As recruitment across South Africa slows down, the Crowd1 Ponzi scheme will inevitably spread across African borders.

Neighboring Namibia is having none of it, opting to instead ban Crowd1

The Bank of Namibia, the country’s top financial regulator, prohibited Crowd1 last Friday.

The core business activity of Crowd1 is to introduce new members of the public to its business practice.

Participants who join as members are encouraged to recruit new members through promises of bonuses and additional owner rights.

The primary source of income for Crowd1 is generated through the recruitment of new members.

The primary source of income for Crowd1 is the sales of membership packages to new members.

BehindMLM reviewed Crowd1 last August and concluded the same. An MLM company paying returns out of subsequently invested funds is of course a Ponzi scheme.

The Bank of Namibia’s ban follows an investigation into the company. When the investigation began and for how long it ran is unclear.

Being a European Ponzi scheme, Crowd1 has no physical operations in Namibia. Nevertheless the Bank of Namibia has ordered the company to cease soliciting investment nationally.

Local media report that those who continue to promote Crowd1 in Namibia face fines of R1 million (~$66,139 USD), or ten years in prison.

At the time of publication Alexa cites South Africa as the largest source of traffic to Crowd1’s website.

Indeed most of the review comments left in defense of the Ponzi scheme appear to originate out South Africa.

South African authorities have thus far failed to take any action against the scam.