Govt: McQueen swindles W MI of millions

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Hundreds of investors may have lost millions of dollars in a swindle run by a Byron Center man, according to court papers filed by the US Attorney in Grand Rapids.

The court document accuses David Wilson McQueen and "numerous other individuals" of running a "scheme by which they have defrauded, and continue to defraud, hundreds of unwitting investors, many of whom reside in West Michigan."

"McQueen and his confederates have deceived investors by establishing shell businesses and presenting them as vehicles for investment in...real estate, natural resources and various technologies," the court petition continues. "In reality," it says, "these businesses merely have served as conduits by which McQueen and others have taken investor money for their personal use and benefit or have paid it out in small increments as 'interest' on what the victims believed were legitimate investments."

The accusations are part of a court case filed in late August in which the government is trying to seize McQueen's Florida condo for the IRS.

According to the document "McQueen has spent millions of dollars of unlawfully acquired investor money for his personal benefit," including the Fort Lauderdale property.

Target 8 Investigators went to McQueen's home on Ridge Top Drive in Byron Center three times this week, but only once did someone answer the door and it wasn't McQueen. The man said he manages rental properties for McQueen.

Neighbors, however, say they were surprised when a team of federal agents raided the house recently, leaving with computers and other items.

So far, nobody has been charged with a crime, but the FBI and IRS agents are continuing an investigation.

McQueen has replied to some of his investors who inquire with an e-mail saying, "we vehemently deny" (the allegations) and that the Federal investigation has "rendered it impossible for us to move forward with our business at this time."

Those investors include Norm and Molly Westrate of Hastings.

They got into one of McQueen's investment schemes, Diversified Global Funding, last October. "We're facing insolvency, basically," said Norm.

They are unable to get at their money which was their income and retirement fund. Norm retired early from Steelcase and is too young to draw Social Security. They were depending on that investment and the monthly income from it.

He said they put their money in Diversified last October when "the sky was falling" in the stock market. He said people he knows had investments with McQueen and spoke highly of him. And the Westrates wanted to protect their retirement money.

"I've talked to people that still don't think he's a bad guy," he says. "I'm not ready to vilify Dave McQueen."

But with the federal investigation and something he discovered himself, he is growing suspicious.

Westrate had been getting regular statements from Diversified since he put his money into the fund last autumn, showing 1% per month growth. But recently he filed paper work to draw more income from the investment and received a document from the company that indicated his money had just transferred into Diversified in August.

"It's like, well, OK, what were they doing with our money in the interim?" he asks.

Target 8 Investigators checked New Zealand public records and found that Diversified Global Finance was incorporated in that country, listing McQueen as its Director. The paper work was filed by a company that specializes in setting up offshore tax shelters in New Zealand.

McQueen's operations last year occupied a part of the ground floor in the Campau Square Plaza building downtown. That office is now vacant. Under the name International Opportunity Consultants, McQueen was supposed to move to the second floor of a neighboring office building but did not.

His companies often use an address that turns out to be a PakMail box in Grandville.

Target 8 Investigators first heard of David McQueen in 2007 after a local businessman called. He was concerned about what he'd heard at a meeting of potential investors in another McQueen company called Accelerated Income Group. The caller said he was suspicious of what he said was a proposed 22% return on investment and the secrecy surrounding the nature of the investments themselves.

Target 8 Investigators tried to track McQueen's business activities, at one time attending an investment sales session at the downtown office. At that time a salesman told us "these guys are doing things with money a lot of people don't know about. It's all legal, what they do with it."

Over that two-year period we could not find anyone complaining about McQueen's investment opporunities, and thus did no story until now.

The first public hint of trouble came in October 2008 when McQueen and his Accelerated Income Group filed a lawsuit against a Florida company called MRT Holdings.

Sources had told us the man running MRT had attended some McQueen sales meetings in Grand Rapids as a presenter. Now McQueen has sued MRT claiming it won't repay nearly $19 million dollars he gave the company.

Others have filed a class action suit alleging MRT is a Ponzi scheme in which old investors are paid off with money collected from new investors.

Then in February 2009, an online forum for investment professionals came to life with a string of complaints and suspicions about McQueen and Diversified. A source said one of those contributors went to the FBI.

In May of this year McQueen, as International Opportunity Consultants, sued an Oklahoma company called Fastech claiming fraud in an ethanol fuel deal and a loss of nearly $3 million.

Neither McQueen nor the US Attorney's office responded to our attempts to contact them for comment.