‘Our bank is licensed by the Pentagon’ – An Interview With Two Fraudsters

It’s not often that you get to hear conmen in action. Today you do. Click on the play button above to listen to a telephone interview that I conducted on July 2nd with Sam Zumbe and Jean-Philippe Grange, who have been trying to further swindle victims of a ‘5% per month’ investment fraud conducted by London-based CWM via a BVI shell company, with funds going into a Cayman Islands bank. Grange is on the left in the image, Zumbe is on the right.

Using a combination of bluster (Zumbe) and charm (Grange), they try to persuade me that their Delaware-domiciled paper entity, Newport Enterprises Group LLC, is licensed as a bank by “the Pentagon” and “the US Treasury”, on whose behalf it conducts “special operations” that I couldn’t possibly comprehend because it’s all hush-hush and way above my pay grade.

Zumbe repeatedly implied that he was an operative for the CIA and/or FBI. “I don’t think you know who we are yet,” he said, adding that I would be “crushed by the FBI” and was “making a big mistake” that “could easily lead to a custodial sentence”. “I won’t use the three-letter abbreviation,” he added. “If you haven’t worked out who we are yet, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.” He threatened that: “We’re going to pass your details on to our colleagues at the FBI.”

When Zumbe realized his particular brand of BS was falling on deaf-ears, he became increasingly agitated, telling me that: “We’re not scum bags that you usually talk to, ok. We’re professionals operating at the top level with the American secret services. Now either you get a life or you’re going to get crushed. You’re in the way, ok. Do you watch Hollywood? It’s a bit like the movies, my friend, ok. So either you take my advice or you’re going to get crushed. Simple … you’re nothing … you’re just a nosey parker with no intelligence, no technical knowledge. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

After more than half-an-hour of conversation, Zumbe finally twigged that I might be recording the call and abruptly hung up.

If you have 36 minutes and 44 seconds to spare, I encourage you to listen to the recording. It’s both entertaining and insightful into how the minds of fraudsters work. If you’re pushed for time, you might want to fast-forward to the 27 min. 20 sec. mark and listen to the last nine minutes, when Zumbe utters some of his most colorful claims, threats and insults.

If U.S. law enforcement wants more information about these two jokers, including their contact information, please contact me and I’ll give you chapter and verse.