Lyoness under police investigation in Sweden
Some time earlier, the Swedish Gaming Board opened an investigation up into Lyoness. While the Gaming Board carried out their investigation, a separate investigation was opened up in Norway and Poland’s OCCP declared Lyoness to be a pyramid scheme.
Now the Swedish Gaming Board have concluded their investigation into Lyoness… and in doing so have handed over their findings to the Stockholm County Police Department.
Commenting yesterday on the investigation, a source within the Swedish Gambling Authority wrote:
The Gaming Board today decided to notify the police that Lyoness Sweden AB is suspected of breaching the Lotteries Act, specifically for organization of chain letter games (pyramid schemes).
The case has been handed over to the Stockholm County Police Department for further investigation. Consequently, the Gaming Board is no longer handling the case.
Any further questions regarding the continued investigation should be referred to the Police Authority in Stockholm.
According to Wikipedia,
In each of the 21 Counties of Sweden there is a County Police Authority, which is headed by a County Police Commissioner. There is also a County Police Board, consisting of local politicians and the commissioner.
The Commissioners and the members of the board are all appointed by the Government of Sweden.
The County Police Authorities report to the National Police Board which in turn report to the Ministry of Justice.
Now that the Swedish police are handling the investigation, I imagine they’ll be looking to build on the Gaming Board’s findings. Whether or not any regulatory action will be taken against Lyoness remains to be seen.
Stay tuned…
Footnote: My thanks to the BehindMLM reader who sent in this news tip.
Well, Lyoness, Dubli and Visalus are all pitching their program to nonprofits as a way to raise money for their operations.
I was contacted by a representative from each one of them via LinkedIn. They hold a webinar touting their programs and I am sure there are many nonprofits that have fallen for the hype and joined thinking they were legitimate businesses and a way to earn easy money for their organization.
It was very clear that they did not bother to identify what each nonprofit does, just that they were a nonprofit to pitch their program. They didn’t tell you what the program was, just to join the webinar to learn all about it. After the webinar is when they called you to discuss and try to get you signed up. When I explained who and what Eagle does, it was interesting to see how quickly they backed off from recruiting me. And of course they all assured me their program was legitimate.
There has been an “exchange of information” contact between the Norwegian and Swedish authorities around March 15. The documents are sealed / not publicly available.
The information was found in “Public Electronic Postjournal” oep.no, a searchable database for case documents. Documents can be requested anonymously, only an email address is required. But most documents in the Norwegian case have been sealed.
Sounds like they’re trying to avoid damning information from circulating till they’re 100% done. Lest Lyoness complain about said information tainting the investigation.
(same reason the US are relatively silent about their investigations).
http://antylyoness.blox.pl
Great Polish site with news about Lyoness. No english version but google translate does it job quite nicely.
Some of the news linked:
http://derstandard.at/1389858939904/Lyoness-zahlt-Mitgliedern-Geld-zurueck
It’s in German – Lyoness agrees to give back 75% of money to disgruntled investors
http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=hu&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gvh.hu%2Fsajtoszoba%2Fsajtokozlemenyek%2F2013-as_sajtokozlemenyek%2F8506_hu_megteveszto_lyoness_reklamok_miatt_birsagolt_a_gvh.html&sandbox=1
– translated news from Hungary, Lyoness fined 10.000.000 Hungarian forints for misleading advertising
http://antylyoness.blox.pl/2013/11/TV-Rheinland-nie-odnawia-certyfikatu-Lyoness.html
– it’s old news but I belive they weren’t covered here: TUV certificate gone from Lyoness. Use google translate from Polish to English in order to read.
Any new developments on this?
Lyoness International in Buchs,Swiss transfers the control to Lyoness Group AG in Graz, Austria, under assumption that they are running away from investigation in Swiss http://www.kleinezeitung.at/steiermark/graz/graz/3607065/lyoness-verlagert-steuerung-nach-graz.story
Carrefour Poland announced on their official Facebook page that Lyoness only buys vouchers from them and there are no additional benefits. http://antylyoness.blox.pl/2014/04/Carrefour-Polska-Lyoness-tylko-kupuje-od-nas-bony.html
Update from the Swedish Gaming Board – to date they are ‘not aware of whether any legal action has been taken against the Lyoness Sweden.‘
The police investigation appears to be ongoing.
http://www.lotteriinspektionen.se/sv/Press/Nyheter/Lyoness-riskerar-miljontals-dollar-i-straffavgift-i-Australien/
Hahaha. I can still remember the Wazzub Charity fiasco. Dedicate this song to stamp out child hunger… Yeah right.