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telexfree-logoYou’re at the top of a global billion dollar Ponzi scheme that recently collapsed, and was then shutdown by US regulators.

If you’re Randy Crosby or Santiago De La Rosa, you disappear off into the night and are never heard from again.

If your Faith Sloan, after attempting to brush off the severity of situation as a play-date with regulators, you quietly begin to selectively delete all of the incriminating evidence you’ve uploaded to the internet these past two years.

And if you’re Sann Rodrigues, who is perhaps facing the greatest threat of retribution from those he recruited into the scheme, you first pretend to be a victim of the scam you were a leader in, and then start making all manner of promises to your downline.

On the 17th of April, the same day regulatory agents raided TelexFree offices and two days after a temporary restraining order was put in place against TelexFree, Sann Rodrigues announced on Facebook that he was organising an “urgent” event for what he’s calling #TeamDecidesTogether:

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On the 20th of April, Rodrigues (left with co-defendant in the SEC case, Faith Sloan) then published an account of what was decided at the event:

YOU ARE THE STAR OF YOUR OWN BUSINESS AND NOTHING WILL DIM OUR SHINE!

My friends…. it’s always rewarding and positive to gather with people who are integral part of my family. Leaders who revolutionize, each in the own way and part of the world, growing with responsibility, will power to win and with the most important feeling one can have in their heart: Love!

I’m super happy for having us decide various questions literally in one accord, in a clear way, unpretentious, full of discussion, but also tranquil.

The moment made itself necessary and, more than this, essential. our responsibility is great. The Sann Rodrigues World Network represents millions of people, lives, families. Folks who feed, clothe, who have bills to pay, who have daily obligations, and independently from any scenario, need to go on with their lives, and who need to keep working.

This does not mean an irresponsible abandonment of a project that provided life changing opportunities to millions of families. We all shared that Telexfree made history in the world and will continue to do so.

We understand also that obscure motivations influenced the development of the judicial-political situation of Telexfree in Brasil, and its results deeply affected Telexfree’s reputation internationally, specially in the U.S.

We also take into consideration that there were operational strategical mistakes and alarming lack of communication that have proven to be consuming, and at times desperate.

Our position was to not cross our arms, and to not proceed disorderly. We stand united. No matter what challenge life imposes. We are prepared to win!
Nothing, and no one can dim our shine.

United for the best interest of our network, our people, and the people who seek in us comfort, and clear concrete answers. These people are desperate, but they are also looking toward the future.

Our main goal was to decide to look forward at new horizons without forgetting what is still not past us. We have felt the need to position ourselves in the present.

To our family, our network, our affiliates, we offer a Association who will represent and defend them directly to ensure their best interest before any judicial process in any part of the world.

Our goal is to fit ourselves in the Brazilian lawsuit; integrate in the Chapter 11 supervision committee, and defend our activities and legalities as entrepreneurs before the SEC in the United States.

That is our commitment.

Nevertheless, we have not ceased to look forward, and by a democratic and documented secret vote, leaders present in the meeting chose unanimously chose option 3:

“stay together, united, searching for new ways, new horizons. 25 proposals were offered and discussed. Ten of these proposals include a business plan explanation, and were discussed by leaders from around the world.”

As teams decide together, another chapter was written in the world history of MLM, and in an opportune moment will be presented.

I want to motivate you. Uniting makes us stronger. The more the battles, greater our victory. Let’s fight for it in a way that we will act directly and through the association. Let us also continue to fight together day-by-day. For you, for your family, your friends, and your network.

We are the stars of our own business. Nothing can dim what we have built, our shine reflects and lightens our path, and the path of families around the world. Multi Level Marketing provides us the following:

entrepreneurship, independence, repercussion beyond frontiers, will power to always do more and help as many people as can to become the next star in their home, their family, their region, city, state, country, the world, and in their business.

My friends… amidst the biggest crisis are the greatest opportunities of life. Don’t let it pass you by. With responsibility, respect, gratitude, love… but also with great professionalism!

Being a leader was the challenge I accepted… and the mission i chose!

May God bless us!

Sann Rodrigues

In an earlier Facebook post, Rodrigues claims his “Sann Rodrigues World Network” TelexFree downline stands at 1,300,000 recruited affiliates. How accurate that is I have no idea, but it gives you some indication of the pressure Rodrigues must be under.

In a now-deleted video once hosted on Faith Sloan’s YouTube account, Rodrigues boasted about earning at least three million dollars in TelexFree. That was back in March 2013, with how much Rodrigues ultimately pocketed from his downline and other victims around the world yet to be made public.

Bolded above, my take on Rodrigues actions revolves around his mention of an association:

To our family, our network, our affiliates, we offer a Association who will represent and defend them directly to ensure their best interest before any judicial process in any part of the world.

Our goal is to fit ourselves in the Brazilian lawsuit; integrate in the Chapter 11 supervision committee, and defend our activities and legalities as entrepreneurs before the SEC in the United States.

As it stands, Rodrigues and his fellow top earners in TelexFree have been named in a complaint filed by the SEC. Rather than go at it alone, Rodrigues is now seeking to leverage those he recruited on some misguided “you will get your money back” campaign.

If for nothing else than to obstruct the natural course of justice, on the mistaken belief that Rodrigues is somehow going to walk away from this intact.

As for the as yet unnamed Association’s goals, establishing a court-approved “supervision committee” in the Chapter 11 proceeding? Uh, right. Good luck with that. And “defending our activities?” Let me remind readers again that it is Sann Rodrigues alone who has been named as a defendant in the SEC lawsuit, not TelexFree affiliates a whole.

Reading between the lines, with his assets now frozen and any assets regulators weren’t aware of being required to have been declared to the SEC by now, Rodrigues has no cash flow.

All he’s doing here is attempting to kill two birds with one stone. First he’ll get his downline to pay for legal representation, and secondly keep them strung along on promises of a return of their money.

TelexFree affiliates Rodrigues is pitching his association too can either fall for it and lose even more money (wait for the fees that need to be paid for association membership and/or to fund its activities), or let things play out in court and leave Rodrigues to answer for his part in promoting the largest MLM Ponzi scheme to date.

Wake up people. Under the guise of religion and fabricated communal outrage at his own personal loss, this snake is about as slippery as it gets in the MLM underworld.

 

Footnote: My thanks to the BehindMLM readers who provided additional translation help with this article.