BG Wealth Sharing securities fraud C&D from Utah
BG Wealth Sharing has received a securities fraud cease and desist order from Utah Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities (UT-SEC).
The cease and desist order follows a prior securities fraud warning, issued by UT-SEC on May 10th.
UT-SEC names six respondents in its June 1st order;
- BG Wealth Sharing LTD;
- BG Wealth Sharing LTD. Liability Company;
- DSJ Exchange PTY LTD;
- HQI Exchange;
- Richard Chea; and
- Sumana Chea
UT-SEC alleges the above respondents have
engaged and continue to engage in acts and practices that violate the Utah Uniform Securities Act.
The allegation is made following an ongoing “cross jurisdictional cyber fraud investigation” into BG Wealth Sharing.
In line with BehindMLM’s BG Wealth Sharing review, published in September 2025, UT-SEC’s named respondents are
operating a large-scale international cryptocurrency multi-level marketing (MLM) Ponzi and advance-fee fraudulent scheme targeting Utah residents.
Respondents are aggressively soliciting investors, making fraudulent guarantees of compounding daily returns, fabricating regulatory affiliations, and actively extorting existing victims through predatory account lockouts.
The original iteration of BG Wealth Sharing collapsed in late April 2026. Pending further action from authorities, BG Wealth Sharing investors, most of whom are victims who lost money, are were then subject to a “fake taxes” exit-scam.
After the “fake taxes” exit-scam, BG Wealth Sharing demanded an additional $1000 from each investor. The fee was announced and then dropped within 48 hours.
This prompted the launch of HQI Exchange, a reboot with an upfront $100 entry fee. HQI Exchange collapsed by disabling withdrawals on May 31st – the day before UT-SEC’s cease and desist order.
Having been advised of the relevant facts discovered during the Division’s investigation of this matter, the Director finds and concludes that Respondents’ deceptive practices, transient web network modifications, and local recruitment campaigns present a grave, continuous threat of irreparable financial ruin, and the threat requires immediate action by the Division.
The Director issues this Emergency Order to Cease and Desist.
BG Wealth Sharing was an MLM “click a button” app Ponzi run by Chinese scammers. The scam was fronted by “Professor Stephen Beard”, played by an actor hiding behind an AI avatar.
UT-SEC looked into Stephen Beard and found he was;
a British national who purportedly formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Division has found no such person with a verifiable affiliation to the IMF.
BG Wealth Sharing’s particular “click a button” app Ponzi ruse was trading signals. These were of course also bogus.
There is no evidence of any actual trading. Respondents BG Wealth and DSJ Exchange systematically deployed rapidly shifting lookalike, transient web domains to hook targets, simulate bogus asset growth, and actively evade global regulatory enforcement suing at least 39 distinct URLs.
Respondents Richard and Sumana Chea are Utah resident promoters of BG Wealth Sharing.
UT-SEC cites Richard Chea as the Registered Agent and Manager of BG Wealth Sharing LTD. Liability Company, a Utah domestic limited liability company.
BG Wealth Sharing LTD. Liability Company was attached to rented office space in Utah, which the Sheas are believed to have used to defraud consumers.
Richard Chea and Sumana Chea are a married couple residing in Utah, acting as local agents, managers, and MLM recruiters for BG Wealth Utah.
Richard is a longtime MLM enthusiast who promotes multiple unsuccessful investment opportunities. Sumana works as a travel agent.
Neither individual hold any license or registration with the Division, the SEC, or with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in any capacity.
As recently as April 13, 2026, the Cheas held a live event in Salt Lake City, Utah. They did so having received formal notice from the Division, which included the investor alert information issued on March 10, 2026.
The communications advised the Cheas that they were under investigation for their involvement in BG Wealth, as further detailed below.
UT-SEC notes it also notified the Cheas of BG Wealth Sharing fraud warnings from multiple countries outside of the US.
The event purportedly drew 2,300 attendees and featured a virtual presentation by BG Wealth’s spokesperson, “Professor Beard.”
Following the event, the Cheas leveraged their newly opened “investor center” for BG Wealth Utah as a place for recurring live events.
The Cheas invited attendees to tour their Utah office, which featured framed displays of the same fraudulent BG Wealth SEC Certificates.
The Cheas filed a business license application with the City of West Jordan using the exact same Employer Identification Number (EIN) as BG Wealth.
To solicit prospective local investors, the Cheas also distributed a printed brochure replicating the BG Wealth website content to Utah investors.
This brochure claims to offer long-term investments with stable income via volume dividends, promising that members “can guarantee stable returns following Professor Stephen every day”.
Before HQI Exchange collapsed on May 31st, the Sheas were promoting “one city per month” BG Wealth Sharing events running through August 2026.
How much Richard and Sumana Chea stole from BG Wealth Sharing victims in Utah and elsewhere is unknown. UT-SEC quotes BG Wealth as being part of a $150 million Ponzi scheme, as claimed by US federal authorities.
Part of BG Wealth Sharing’s fraud was the use of fake regulatory certificates and an improperly filed Form D with the SEC.
This is a common tactic used by scammers, which UT-SEC notes in its order;
BG Wealth websites depict fake “SEC Certificates,” claiming that “US Federal Law No. 15 80b-1” granted BG Wealth active “SEC RIA” status to manage capital inside the United States, alongside copies of BG Wealth entity filings as proof of legitimacy and compliance.
The same fake certificates appear in the background of “Professor Beard’s” online videos shared with investors.
UT-SEC alleges the named BG Wealth Sharing respondents engaged in securities fraud, unlicensed activity and registration violations.
The Division believes, based on evidence of the continued illegal sales and fraudulent activities of Respondents, that they continue to both offer and sell fraudulent unregistered securities without a license in the State of Utah.
Between the BG Wealth Sharing and DSJ Exchange infrastructure, as morphed into the HQI fraudulent interface, Respondents have systematically defrauded thousands of international individuals, United States citizens, and Utah-based investors out of millions-upon-millions of dollars using an unregistered, non-exempt investment scheme.
The Division has reason to believe, and does believe, that despite sweeping and pervasive public warnings from state, federal, and international regulators, Respondents actively continue their unlicensed, fraudulent solicitations inside the State of Utah.
Respondents present an acute, immediate danger of severe financial victimization through an active, predatory advance-fee extortion scheme.
Further, Respondents are actively attempting to obstruct legal investigations and sustain the fraud by routing victims to a new, completely unregulated platform, HQI Exchange.
This transition operates with a secondary advance-fee scheme, demanding $100 per victim to “migrate and recover” their capital.
Respondents Richard and Sumana Chea continue to actively defy public alerts by leveraging local corporate shells and hosting recurring, large-scale, in-person seminars and grand openings (as recently as April 12, 2026) to aggressively funnel unvetted and most likely unaccredited retail capital into static digital wallets controlled by international operators.
“International operators” refers to “Chinese scammers hiding in southeast Asia”.
Absent an immediate Emergency Order to Cease and Desist, the Division believes Respondents will continue to exploit public trust, execute transient web domain switches to evade regional law enforcement, and inflict severe, irreversible financial harm on the citizens of Utah.
To that end the BG Wealth Sharing respondents have been ordered to
Immediately cease and desist from offering, selling, or soliciting investments within or from the State of Utah, and are prohibited from directly or indirectly aiding or coordinating with any entity running any variant of this enterprise.
Immediately cease and desist from all active marketing, electronic or in-person outreach platforms, downline messaging threads, or physical location expansion strategies linked to BG Wealth, DSJ Exchange, or HQI Exchange, or any other similar enterprise.
Immediately cease and desist from further violations of the Act.
Immediately cease and desist from contacting investors or prospective investors.
UT-SEC warns that violation of the order runs the risk of third-degree felony charges being filed, as per Utah state law.
A June 5th report from KSL News Utah claims Richard Chea has already responded to UT-SEC’s order, advising
Without admitting any wrongdoing or liability, I have reviewed your claims and have taken steps to comply with your requests.
Specifically:
The referenced activity has been discontinued. Any related materials have been removed or disabled.
I will ensure that no further actions occur that would violate the concerns outlined in your letter.
Very easy to say once BG Wealth Sharing and HQI Exchange have already collapsed. It’s questionable where if they hadn’t, whether Shea and his wife would still be defrauding consumers.
Whether UT-SEC pursues the Sheas for ill-gotten gains stolen from Utah residents remains to be seen.
Chinese “click a button” app Ponzis first emerged back in 2021. Since then, BehindMLM has documented hundreds of the scams.
BG Wealth Sharing and its associated scams mark the first successful attempt at primarily defrauding US residents through the braindead Ponzi model.
On April 23rd, 2026, a US court unsealed wire fraud criminal charges filed against two of the Chinese scammers behind BG Wealth Sharing.
Huang Xingshan and Jiang Wen Jie were arrested on immigration fraud charges in Thailand sometime between November 2025 and April 2026.
On April 27th it was revealed a joint US operation had led to the seizure of $41.5 million tied to BG Wealth Sharing. There have been no further updates since the arrests.
