Creditors fight over CyberNET Group toys

[seemslikeadream]

The vehicles belonging to The CyberNET Group.

(Grand Rapids, December 8, 2004, 7:42 p.m.) As creditors line up, we now have a better handle on just how vast the alleged deception by Barton Watson and his company, The CyberNET Group, really was.

So far, 17 new businesses around the world, related to The CyberNET Group, have been identified.

The legitimate part of the business is estimated between $10 million to $12 million a year. But apparently that wasn't enough for Barton Watson, the former CEO of The CyberNET Group, who committed suicide during a standoff with police last month.

If you add all of the fraudulent loans the FBI says Watson took out, the price tag will likely exceed $60 million, as well as other sources Watson used to travel the world, live a life of luxury and assemble a fleet of cars.

24 Hour News 8 received access to an undisclosed warehouse where a fleet of at least 15 vehicles is located. Some of them belonged to Watson, while the others were leased by The CyberNET Group.

The list of vehicles include a Bentley, Ferrari Spyder, BMW, Lexus, Rolls Royce, and even a Ford Focus, which was apparently the only economy vehicle of the bunch.

The monthly payment for the Ferrari and Bentley alone was nearly $10,000.

...

But it has paid off as 17 new companies, from Australia to Pakistan, have been found with connections to The CyberNET Group. “I was immensely surprised. I don't think we had an idea of how big the CyberNET Group was,” Yeomans said.

Beyond the cars, businesses and money is a stash of computer goods hidden in another warehouse. Monitors, motherboards, and processors, worth millions of dollars, sit on pallets inside the building. They are all possible evidence of the legitimate side of The CyberNET Group, and are now a stack of money to creditors ready to be sold and divided up.

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http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2668364&nav=0RceTzc5

[seemslikeadream]

1. Accountant was suspicious about CyberNet practices

Friday, December 10, 2004
By Ed White
The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS -- It was a visit that liberated Guy Hiestand.

His accounting firm counted CyberNET Group as a client, performing audits and preparing tax returns for the Grand Rapids high-tech company. He quit in 2003, after more than a year, when he found what looked like fraud.

Hiestand took his concerns to CyberNET managers. But he said ethical rules prohibited him from going elsewhere. Finally, the FBI knocked on his door in late October.


"My comment was, 'If you've got a subpoena, I'll talk to you.' I felt relieved," said Hiestand, 56.

He told agents about altered checks, phony receivables, mysterious post office boxes around the country.

"I'd never seen anything like this," Hiestand said in an interview this week.

.....

The first sign of uneasiness came when he tried to confirm CyberNET paid $200,000 in federal taxes.

Hiestand said President James Horton gave him four money orders, each for $50,000. "They all looked similar. I held them up to the light."

Two were legitimate money orders on which the amount was altered, and the other two were phony, he said.



Hiestand became suspicious when CyberNET told him to send letters to post office boxes. "I'm one of those nuts who tends to know where these companies are."

So he decided to investigate. A letter to Citrus World Inc. of Florida came back with a confirmation the firm paid $505,000. But when Hiestand reached a Citrus employee, he was told the bill was $6,120 -- and paid two years earlier.

....

Huntington never contacted him. Hiestand said the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants advised he could not share the information with others because it belonged to a client, CyberNET. His silence was broken with the FBI's criminal probe.

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http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1102693534127010.xml

Creditors wait to see what they get

Yeomans, who was appointed by Kent County Circuit Court to preserve as many assets as possible, said he hopes to assist the proceedings in bankruptcy court if asked to do so. The case has not yet been assigned to a judge or given a trustee.

Yeomans said he has been working "around the clock" as he tries to piece together a complete picture of the CyberNET network.

To date, Yeomans said he has found 21 corporate entities tied to CyberNET or to Watson, part of a "smoke-and-mirrors" funding strategy he said the firm employed.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1102693599127010.xml

FBI investigating widow of CyberNET Group CEO
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1043672