Shao Bank has received a desist and refrain fraud order from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).

As per DFPI’s August 13th Shao Bank order; [Continue reading…]

Beonbit has received a desist and refrain fraud order from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).

As per DFPI’s August 13th Beonbit order; [Continue reading…]

Ramil Ventura Palafox, founder of the PGI Global Ponzi scheme, has pled guilty to two counts of fraud.

Palafox’s plea agreement was filed on September 16th and received court approval the same day. [Continue reading…]

Optimus VIP has received a desist and refrain fraud order from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).

As per DFPI’s August 13th Optimus VIP order; [Continue reading…]

Scott Lee Huss, aka Jryako (right), has been sentenced to 27 months in prison.

Huss (right) was indicted under seal on multiple counts of fraud in February 2025.

Huss’ criminal charges include wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and impersonating a foreign diplomat, consul or officer. [Continue reading…]

Fintoch has received a desist and refrain fraud order from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).

As per DFPI’s August 13th Fintoch order; [Continue reading…]

Satoshi Mobile fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

Satoshi Mobile’s website domain (“satoshimobile.io”), was privately registered on August 5th, 2025.

In what appears to be attempts to conceal Satoshi Mobile’s ownership, website and marketing videos feature AI-generated slop.

The one Satoshi Mobile marketing video embedded on its website leads us to Satoshi Mobile’s official YouTube channel.

There we find a September 2nd Satoshi Mobile marketing video titled, “Bitcoin Mobile Network Service REVIEW“.

The video is hosted by John Wesley Rustin, representing himself to be from “ZSuite Team”.

ZSuite Global was an MLM crypto Ponzi launched around mid 2024. ZSuite Global’s website was disabled and its social media profiles deleted sometime over the last month.

ZSuite Global itself was a reboot of Yereq Geo Energy (aka YGE International), an energy ruse MLM Ponzi scheme launched in early 2023.

Yereq Geo Energy, Zenyge and ZSuite Global were run by John Rustin and Cynthia Rustin (aka Cynthia Ocariza Altman).

It’s unclear whether Cynthia Rustin is directly involved in Satoshi Mobile.

Of note is the Rustins’ CJCLive Media securities fraud cease and desist, issued by California’s DFPI in July 2020.

John Rustin was also separately pinged for securities fraud by Arkansas in 2009.

As per various social media profiles, the Rustins have ties to Hawaii, Nevada and California.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money. [Continue reading…]

Since the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zinzino has been acquiring MLM companies at an impressive rate.

Things started off slow back in 2019, but in the last year alone Zinzino has acquired no less than five MLM companies.

What’s going on and how is Zinzino able to keep this going financially? [Continue reading…]

WeFi operates in the cryptocurrency MLM niche.

WeFi’s website address (“wefi.co”), was registered in January 2024. The private registration was last updated on November 30th, 2024.

WeFi does not provide a corporate address on its website. Instead, in barely legible text, WeFi’s website lists associated shell companies registered in various jurisdictions:

• WeFi Payments Limited, a Canadian shell company claimed to be “a registered money services business”
• 3-102-939581 S.R.L., a Costa Rica shell company
• Nordpal Holding Limited, a Hong Kong shell company

WeFi is also associated with WeChain, which it claims is part of the “WeFi ecosystem”.

WeChain operates from the website domain “wechain.ai”, registered in May 2024. WeChain’s private domain registration was last updated on April 2nd, 2025.

In the footer of WeChain’s website, again in barely legible text, we find reference to:

• AppAtlas Technologies LLC, a St Vincent and Grenadines shell company
• InfiniCore Tech LLC, a Saint Kitts and Nevis shell company

All but one of WeFi’s shell companies is registered in a dodgy jurisdiction (i.e. little to no MLM related regulation). This raises a red flag for what should be obvious reasons.

Heading up WeFi we have:

• Reeve Collins – Chairman and Board Member
• Maksym Sakharov – Board Member
• Roman Rossov – Board Member
• Yusuf Mirakhmedov – Board Member
• Khaled Suleiman – Board Member

Reeve Collins cites himself as the founder and former CEO of Tether. Tether launched in 2014 and created and operates USDT, a cryptocurrency bearing the same name.

Collins and the other co-founders sold tether to the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2015. Since then, USDT has grown to become the most common cryptocurrency BehindMLM comes across in MLM related fraud.

As of September 2025, Tether’s USDT marketcap sits at $170.04 billion. Up until 2019, Tether falsely claimed on its website that

Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves. So 1 USDT is always equivalent to 1 USD.

Following legal action from the CFTC (2017) New York Attorney General’s Office (2019), Tether changed its USD backed claim to:

Tether Tokens are 100% backed by Tether’s Reserves

In October 2021, Tether paid a $41.6 million fine for lying about USDT being backed by USD.

To date, it is unknown what “Tether’s Reserves” is made up of or, more importantly, whether it comes anywhere near to backing USDT’s current $170 billion market cap.

Tether has consistently refused to let a third-party auditor verify its backing. This lends itself to suspicion Tether is one of the largest consumer-level financial frauds in history.

To be clear, beyond co-founding Tether, Reeve Collins hasn’t had anything to do with Tether’s fraud since 2015. I only point this out because Collins’ personal brand marketing seems to rely heavily on his co-founding of Tether.

WeFi is no exception.

Association with USDT is probably not something I’d want on my resume, but I digress.

Khaled Suleiman’s LinkedIn profile places him in Switzerland. Suleiman has a finance history so I’m assuming this makes him WeFi’s money guy.

Maksym Sakharov and Roman Rossov appear to be random Ukrainian crypto bros who are now based out of Dubai.

Yusuf Mirakhmedov, also based out of Dubai, is a wanted fugitive on the run from Macedonian authorities.

In 2015 Mirakhmedov (born in Uzbekistan as Јусуф Миракхмедов), was appointed Director of Ferronickel and CEO of Feni Industries. Both companies were then owned by Cunico Resources, which Mirakhmedov was also CEO of.

Around mid 2017, Macedonian authorities filed criminal charges against Mirakhmedov. Mirakhmedov was accused of misappropriating over $50 million.

The money, according to the investigators, was embezzled through organized crime by “Cunico Resource”, the company that also owns “Ferronickel” in Kosovo.

In October 2017, Macedonian authorities confirmed Mirakhmedov had fled Macedonia for Uzbekistan.

In 2019 it was confirmed Mirakhmedov was still wanted on an international arrest warrant.

Requested by order KO No. 28/19 from the Public Prosecutor’s Office – GOKK for investigation into the committed criminal offenses “Money laundering and other proceeds from criminal offenses” under Article 273 and “Abuse of official position and authority” under Article 353 of the Criminal Code.

In November 2017, the Financial Police Department filed a criminal complaint against Mirakhmedov, suspecting him of abuse of official position and authority.

Then, during the investigation, the Financial Police determined that Yusuf, the then director, illegally alienated reserves of ferronickel and other ore from the factory.

In December of the same year, the department filed a second criminal complaint against Mirakhmedov due to reasonable suspicion of abuse of official position and authority.

Mirakhmedov made an unfounded write-off of Feni’s untimely receivables, which is suspected of damaging the factory by 51,505,526 US dollars.

It appears at some point Mirakhmedov fled Uzbekistan for Dubai, where he reinvented himself as a crypto bro.

As opposed to the various jurisdictions shell companies have been registered in, WeFi appears to be based out of and operated from Dubai.

Due to the proliferation of scams and failure to enforce securities fraud regulation, BehindMLM ranks Dubai as the MLM crime capital of the world.

BehindMLM’s guidelines for Dubai are:

1. If someone lives in Dubai and approaches you about an MLM opportunity, they’re trying to scam you.
2. If an MLM company is based out of or represents it has ties to Dubai, it’s a scam.

If you want to know specifically how this applies to WeFi, read on for a full review. [Continue reading…]

MaoPay fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

MaoPay’s website domain (“maopay.ai”), was privately registered on April 4th, 2025.

On its website MaoPay provides a purported corporate address in Hong Kong.

The address corresponds to an office tower. It’s unclear whether this address has anything to do with MaoPay.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money. [Continue reading…]