Is Vanhook Global a Scam and Squeaky Clean CEO Frank Rossi Actually Six Time Felon Guy Cardinale?

Is Frank G. Rossi, Chief Executive Officer of Vanhook Global Partners in NYC, actually convicted felon Guy G. Cardinale?

Its website says Vanhook Global Partners has “Over 1.8 billion of business currently in process globally.” And “Managing $150 Million Investment in a Highly Complex Market.”

CEO Rossi does not disclose where or what the market is.

Vanhook offers services:

“From Lobbying to Political Action Committees (PAC), Federal to State and Municipal Agencies and Corporate Social Responsibility, Vanhook has you covered.”

According to the website, “The Vanhook Difference:

“From investment capital to risk management, government relations, and capital deployment, we won’t just point you in the right direction; our purpose is to take you there.

“Vanhook’s extensive knowledge, network, and focus on execution provide peace of mind by enabling you to get more done in less time.”

Vanhook delivers “results, not reports.”

Vanhook solves “tough business challenges” by “working… to help navigate and solve them… We keep things simple, agile, and effective.”

Vanhook’s Office

Vanhook’s address is prestigious: 1 World Trade Center, 85th Floor, New York, NY 10007.

Vanhook, however, is not on the directory. A company called ServCorp rents the 85th floor and offers virtual office space. For $350 per month, anyone can use the address.

Servcorp website advertises:  

“Impress your clients with a prestigious central business address… Our address becomes your business address – to use on your website and business collateral.”

So Vanhook, with 1.8 billion in process, has a virtual office and no employees.

Rossi’s LinkedIn Profile

Frank Rossi, the CEO of Vanhook, has a LinkedIn profile.

On his LinkedIn account, Rossi says:

“With over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor working on Wall Street, I’ve specialized in capital and liquidity solutions for institutions and high-net-worth individuals.”

So what did Rossi do over the last 30 years? He accounts for 15 years. Nine of them as founder & CEO of Rossi Capital Partners Inc.

From 2009 – 2018, Rossi says he ran Rossi Capital Partners, “a private equity firm that acquired private and public companies with EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) between $10 million to $50 million.”

I could not find any company Rossi Capital Partners acquired.

The Vanhook Expedition

On his Vanhook site, Rossi says:

“Vanhook Global Partners focuses on liquidity financings that unlock the value of illiquid investment positions without selling or encumbering them (preserving upside exposure instead of selling at massive discounts).

“If you are an institution or high-net-worth individual with a large, illiquid capital position and would like to discuss liquidity solutions, feel free to email me at frank.rossi@vanhook.co.”

He is looking to help “high net worth” people. Maybe they have assets but are short on cash. Perhaps he can help them without selling or encumbering their assets—possibly a loan application. Maybe Rossi has contacts who can arrange special financing. Perhaps he knows an appraiser who can evaluate the property for a higher price to finance more. He might know some foreign investors looking to invest or guys who need to hide some cash from the tax man. Agile, simple, and efficient, Rossi delivers results.

It’s the Vanhook difference.

And he knows about insurance.

“Experienced in analyzing risk, and “saving clients millions in insurance costs on a yearly basis.”

You can do so many things with insurance if you know the game – like a fire after upping the coverage a bit.

Rossi’s History

Frank Guy Rossi is 6’4 inches tall. He was born on June 22, 1959. He is the spitting image of Guy G. Cardinale, 6’4″ and born on June 22, 1959.

Frank G. Rossi might be Guy G. Cardinale.

If he is, his first success was the insurance business. The year was 2002. He was an agent for the Canada Life Assurance Company.

When he submitted life insurance policies, he would get an upfront commission bigger than the customer’s down payment. He realized he could leverage this.

Cardinale created fake insurance policies, created fake identities from bank accounts, email accounts, and fake ID, paid the down payment through forged bank accounts, and collected the commissions.

The plan worked perfectly.  Cardinale knew it would end when the insured never made a second payment. But he had his escape strategy planned. He went to Transamerica and got a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy on his own life with a certain person as the beneficiary. He wrote a check.

What his plans were after that might never be known. But a slight miscalculation led to the abrupt interruption of his plan. His check bounced.

Guy Cardinale mugshot 2007.

On July 28, 2006, Cardinale was indicted on five counts of theft by deception, two counts of forgery, and one count of issuing a bad check in the New Jersey Superior Court in Monmouth County.

The indictment alleged Cardinale collected $346,025 in up-front commissions on four fictitious sales. Cardinale issued the check to Transamerica concerning purchasing a life insurance policy for his own life.  Sovereign Bank twice dishonored the check.  In 2007, Cardinale pleaded guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.

Scrap Metal 

After leaving prison, Cardinale learned how to make money in the scrap business. He claimed he worked for TNT Scrap Metal. He signed a contract to sell 104,000 pounds of harness wire to Sigma for $1.11 per pound ($115,440).

Cardinale created email accounts and invoices under the name TNT. He opened a TNT bank account. He did not tell the real TNT owners since he knew they would misunderstand. Besides, he was just borrowing their name, like he did when he sold life insurance.

Sigma made a $35,000 down payment to Cardinale’s TNT bank account.

After collecting the money, Cardinale closed the account and transferred the money to his wife, Karen, but chose not to deliver the harness wire. He also refused Sigma’s request to return the payment.

The authorities investigated. Cardinale had learned in prison that if you want to commit crimes and stay out of prison, you become a cooperator or informant.
Cardinale decided to become both.

Generally, Cardinale would think up the crimes, plan them, and use his charm to persuade some desperate person to help him, and they, not Cardinale, went to prison.
He never got charged for stealing from Sigma. He managed to get others indicted on other charges.

Container Fraud

From 2015 to 2018, Cardinale improved his business in scrap. He would ship containers of scrap metal overseas. He would contract to sell a specific scrap metal, which he’d place at the top of the container to make it appear filled with the scrap metal he was contracting to sell. But just below the top layer was cheaper material.

For example, Cardinale and his partners, who he inveigled into his business, contracted with a customer to ship $100,000 worth of harness wire to China.

Cardinale filled the container almost to the top with cheap rotors and added a thin layer of harness wire.

The feds were on the spot as Cardinale’s partners waited for a truck to move the container. Though Cardinale set up the entire deal, did the lying, did the scheming, he was not present at the arrest. His partners went to prison. He walked.

But Cardinale did not only entrap partners. He enjoyed making money in the old-fashioned way – cheating people with whom he did business.

In 2016, Cardinale operated a company called Jutalia Recycling and offered to sell Hana Trading Corp scrap batteries to export to South Korea for $0.36 per pound.

Hana Trading purchased forty-five shipping containers of batteries. Cardinale’s company, Jutalia, loaded and sealed the shipping containers. Off they went to South Korea.

Hana Trading relied on Cardinale’s invoices, packing slips, and sales orders and paid Cardinale more than $1.5 million. When the containers arrived in South Korea, they contained only a fraction of the batteries allegedly packed.

Cardinale Did the Work, His Partners Did the Time

Overall, the plan was masterful; Cardinale identified potential victims, opened bank accounts, and created companies with names similar to legitimate scrap and recycling businesses to sell and ship containers of scrap metal diluted with cheaper metal.

The valuable scrap metal was placed on top of the filler metal to convey the appearance that the entire container was filled with the valuable metal.

Cardinale and his partners began using aliases and recruited a blind person on disability to be the president of one of the companies.

Cardinale and his partners made more than $484,000 from fraudulent sales in six weeks.

Cardinale was fond of selling insulated copper wire, loaded in a container and shipped to China for recycling.

When GDB entered into a contract with Cardinale’s Omni (the one with the blind man as president) for the purchase of one load of the insulated copper wire for $140,000, the funds were wired, the container was loaded, sealed, and removed by truck for shipment to China.

When the container arrived in China, government X-rays revealed the container was filled with concrete and covered on the top only with insulated copper wiring.

Cardinale walked free by becoming a cooperator, but his partner and his lawyer, Richard Luthmann, went to prison.

But you can only do this for so long in the NYC scrap metal business.

The agile, simple, and effective Cardinale got into another business.

Catfish

He would catfish women. Catfish may be too harsh a term. He helped lonely women disburse disposable income. Cardinale touched his inner charitable side by allowing them to spend discretionary cash on him through fake names and social media accounts.

While Cardinale hadn’t completed college, he told women he was a Yale man. He liked the look.  He wore the Yale blue and was often heard singing Boola Boola and the Whiffenpoof Song, of which he knew all the words by heart.

His Team

But the time comes when you get too old to catfish. Cardinale was past 60.

Now, a man named Frank Guy Rossi appears on a website called Vanhook, and he looks like Guy G. Cardinale, who seems to have disappeared.

Is Frank Rossi actually Guy Cardinale and back in the entrapment and scamming business? Or do they happen to look alike?

According to the website, Rossi has a team at Vanhook.

As of yesterday, 10 team members ran Vanhook.

I checked their LinkedIn, and six do not mention Vanhook. I sent messages to several, asking them if they were associated with Vanhook. Three replied they did not know about being on the website. Two said they spoke to Rossi but never met him and did not authorize their names on his website.
Shortly after I spoke to one of them, two individuals disappeared from the website. Now, there are eight on the team.

Opportunity

We must not be too quick to condemn Rossi or conclude he is Cardinale. Or that he is back in the entrapment business. After all, Rossi asks only for the chance to help you.

Vanhook says it all on its website.

“Let’s Talk about solutions.

“We help solve complex business problems and uncover opportunities to help our clients achieve optimal outcomes. Let’s discuss your challenges, understand your objectives, and start generating results.  SCHEDULE CALL”

Give him a call. With luck, Vanhook will get you where you’re made for life.

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

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