The head of myWorld Spain has been arrested on pyramid fraud charges.

Spain’s National Police confirmed the arrest in a July 31st press-release.

The arrest of the officially unidentified individual follows a High Court complaint filed by 803 myWorld victims.  The complaint, filed either in late 2022 or early 2023, alleges 5 million euros in losses.

The alleged fraud was based on a membership, loyalty, and membership recruitment program in which victims were required to make an initial deposit of €2,000 and subsequently make monthly payments of between €99 and €399, with the promise of “passive, recurring, and lifetime income”—the scheme even promised monthly income of up to €50,000—which they ultimately never received, the Ministry of the Interior reported Thursday.

When the victims tried to recover their money and the supposedly promised interest—”financially unviable,” according to investigators—they were unable to do so.

In the [complaint], the victims stated that they had tried to negotiate for a year with the company’s Spanish managers to obtain the return of the amounts they had contributed, but that they had not reached an agreement.

Spanish police have pegged total Lyoness, myWorld and Cashback World losses in Spain at over 52 million euros.

The economic damages suffered by the plaintiffs exceed €5,000,000, while the profit obtained by the company over all its years of operation exceeded €52,000,000 due to the pyramid nature of the scam.

Spanish Police launched their myWorld investigation in March 2023. Dubbed “Operation Peldano”, the investigation culminated in Joaquin Garcia de la Brena’s arrest on July 23rd in Madrid.

Lyoness was legally registered in Spain as Lyoness Spain SL in 2011.

In 2018 Norwegian authorities found Lyoness to be an “illegal pyramid scheme”. This prompted Lyoness to change its name to myWorld a few months later.

Around the same time, Lyoness Spain SL changed its name to MWS MyWorld Customer & Retail Services Spain SL.

Joaquin Garcia de la Brena has been the Managing Director of Lyoness Spain SL and MWS MyWorld Customer & Retail Services Spain SL since 2011.

Presumably due to local privacy laws that protect criminals, Spain’s media are referring to de la Brena as “JQB” and “Joaquin”. For me this was enough to confirm de la Brena’s arrest.

Lyoness and myWorld are owned by Austrian national Hubert Freidl (right).

The scam began as an “accounting units” Ponzi scheme in 2003. Today myWorld more closely resembles a pyramid scheme. This is in line with Spain’s National Police findings quoted above.

Despite multiple countries certifying Lyoness was a Ponzi scheme and myWorld is a pyramid scheme, to date Austrian authorities have failed to take action.

Lyoness/myWorld filed for bankruptcy in Europe in 2023. Freidl hasn’t posted on social media since September 2024.

Pending any further updates on Joaquin Garcia de la Brena’s myWorld criminal case, we’ll keep you posted.