How to Hide $400M
The more interesting question is what is the source of all this money?<p>Osterlund has a net worth of $400MM. His company, Xacti, geneated revenues of $75MM per year. The article explains that Xacti &quot;sold banner ads, video games and various other kinds of software, including “toolbars” that promised to clean viruses off your computer or free up space on your hard drive.&quot; I don&#x27;t think the article really explains how this malware could generate such huge amounts of wealth.<p>The company&#x27;s website [1] is nothing short of pathetic. The NYT article does mention that Xacti had legal troubles and was investigated for some deceptive marketing practices (like default opt-in credit card charges for trial software). At best, Osterlund is an Internet con artist.<p>But this still leaves questions in my mind. Can a simplistic malware fraud generate half a billion dollars of wealth? This mystery is compounded with a maze of sophisticated offshore banking structures, which sounds like more than just a way to hide assets from his wife. For example, could these structures have been used for money laundering by organized crime? Was this malware used for criminal activities beyond simply asking customers to enter their credit card numbers and charging them a few dollars?<p>His wife was allegedly involved in his business, and is trying to get a share of his assets in divorce proceedings. If this money had a darker story behind it, that she knew of, she would have an incentive to leave that out of this NYT story.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xacti.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xacti.com</a>