Petro America Corp. (fka PTRZ)

[believer17]

I totally agree with you. Petro shareholders-lol, are all acting like the followers of Jim Jones. The truth is there in black and white and they still want to believe. I use to be one of them but that was before I read the 81 page complaint which Owen really never gets into.

Here is something from Scott Trade that was put out.



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News for 'PTRZ' - (Woodbury man tied to $5M fraud scheme)


Oct 26, 2010 (Star Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX)
-- A federal investigation into an alleged $5 million fraud scheme involving
Kansas City-based Petro America Corp. has implicated a 56-year-old Woodbury man.

Government investigators say in court documents that the scheme involved selling
and giving away billions of unregistered shares of Petro America under the
promise that they would be worth something when the company went public -- which
always seemed to be about two years away.

The alleged scheme involves three central figures: Isreal Owen Hawkins,
president and CEO of Petro America; Teresa Brown, a major Petro stockholder from
Bandera, Texas; and another major shareholder named Johnny Heurung of Woodbury,
owner of Money Investment Inc.

In federal court documents filed in Kansas City, Mo., last week, the government
says Hawkins and Brown spent most of the money that Petro America raised from
investors on houses, cars, a boat, jewels, travel and a $5,200 set of Louis
Vuitton luggage, among other luxuries. Heurung, who allegedly received Petro
America stock and $130,000 in payments, told investigators that the money was
compensation for work he did on behalf of the company.

Hawkins, Brown and Heurung could not be reached Monday. However, Hawkins told
the Kansas City Star last week that he didn't defraud anyone and didn't believe
his associates had, either.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Kansas City said no criminal charges have been
issued in the case and declined further comment.

"The sale of Petro America stock is part affinity scam, part get-rich-quick
scheme," wrote Devin Fields, an IRS criminal investigator, who filed an 81-page
affidavit as part of the government's civil complaint to forfeit some seized
cash and jewelry.

Fields' affidavit, filed late Friday, says the alleged fraud had two
characteristics. One involved a "modified pump and dump" scheme, in which stocks
are hyped to increase their value and then quickly sold before investors realize
that they've been duped. And the other involved "a classic gold mine scam" or a
"dirt pile swindle," in which untapped gold reserves are promised to investors
at low prices but either don't exist or can't be extracted at a reasonable cost.

According to Fields, besides selling shares in Petro, Heurung was responsible
for finding "suitable gold mines for Petro" to buy into. Heurung told government
investigators that he found 24 mines for the company. He claims he obtained
reports to substantiate their value. Heurung said he told investors the mines
were worth billions, but he believed they had untapped gold stores worth $7
trillion. He said he lowballed the value because he planned to release the
higher valuations slowly, after Petro goes public, to keep its stock price
rising.

But Fields says the mines are essentially worthless.

"In some cases, the documents provided to support the sky-high purported
valuations are, on their face, clearly ridiculous," Fields wrote. In addition, a
government mining expert found that most of the mines Petro claimed to have an
interest in were mining claims -- not producing mines -- or they were old,
exhausted mines that have been associated with "various schemes and fraudster
owners." A mining claim is merely a plot of government land in which a mineral
deposit may or may not exist.

Petro America, which claims 12 billion outstanding shares, pitched its stock on
a website and in presentations to church congregations, drawing $400,000 to
$700,000 a month at its peak in the fall of 2009 and early 2010, Fields says.
For the last eight months, Petro America has told investors its holdings are
worth $284 billion by market capitalization, which the government notes would
make it the second largest company in the U.S. behind Exxon-Mobil and larger
than even Wal-Mart.

Fields says that Hawkins, who is black, told the SEC in August 2009 that Petro
America will be the first African-American-owned oil company to go public in the
United States. And he says that Hawkins told investors that Petro was being
hamstrung by "racist government agencies" that don't want minority-owned firms
to succeed."

Since 2008, investors have pumped more than $5 million into Petro America on
promises of a big payout, Fields says. But he says only a fraction of that money
was actually invested in the company. Most went to Hawkins and Brown, who
withdrew large bundles of cash and spent it on items like a $5,700 fur coat, a
$37,000 boat, expensive jewelry and cars.

"To date, Petro has no significant revenue and no realistic plan for obtaining
revenue," Fields says.

In addition to his involvement in gold mines, the affidavit says, "Heurung also
sells various products, including a magic wand that purportedly heals the body
and makes food taste better. At an interview with federal agents in September
2010 in Arlington, Va., Heurung instructed a Treasury agent to pass one of the
wands over his coffee, clockwise, 28 times, and it would improve the taste."

Heurung has left a trail of small civil judgments and liens in Minnesota since
the mid-1990s. He was a former general manager of Bio-Energy Services, which
promoted a machine that supposedly could cure cancer and AIDs with
electromagnetic waves. Heurung -- who personally touted the machine as a
painkilling device -- told the Seattle Times in 2007 that he was fired after he
complained about the lack of patient safety measures and high-pressure sales
tactics for the machine.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and securities investigators in
Missouri, Kansas and Arizona have all investigated elements of Petro America and
its alleged stock sale scheme and have taken various actions against the firm or
its associates.

Dan Browning --612-673-4493



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Dan Browning


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