Stunning Amount Of Recent Cartel Collection Sales

Looks like only one sword to me......AND you have to fly to Malaysia to pick it up!!!

oldguy, at the linked page you have to select "sold listings" from the choices at left to get the items that OP is talking about. The "cartel" is actually a single individual with a number of userid's whose stock-in-trade is shill bidding and "selling" items from one of his id's to another (search "British cartel" on this forum for discussion). NobleSpirit, while not without its own questionable practices, is not one of these.

Paying $172 each for common stamps is really not that much because seller offers free shipping. I need to chat with my financial and estate planners as these look like nice stamps for my children to inherit once I kick the bucket. So maybe I should re-evaluate the woth of my assets.

Please pardon the lack of insight on this "Cartel" subject.
Are these ebay listings for ridiculous amounts and subsequent sales, at these grossly inflated values, drug lords, dictators, or terrorist laundering money? And if that is the case our government and ebay are doing nothing about it???? Please say that is not an accurate analysis.

The 'cartel' is a criminal (a number of convictions in several countries) for tax fraud and other 'white collar' crimes all philatelically related. He alters stamps and shill bids; having 40+ or more ebay accounts. He typically buys higher value material and trolls for suckers on ebay by starting auctions at $0.01 but ensures he does not lose money by shill bidding using one of his many accounts. Some think he is laundering money but I do not think this is true; my opinion is that is simply cooking the books to stay one step ahead of the authorities. (Although he has been in and out of court in Great Britain for the last few months for tax fraud.)
The 'money laundering' rumor is derived from the fact that he constantly is 'selling' between his own accounts. I believe his activities are mostly about financial obfuscation, not laundering money in the traditional sense (meaning he has illegal money he is trying to make look legitimate). He HAS to often bid up his own material to ensure he does not lose money on them, many times he ends up having to 'buy' it. But this is fine with him, even if he has to occasionally pay the fees, because it builds the sales numbers for one of several companies he woul like to sell. I think the end game here is to sell companies, not stamps.
Don

Thanks, Don, for the clarification.

Lest anyone forget, one of our SCF members recently won several cartel lots by aggressive bidding, asked about the lots on the forum after winning and showed scans, saw the light and got a refund prior to delivery. The lots were relisted on the same day that the refund was requested so you be the judge as to whether they would have ever actually been delivered. This is not harmless activity we are dealing with here. Collectors get hurt. This collector was fortunate. He had second thoughts as to why stamps purportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars started at a penny. Others are less fortunate. Do not deal with the cartel for any reason.

https://goscf.com/t/60909

The Chinese sword thing gave me a real good laugh - at work.....

Seriously contemplating about posting an ad for my grandpa's broken nail clipper !

Don, you state that the seller is a criminal but also think they are doing this to sell companies?

I maintain that he makes his profits from other illegal businesses and uses the fake ebay sales to move the money to himself or partners hence making it clean (laundered).

Stallzer - What is the basis for your assumption?

Common sense. ebay masks all Bidders account handles so tracking who is the winning bidder is a nightmare. He is paying a nominal fee for cleaning the money which makes ebay look the other way. Hundreds of stamps have been sold multiple times to shills. Think of it this way, a stamp sells 5 times for $600, what is their fee for "cleaning" $3K? Roughly $130?

Knowing there is no way ebay can police the millions of items on their auction tables makes it a cinch to do this. As long as ebay collects their fees they have no reason to bite the hand that feeds. They sell cheap stamps to establish a model then use the high end material to generate their "real" profits. What other reason would the same stamp sell 7 times to a shill? And I mean a plausible reason.

Please read. This happens more than you think.

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-m...ebay-4145387

Sounds reasonable. Collectors do get taken for large amounts of money if they bid to beat the shills though. How does that fit in?

If and when one of their auctions is won by a legitimate bidder then they probably make a huge profit. This helps the seller demonstrate a "legitimate" stamp business. He simply puts another item out for a pre-arranged sale or highly overpriced shill to continue on with their operation. Ad infinitum.

Sounds good. I still think that he is a small time convicted felon trying to rip people off. Owes huge taxes in the UK. "Borrowed" corporate funds to the tune of 800,000 pounds give or take. No, he is not a part of some organized money laundering organization. Just another crook. Don't give him too much credit.

The primary reason that I believe in what I say is that if it were money laundering there is no reason to fake stamps and certificates, start auctions at a penny, trade items back and forth between IDs and go to the lengths that he goes to to entice bidders. No reason whatsoever. He would just list a stamp, bid with the shill accounts and call it a day.

My opinion.

I'm positive he is not part of an organized crime outfit. You have to remember that to be successful in laundering money is to not draw attention to yourself to the authorities. Makes no difference what the bid starts at, only what it ends at and who won the auction. The majority of their high value auctions are won by shill accounts. Why the certs? Because laundering money at $7 a clip isn't very efficient. By selling high value items it pushes the shills to amounts worthwhile. If a shill sets their snipe at say 250% of the real value and the high bidder is $4 then the shill wins the auction at $5, not the outcome they want. It's the only thing to me that selling the same stamp 8 times to shill accounts indicates. If someone did investigate a sale of $500 the certs become a justification for that amount of money.