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| Gator's Rants Seabreeze News articles BarTalk columns Other Stories Ballow Search Heats Up After FBI Snafu Butch
Ballow is gone, but he is not forgotten – especially by the FBI and
some his victims. Last month the case heated up when the FBI added
Ballow to the Houston FBI’s Most Wanted List. Ballow is the con artist
we wrote about in several back-issues who engineered stock schemes and
other scams over a period of fifteen years while posing as a devout man
of God. He and his wife Robin (both of whom were convicted federal
felons) were prominent members of the Abundant Life megachurch in
LaMarque, where they apparently enjoyed the confidence and personal
friendship of Pastor Walt Hallam. from the May 2, 2008 Seabreeze News Hallam and other church dignitaries were often seen at Ballow’s offices at South Shore in League City, where it is said that they held hands, prayed, and anointed Ballow and his business with holy oil, praying the blessings of God upon it. The companies then went on to screw Hallam’s parishioners and others out of millions of dollars in filthy lucre. In the meanwhile, Ballow reportedly gave Hallam’s ministry nearly a half million dollars in cash. At Christmas of 1983 the church made national headlines for holding a drawing to win a Harley Davidson and a PT Cruiser. It was also around the same time that Ballow was charged with fraud and arrested by Federal prosecutors. A year later, in November of 2004, Ballow was allowed to post $10,000 bail in a case that involved more than $10 million dollars worth of fraud. Some kind of secret agreement was allegedly struck with prosecutors. Witnesses warned the court Ballow would flee. He did. They’re still trying to track him down. Butch Ballow is a mastermind of criminal stock fraud. In spite of bilking investors of millions of dollars, he kept his own name off of nearly every bit of paperwork – using proxies to open bank accounts and brokerage accounts. In fact, he didn’t even have one bank account in his own name – at least not in the US – while raking in millions. The scam’s methodology was an old-school con with a few new twists: Artificially inflate the value of the stocks, then dump them on victims – often small-time internet day traders and trusting church members. Investigators hired by one of Ballows’ victims tracked him down in Mexico last year, and took photos of him. They also gave the exact address where Ballow could be arrested to the FBI. The agency somehow managed to flub the capture of the gift-wrapped fugitive, and now he’s gone again. He has connections in Costa Rica and Panama, and may have fled to one of those countries. Investigators believe that Ballow is still operating fraudulent schemes through the use of proxies in the US, and they further believe that there are local actors who have been in contact and know where the fugitive is. A $10,000 cash reward is being offered for information leading to his capture. |
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