Forsage fraud warning issued by Philippines SEC
The Philippines SEC has issued a fraud warning against the Forsage gifting scheme.
They’ve also outed Lado Okhotnikov as owner of the scam.
The SEC’s three-page warning was issued on June 30th.
The regulator writes
The entity operating under the name FORSAGE, headed by LADO OKHOTNIKOV, is found to be engaged in investment-taking activities in the Philippines which is NOT AUTHORIZED by the Commission.
This is a securities fraud warning, owing to Forsage being identified as
a Crowdfunding International Platform or a Smart Contract Crypto Earning Program based on the Ethereum blockchain technology.
In our published Forsage review, BehindMLM identified Forsage as a simple gifting scheme run through a smart contract.
As asserted by the SEC;
FORSAGE is NOT REGISTERED with the Commission and OPERATES WITHOUT THE NECESSARY LICENSE AND/OR AUTHORITY to solicit, accept or take investments/placements from the public nor to issue investment contracts and other forms of securities defined under Section 3 of the Securities Regulation Code (SRC).
The said scheme employed by FORSAGE clearly shows indication of a possible Ponzi Scheme where monies from new investors are used in paying “fake profits” to prior investors and is designed mainly to favor its top recruiters and prior risk takers and is detrimental to subsequent members in case of scarcity of new investors.
Hence, the public is advised NOT TO INVEST or STOP INVESTING in any scheme offered by FORSAGE or such other entities engaged in smart contracts, cryptocurrencies and digital asset trading that are not registered with the Commission and the BSP.
Locally the SEC singles out the Facebook groups Fosage Philippines Forsage Smart Contracts, as being run by “unscrupulous individuals”.
On YouTube the SEC calls out Christopher Doroliat, Forsage PH and Think Wise Channel.
The SEC warns promotion of Ponzi schemes in the Philippines carries potential criminal prosecution, with
a maximum fine of Five Million pesos (P5,000,000.00) or a penalty of Twenty-one (21) years of imprisonment.
I hadn’t heard of Lado Okhotnikov before. As per Forsage promoter marketing material, Okhotnikov owns and runs Forsage:
On Facebook Okhotnikov identifies himself as a resident of Moscow, Russia.
BehindMLM noted in our Forsage review that whoever was running the scheme was likely fluent in Russian.
Okhotnikov’s recent Facebook posts are geotagged with the location Tbilisi, Georgia.
Update 5th August 2022 – The SEC has filed securities fraud charges against Vladimir “Lado” Okhotnikov. Ten additional Forsage insiders and US promoters have also been sued.
The SEC alleges Forage and its various together formed a $300 million dollar Ponzi scheme.
Between Crowd1 and Forsage, the Philippines SEC has been on the ball lately.
Putting other countries’ regulators to shame.
I was thinking the same thing, Oz. Most of the regulators walk up to the smoking crater of a collapsed Ponzi and say, “Hey, we think this is a scam” after the players have already moved on to the next one.
And here’s a message to those who rocked up to Oz’s first review, saying it can’t be a scam because “muh smart contract!” and “muh blockchain!”: the Philippines SEC made it quite clear that automation doesn’t make any difference. An automated gifting scheme is just as much a scam as a manual one.
The biggest scam pushers on earth Vitaly Dubinin and Ankur Agarwal are on it.
The internet is full of Vitaly‘s earning reports. He must be at the very top, looking at his paychecks.
Can y’all leave your scammer beef on social media ffs.
Oz can you have honest comments posted? Fake comments are illegal as you know. Ari Forsaggi is fake too!
I’m going to allow Forsaggi under parody. I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake that for Ari Maccabi.
In Russian, ”Okhotnik” means hunter.
is forsage a scam? why do it has a you tube channel?
please inform the public as to its true identity thank you.
All gifting schemes are scams.
Forsage has a YouTube channel because anyone can have a YouTube channel. Even scammers, YouTube doesn’t care.
Forsage has a YouTube channel for the same reason scammers register shell companies and create marketing videos: to make them look legitimate to those who do not know better. The Philippines SEC knows better.
And now you know better.
Forsage is indeed a plan that uses the gifting/ponzi model to create cash flows for everyone involved.
It is no different than any other scheme where people recruit others for a sum, add them to a list for them to recruit someone else and the money flows.
If they had a product, all would be ok, but they don’t . The ONLY saving grace, If you could call it that, is the smart contract that takes the human element out – No one can run off with the money.
It is programmed to go to certain places based on sponsorship and cannot go anywhere else.
Does that make it legal? No, it doesn’t.
Even an automated Ponzi, is still a Ponzi.
As far as SEC rulings.. I guess the SEC in the Philippines thinks it has control over crypto currencies. I am not well versed regarding financial law there, and I’m sure that the Forbes article is correct in stating the law doesn’t allow ponzi’s and that a contract for a security, involved in a ponzi, automated or not, is still illegal.
They don’t define whether etherium, a crypto currency that has no ties to any central bank, is able to BE regulated by any central banking authority.
I think their advice is prudent, but being able to levy fines as is described, might turn out to be difficult.
But I’ve been paid out multiple times with Forsage.. how is it a scam? Lol .
I’m on my way to 30k PHP within a month.
No, they have control over securities. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking securities offering in cryptocurrency are exempt from securities law.
@David
Because whether you’ve personally stolen money through Forsage has no bearing on it being a scam or not.
Math guarantees the majority of Forsage affiliates will lose money, same as any other gifting scam.
you will be making money now but sooner or later when they make enough money they will only collect and run away.
similar to bitconnect which they claimed that they had a super forex bot that traded our investment and paid us in daily return with good profits.
The moment u refer enough people then your luck will run out.
BitConnect was slightly different in that the funds were deposited into an admin controlled account.
Forsage is a gifting Ponzi. Payment literally stops the moment recruitment does.
As per my understanding Forsage is not a ponzi scheme. The first who has joined has not mmade much money, as people who had joined afterwords.
There is nothing to run away as zero commission is paid to company. There is very much clarity that who has paid to whom.
Correct. It’s an MLM gifting scheme which by nature has Ponzi and pyramid elements.
This is only true of later joined top recruiters. Being a cycler, first positions cycle the most – thus receiving the most money (per cycle position on average).
Lado Okhotnikov and friends will have preloaded Forsage with a ton of admin positions. Same as any other cycler.
Hello there, before posting these behindmlm scenes just think twice, do you even know how much a person is paid as a part of blockchain to mine the block, similar is the case of network trafficking fee here.
Lado earns money because of network charge , and there’s no such algorithm devised that could stop a blockchain (if it’s a legal smart contract).
like here it’s etherium , the literal gas amount is being paid, I don’t know what Phillipines or any other country thinks of it but sooner or later, it’s similar to saying like ask developers how to unhash a given md5 sum which is literally getting stored in their databases.
possibly it would take millions of years to get to their hashing algorithm.
Hello there, before posting “BUH MUH BLOCKCHAIN!” waffle, think. Like not even twice, just try thinking at all.
How much a person is paid as part of a blockch-ohmygod I want to stab myself in the dick with blunt stick already etc. etc., has nothing to do with Forsage being an illegal gifting scam.
Forsage is a simple matrix script written as a smart-contract. It’s a scam.
Forsage is illegal in the Philippines, and everywhere else on the planet.
Not only is Forsage a (badly) disguised gifting scheme, Alexa tells us it’s an almost dead (badly) disguised gifting scheme.
Smart contract / blockchain or not – it’s dead.
Sorry for your losses, Randomchain.