went back and forth, and the charges and counter charges flew.. Brady spent about $100K+ on payroll for the developers to re-skin and rebrand the Gatelinx Communicator as the Vype product. (This by the way was done with the SDK's published by Gatelinx and some additional UI work, A/V module efforts, the app share module and the transport layer). Brady's plan was to do a mass e-mailing offering free VVoIP players with ad's paying for it. Interesting concept, and one that Brady (who has been the subject of legal action for e-mail spamming) has some knowledge about. Wouldn't have worked.. but interesting strategy.

Then, as Brady discovered that the code was "beta" level, at best, and pulled the plug on Vype, leaving Hagen in the lurch... the mess that was Gatelinx started to unravel. 5 deals offered and turned down.. some would have netted Hagen upwards of $5m in cash, and earn out potential of $20M+. But NOOOOO, Brecher, Woltz, Kos (Bryan Kos' ChangZ entity had been sniffing around and had some negotiated LOI's in 2004) offer riches beyond Hagen's wildest dreams. The stock scam was born.

Interesting recent development... and here's where this post is going...After Brady has won court case after court case against Hagen (and loves to torment David by pulling up to the ole Gatelinx homestead and sitting in his car outside Hagen's office.. pssst, Hagen is a pussy and scared to death of Brady).. after win after win.. and after Stefanik wins one against Hagen (see earlier post's and tracking here in this blog).. WELL, Stefanik now is suing Brady.

No one knows what Stefanik (24yo former wunderkind) is suing Brady for. He (Stefanik) was fired from Gatelinx after the technology was unraveled as being a lot of duct tape and bailing wire holding it together, and got no wage claim ation.. Brady offered him a job. Now, unless there was a side deal for the whole Vype mess (and it was a mess), it's fun to watch enemies of Hagen now turn on each other.

GTXC GTX Global nee Gatelinx Time for a Re-cap

A comment (posted on this blog) on the whole IPTVInc.com thing, sparked a thought. How is GTXC doing versus all the announcements? (of course, now that the market has picked up on this scam, the announcements have dried up)

Let's review...

Yadio: 4 different announcements.. wait.. no, thats 5. They were...marketing, merger, terminate merger, marketing, license. Anything happening? I wonder if Howard@yadio.com or Andy@yadio.com have read this blog?

Annual Meeting: no reports, updates or announcements

Teleview: This is a good one. Since the Sept of 04 original Gatelinx announcement and the December 05 (almost verbatim) GTXC re-announcement (but now "accelerated"), nothing since. Any deals? Any product development? (That would be tough since there are no developers or product management folks left)

Govalin and Heelstrike: $2M each in license fees, but the due diligence goes on and on and on and on.

SEC Filings: An updated financial statement (on 4/10 and 4/12) to get back on "pinksheets.com" with more holes in it than swiss cheese. Any updates? How about an 8K filing for the new CEO and his comp/equity grant etc.? (pssst, there wont be one, David and his band of merry men are keeping all the stock. The new CEO won't be getting anything) Or an 8K filing for material change? (Curtis Garth going back to being a call center manager)

SDK's: Same story as the Teleview. Gatelinx announcements, repurposed for GTXC with no customers, product or development. Plus, the SDK's were on the old Gatelinx product.

Web sites: still got the 4 or 5 Gatelinx sites, that were repurposed for GTXC. Now, though, even the Press section is "under construction" (as a comment pointed out on this blog) and all the "at-a-glance" and company info is inaccurate compared to their pinksheets/SEC filing.

There's more. All documented here... but I grow tired of this game. Simply put, GTXC is a scam.

GTXC and David Hagen...

A recent comment here in this blog (see comments under "GTXC Gatelinx GTX Global, How much longer for the Hagen's?") about David trying to buy the domain "IPTVInc.com" Well, this sparked some thoughts. So I went and did a "whois" search on many things...

First, GTXGlobal.net. In one of the first posts on this blog I asked, "How many websites do these guys have?" From arin/whois...
Server Type: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
IP Address: 66.195.196.62
IP Location: - North Carolina - Monroe - Time Warner Telecom Inc
Response Code: 200
Blacklist Status: Clear (history)
SSL Cert: No valid SSL on this Host
Website Status: Active
Reverse IP: 33 other sites hosted on this server

GTX Global purports to be the "leader in IP Multimedia".. Interesting claim. Given that on the server that GTX Global is hosted on there are also THIRTY THREE other sites! If you're doing the kind of things GTXC claims to be doing, you need mroe space and horespower than 1 (one) IIS server.

But wait, there more... do a "whois" lookup for Gatelinx.com and you see Ivan Ivanov and his company "webcluster" that was the hosting company the gatelinx servers got moved to in late 04 when Rick Stefanik (ex-CTO) was fired and the hosting company that Gatelinx (nee GTXC) was using kicked them out for non-payment. Ivan's address is his companies, not Gatelinx's or GTXC's in Southern Pines.

Name Server: DNS2.GATELINX.COMDomain History
We have recorded 5 Whois changes for gatelinx.com since 2001-11-30.
View them with our Domain History tool.
Whois History: records have been archived
Whois Record
Registrant: Ivan Ivanov 12918 Winget Rd Charlotte, NC 28278-7268 US Domain Name: GATELINX.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Ivan Ivanov 12918 Winget Rd Charlotte, NC 28278-7268 US 704-737-5633 704-504-0338 [fax]

Not earth shattering additions to the blog, I know, but more corroboration that whatever the story GTXC is telling, there ain't much truth in it.

GTXC New CEO

Interesting. (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060511/clth040.html?.v=47) I guess the paltry 50,000 shares that Curtis Garth got for being the face of the scam finally took its toll. You'd think that a CEO of "the leader in multimedia over IP" would get more than .071% of the stock. Sergey Brin he wasn't gonna become at that rate.

And going back to SMS? You mean going back to being a call center manager? The latest brain storm of David Hagen to sell SMS Prayers? (This follows along with his wanting to sell gas masks after 9/11 so you can see Hagen's sincerity)

Now you get "Bradford W. Isom" who is "a seasoned senior executive with an extensive career including business development, strategic growth initiatives, international experience, and management consulting. " RIGHT. Do a search.. here's what you find... (drum roll please)

NOTHING

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Bradford+W.+Isom%22

Remove the affectation of a middle initial.. and what do you get? (drum roll please) NOTHING AGAIN.. well, except that Bradford Isom died in 1869

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Bradford+Isom%22

Also...look up using zoom info

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonQuery.aspx?searchParameters=%22Bradford+W.+Isom%22&pc=&SearchBy=name&SearchType=simple&nlb=5%2F11%2F2006+5%3A07%3A09+PM

Don't think he's from the UK or runs a "Bail Enforcement Agency".. although, given the Hagens, er DeFuscos past that actually might come in handy now that I think about it.

GTXC GTX Global Gatelinx

First, technology.

Just got back from Interop in Las Vegas. 2 years ago, Gatelinx was named a finalist for best in show for the Gatelinx Communicator with Multi-party calling. Back then, the word was that Gatelinx had about a 2 year window of competitve advantage. You read here about that window slamming shut (iPhone), but now.. that darned window is boarded shut, bricked over and gone for good. Tandberg showed multiple appliances (video phones) at price points well below what was previously possible, and they all interoperate with other voice/video applications. See Gatelinx's, er.. GTX Globals channels strategy (originally from January of 2004 that hasn't been changed) and any hope of putting the underlying technology on a chip set is gone. (http://www.gtxc.info/default.asp?Dir=Partners&PageView=ChipManufacturerSolutions&Title=GTX%20Global%20-%20ISP%20and%20Portal%20Solutions)

AND, a new company (Lifesize..http://www.lifesize.com/) showed unbelievable technology with automatic firewall and NAT traverssal (Gatelinx's orginal claim to fame) and they claim 35 partners in 20 countires. And, oh lookie here... not a "Govalin", "Heelstrike" or "Yadio" among them.

That's not all. the technology opportunity, such as it is given that it never got past beta level code, is GONE. and now, so too it appears the pump and dump scam is about to run it's course as well. The indians (SEC and FBI) are closing in.

The circle of "trusted advisors" is getting picked off one-by-one. Howell and Vernice Woltz, the original partners in crime for the Hagens, are now held in federal custody on "related" charges (see posts on this blog further down, and one comment submitted as well). And, they're being held WITHOUT BAIL. The Bahamas don't have an extradition agreement with the US for these kinds of financial and fraud crimes.

This is also the same island nation David tried to bribe his way into business ventures with the son of the prime minister, was able to establish residency, and used to brag about "bribing the customs officials" to get his (and Annette's) wine collection and household antiques into the country without paying duties.

And, it's the same country of origin for the former head of "Vizual" corp. You remember them, right? They're the group that was originally set up to BUY the technology suite from the Hagens. David turned that deal down too (among at least 4 other offers) but then, in a strange twist, ended up buying back the technology and "intellectual property assets" from Vizual.

Well, like all their deals, it of course had to be restructured (see yadio, and the never ending "due diligencie period" for heelstrike/govalin). But isn't it amazing the ties between the Bahamas, the Woltz'es and Koz, Oemke, et al.? And, isn't it even more amazing that you can turn down a deal to sell technology, but create a deal to buy the technology from a company that a: never existed, b: didn't develop any technology and c: had no assets (intellectual or othewise) to sell? (do a google search for the old "gatelinx" product info, do a vizual search.. you'll see the old Gatelinx images used by Vizual, albeit with different names, i.e viztalk, etc)

Word is also, they're (the FBI and SEC) are looking to speak to the former executives of Vizual. The "president" was a former partner of Gatelinx (do a google search for Gatelinx and Vidme for info.. and notice the striking similarities to Vizual).

All for now....