Sacramento Bee and Indiana Star and California Department of Financial Institutions
Indiana Star
"Indiana trying to expel `phantom' Asia Pacific Bank The story of the mysterious financial company and state regulators' efforts to shut it down reads like a novel full of global intrigue and biblical ties. Indianapolis Star - Indianapolis, Ind. Author: SP DINNEN Date: Nov 9, 1994 Start Page: E.1 Section: BUSINESS Text Word Count: 861 Document Text S.P. DINNEN The State of Indiana is about to sever its business relations with The Dominion of Melchizedek. A diplomatic faux pas aborning? Before you call in Jimmy Carter to mediate, consider that as near as anyone can determine, there's no such place as Melchizedek.
By now even the people at the Indiana secretary of state's corporations division office know that. They may wish they'd learned it three years ago when Asia Pacific Bank Ltd., listing a charter from Melchizedek, asked for, and got, permission to do business in Indiana.
No one is quite sure what Asia Pacific has been up to since then. Only one customer has been found who did business with it, and nobody has filed complaints of improper activities. But banking regulators are wary, and the case has exposed a weak link at the corporations division office, which one official said has no examiners to test the validity of any claim made on a business application.
In 1991, state officials accepted papers from Asia Pacific that listed Melchizedek as the sovereignty where it was chartered. Aside from betraying a poor grip on geography, the application process showed that no one at the office realized that anyone using the word "bank" needed to be licensed by the Indiana Department of Financial Institutions.
Sometime after 1991, the department, which oversees banks and savings and loans, got wind that Asia Pacific had an Indianapolis office. Eric Roberts, a Financial Institutions official, said several attempts have been made to make Asia Pacific go away. It has been a slippery chase, as Asia Pacific has no offices other than a telephone answering service. And no apparent customers or complaining victims. "I talked to the FBI. No one's been burned by them," said Roberts. About the only customer anyone has found is Leon Hooten, a Houston psychiatrist who puts together business deals. Hooten said that after he learned Asia Pacific was willing to execute a letter of credit for a business deal he was working on, he checked its credentials with Indiana. The secretary of state's office told Hooten in June that Asia Pacific was authorized to do business in Indiana.
That venture eventually fell through, but Hooten said he recovered his money from Asia Pacific. He's mad at Indiana for what he views as a foul-up, but had no hard feelings for Asia Pacific. "They did everything they said they would do," said Hooten. In June, state officials received more papers from Asia Pacific. This time it wanted authority for a subsidiary, Bankasia A.G. No dice, replied Michael W. Padgett, deputy secretary of state. If a company wants to call itself a bank, Padgett wrote, it has to be organized as one.
In September, Padgett notified Asia Pacific that he intended to revoke its authority to do business in Indiana because it held incorporation papers from an unrecognized political entity, Melchizedek. Padgett said last week that he was telephoned by PearlAsia , who describes herself as the president of both Asia Pacific and Melchizedek. She told him that in her tongue the word "bank" doesn't necessarily mean bank.
"I said, `Well, it means bank in English, so you can't use it,' " Padgett said. Bank means bank in California, too, where authorities have sued Bankasia and PearlAsia to get her to stop using that four-letter word. California got into the act because Asia Pacific's U.S. offices (headquarters are in Shanghai, China) are in tiny Big Bend, Calif.
The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also has issued a warning about the bank. "There were a number of letters of credit issued by this phony bank which appeared in circulation," said John Shockey, special assistant at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. "It's a phantom bank." When she was reached in Big Bend, which also houses a Melchizedekian Consulate, PearlAsia said she didn't know what all the huff is about. In response to written questions, she said Asia Pacific and Bankasia have never really conducted business in Indiana and use the Indianapolis offices only "to facilitate communications."
color=red]PearlAsia, also known as Elvira Gamboa[/color], produced documents that show Melchizedek is joining the global community. Included was a listing for Melchizedek's embassy in the Washington, D.C., telephone book and a declaration of its sovereignty. "The Bible defines the Dominion of Melchizedek as an eternal state of peace and righteousness," PearlAsia wrote. She perhaps was referring to a mention in the Old Testament of a king called Melchizedek. Another document contended that earlier this year Melchizedek teamed up with Ruthenians, a people from eastern Slovakia and western Ukraine, to form what they call the Ruthenian Dominion of Melchizedek. It has a constitution, official languages of English, Hebrew and Ruthenian, and in 1993 won diplomatic recognition from the Central African Republic.
Though some may be confused by the twists of bank regulations and nation/non-nation status, Melchizedekian officials appear to be taking these assaults in stride. A call to their California consulate was answered by a man who said he was unable to take a message. He said he was in a hot tub of sorts at the moment and didn't have a note pad. Abstract (Document Summary) [...] banking regulators are wary, and the case has exposed a weak link at the corporations division office, which one official said has no examiners to test the validity of any claim made on a business application. "There were a number of letters of credit issued by this phony bank which appeared in circulation," said John Shockey, special assistant at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency."
Sacramento Bee
“Sacramento Bee Document Sunday, April 3, 2011 12:26 PM From: "NewsBank -- service provider for Sacramento Bee Archives" <sacbee@newsbank.com> Add sender to Contacts To: EricDiesel1@yahoo.com The Sacramento Bee SACRAMENTO BEE February 13, 1995 "NATION' WAGING "SPIRITUAL WAR' ON STATE OFFICIAL Author: Michael G. Wagner Bee Staff Writer Edition: METRO FINAL Section: METRO Page: B1 Estimated printed pages: 3 Article Text: Pearlasia, president of the Dominion of Melchizedek, has declared war on a California deputy attorney general. State and U.S. officials are not too concerned, since they say the Dominion of Melchizedek exists only in the minds of a few people and may be the front for illegal activity. On the other hand, Pearlasia says the state of California doesn't exist . The declaration of "spiritual war" from the leader of the "ecclesiastical sovereignty" was the latest salvo in an odd legal skirmish that began last June when Pearlasia, also known as Elvira Gamboa, came to the attention of the California State Banking Department.
She had tried to obtain a $20,000 auto loan from a small Shasta County bank, identifying herself as an official of "Bankasia A.G.," said Steven Suchil, Banking Department counsel, and the local bank alerted the state. Suchil wrote to Pearlasia, admonishing her that only entities authorized by the superintendent of banking could call themselves banks.
Although it isn't known whether she ever accepted a deposit or transacted any real banking in California, authorities sued her in Shasta County Superior Court to stop her from doing business as any of 11 different banks, such as the Zurich Credit Bankers A.G. or Asia Pacific Bank Ltd. But Pearlasia and her Dominion of Melchizedek decided to fight - after a fashion. "Under the Constitution of the Dominion of Melchizedek," Pearlasia wrote in a Feb. 1 letter, "we hereby declare spiritual war on all California government officials of your character, not to harm, but only to bless our enemies."
"I will do metaphysical battle with you in your dream state," she wrote to Steven Green, the deputy attorney general who represents the Banking Department against Pearlasia in Shasta County, "and if you interpret your dreams correctly you will know that I am the victor."
Although amused by Pearlasia's unusual letters, Green said the matter has a serious s! ide. The concern, he said, is Pearlasia's relationship to a Tahoe-area man who calls himself Branch Vinedresser (alias David Korem, Mark Logan Pedley) . Vinedresser, according to state officials and published accounts, is a pseudonym for Mark Logan Pedley, a former Sacramento man twice convicted of fraud for his involvement in a real estate swindle and a scam involving the conversion of Mexican pesos into dollars.
The Dominion of Melchizedek, authorities say, is the invention of Vinedresser/Pedley, who found the name in the Old Testament and may have recently moved its headquarters to the remote mountainous area of Shasta County called Big Bend.
"Melchizedek doesn't exist, it's a scam," said Dan Kiser, a cartographer with the U.S. Geographer, a branch of the State Department. "It doesn't exist except in the minds of the people trying to scam others."
The fictitious dominion first came to his branch's attention in 1991, Kiser said, "when a gentleman from Texas, trying to solicit funds, called jus! t to verify whether we recognized such a country. We don't."
Kiser said the matter was turned over to the FBI. "This was more of a legal or criminal issue," he said.
Nevada authorities investigated Vinedresser and Melchizedek after Forbes Magazine published stories in 1991 that Vinedresser was selling Melchizedekian corporate charters, officials said, including one that figured prominently in an offshore insurance scam that operated in California. The company, California Pacific Bankers & Insurance Ltd., was shut down by the California Department of Insurance.
Authorities now are trying to determine whether Vinedresser "has just changed the location to Shasta County," Green said. "I do not believe that Pearlasia came up with these names and activities on her own and I don't find it to be a coincidence that Vinedresser and she are living together," Green said.
Vinedresser was convicted of mail and interstate fraud in 1983 and sentenced to three years in prison for selling land he didn't own in Sacramento , according to officials and published accounts. He was convicted again in 1986 for the peso conversion scam and served a brief prison sentence in Nevada.
In a long, rambling letter with 36 pages of attachments faxed to The Bee last Tuesday, Pearlasia, wrote, "There has never been a bank in Big Bend California !!! and California knows that well!!!" She went on to state that the dominion is not involved in the insurance industry in California.
Among the attachments was a January 1995 "profile" of the dominion, describing it as "an ecclesiastical and constitutional sovereignty" with land and treaty affiliations with the Ruthenian People, a cultural group from a region in Ukraine as well as a small Polynesian island 1,000 miles south of Tahiti. The dominion claims this island territory is represented by an ambassador named Harvey Penguini, Suchil said.
Meanwhile, until Pearlasia agrees to cease operating in California, the legal case will continue, Green said.
And that may keep the spiritual war alive. "The world is a very big place, and for you to categorically deny the existence of the Dominion of Melchizedek, gives me the right to say the state of California does not exist," Pearlasia wrote to Green. "Therefore, it being a figment of your imagination, I can ignore your legal proceedings (harassment)."
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Department of Financial Institution Complaint
"Department of Financial Institution Complaint Monday, April 4, 2011 5:24 PM From: "consumer@dfi.ca.gov" <consumer@dfi.ca.gov>To: EricDiesel1@yahoo.com
Dear: Eric Diesel
Thank you for submitting your question/complaint online to the California Department of Financial Institutions’ Consumer Services Office. Most submissions are reviewed and responded to within one to three business days.
The information you submitted is listed below. If you discover any incorrect information,please contact us at 1-800-622-0620.
Institution Name: BankAsia AG, Redwood City, CA Date Submitted: 4/4/2011 5:24:23 PM Submitted By: Eric Diesel Address: PO Box 95157 Address: San Jose, CA, 95157 Phone: (818) 824-2612 Email: EricDiesel1@yahoo.com
Complaint Detail: Pearlasia Gamboa and her sons, Hazemach Hazemach and Raymond James Austin, live in California and said they owned a bank called BankAsia AG. They operate from Redwood City, CA. I wired about $302,000.00 into their BankAsia AG, and they took off with my money. I was financially ruined as a result. I read in the Washington Post, the Sacramento Bee, and the Indiana Star newspapers, that the California State Banking Department got a court order for Gamboa to stop saying she was a banker and owned BankAsia AG, all the way back in 1995. But according to the newspapers in this encyclopedia article's reference section ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearlasia_Gamboa ), she has operated freely in California ever since the State of California got the court order for her to stop. I lost $302,000.00, and she and her son are flying around the world with my money, when they are not in Redwood City.
Desired Resolution: Return of my $302,000.00. Prosecution of these three to finally stop their 15 year long bank fraud scheme of representing they own a bank in California. Referral to proper State agencies.
Sincerely
Consumer Services Office California Department of Financial Institutions"
BankAsia Crimes of Hazemach and Raymond James Austin, Department of Financial Institution Complaint against Pearlasia Gamboa, Hazemach, and Ray Austin
Hazemach, Raymond James Austin, and Pearlasia Gamboa are going to prison. They had their chance to return the BankAsia AG money, and refused to wire it or send a cashiers check.
:)
Everyone should post a ":)" here in response to this message!
