In a recent Mining City webinar, CEO Gregory Rogowski claimed the company had obtained an license with the Philippine SEC.

As per correspondence received by the SEC after the webinar aired, the Philippine SEC have confirmed Mining City remains unregistered.

Not only that, the regulator appears to be building a case against local promoters.

Although masked through a series of shell companies, Mining City is owned by Eyal Avramovich.

Avramovich also own Mine Best, from which Mining City was spun off.

Avramovich put Rogowski, a former Mine Best employee, in charge of Mining City, to create the illusion of separation.

The webinar we’re covering today was held on or around October 19th. Featured in the webinar are Avramovich, Rogowski and a translator (presumably a Mining City affiliate investor).

 

Update 27th October 2020 – The third individual has been identified as JM Torres.

According to Ramiro in the comments below, Torres is a former BitClub Network Ponzi scammer. /end update

 

After rambling on about how “haterz” are to blame for the inevitable decline of BTCV, Rogowski addressed the Philippine SEC securities fraud warning.

[6:07] It originated in the Philippines, where the authorities, the Philippines’ SEC issued a warning against Mining City, saying that we operated without a license.

And this was an eye-opener. It just blew our minds. Suddenly we knew what we had to do.

How Mining City committing securities fraud was an “eye-opener” to Rogowski and Avramovich is beyond us.

BehindMLM initially reviewed Mining City in July 2019. One of the key findings in our review was Mining City committing securities fraud.

Avramovich was first to comment on our review, so he’s known about Mining City committing securities fraud for over a year.

Mining City’s website has also been blocked from US visitors for some time. The reason for this is because the US SEC is the most active securities regulator on the planet.

After the obvious lie about not knowing Mining City was/is committing securities fraud, Rogowski continues with more lies;

You see, we didn’t really need the license for legal reasons, we could have protested the article… but then we understood what we had to do.

We applied for the license.

I’m sorry, what?

In their securities fraud warning the the Philippine SEC made it clear they’d investigated Mining City prior to banning it.

I’m not well versed in Philippine law but I imagine Mining City could have challenged the SEC via a lawsuit. They of course didn’t, because securities fraud is illegal.

Companies that offer securities, like Mining City, need to be registered with financial regulators in every jurisdiction they offer securities in. There’s no ifs or buts about this, it’s the law the world over.

At this point we’re down two lies. Rogowski then drops the biggest whopper of the webinar.

[7:04] Many of you may have already seen this document. We have a confirmation that we have a license for Mining City and for Prophetek and for what we are doing, issued by SEC (in) the Philippines.

Prophetek is a shell company owned by Rogowski, providing the ruse behind Mining City ownership (Prophetek owns Mining City on paper).

Around the time the webinar aired, BehindMLM started receiving comments from Mining City investors parroting Rogowski’s claim. In retrospect I assume they’d just watched the webinar live.

Funnily enough when pressed for evidence, none of them were able to provide any (of those that didn’t just disappear).

In an attempt to suss out the validity of Rogowski’s claim, one BehindMLM reader reached out to the SEC on October 21st.

They received the following response back on October 23rd, four days after Rogowski made his claim.

We wish to inform you that Mining City has not registered with the Commission and does not have THE NECESSARY LICENSE AND/OR AUTHORITY to solicit, accept or take investment/placements from the public nor to issue investment contracts and other forms of securities.

Not just content with reiterating their previous warning against Mining City, Oliver Leonardo, the Officer-in-Charge of the SEC’s Enforcement and Investor Protection Department, continued;

However, these fraudsters have failed to consider the governing laws which vary from different countries that have adopted dynamically based on demands of the society including the Philippine Securities Laws which deal with such aspects and imposes a heavy penalty for its noncompliance and/or violations.

Although prosecuting MINING CITY involves intricate matters which requires ample time for proper coordination with the other concerned government agencies, the Commission assures the public that MINING CITY’s members and/or representatives that are still actively offering, endorsing, selling and recruiting others to join said illegal scheme despite our prevailing Advisory will be dealt with accordingly.

We are in the process of gathering information of these representatives to formally file a complaint.

For the time being, we would appreciate it if you could help us educate and warn the investing public on MINING CITY for them not to be preyed by unscrupulous individuals and/or entities making exaggerated and unfounded claims of earning fabulous profits using its illegal scheme.

Mining City of course has no executive presence in the Philippines. Avramovich and Rogowski are based out Europe.

Whether we see prosecution of local Mining City promoters at some point remains to be seen.

After falsely claiming Mining City had registered with the SEC, Rogowski wrapped up the matter by proclaiming;

[7:26] This week (the) SEC takes down the warning about Mining City and we are going to promote the fact that we are the only first historically company in the mining industry that operates in what we do with a legal license.

As of today, October 26th, seven days after Rogowski made the above claim, the Philippine SEC warning remains online

Outside of the Philippines, Rogowski went on to claim Mining City has “entered licensing processes” in South Korea.

We assume this means setting up more shell companies, as Rogowski clarified that

[8:18] by the end of November we will be applying for license. And as time progresses, we will be applying for licenses wherever we need it.

In (the) United States, in Europe, wherever this is required.

That Mining City is seemingly lying about registering with the Philippine SEC is not surprising. Still, I want to put what SEC registration (even if it didn’t happen) means into context.

After identifying an MLM company committing securities fraud, the reason regulatory registration is critical for due-diligence, aside from the fact it’s a legal requirement, is that it entails filing audited periodic financial reports.

It’s one thing to bullshit your investors with claims of external revenue. It’s entirely another to fudge detailed financial reports, get a third-party auditor to sign off on them and file them with financial regulators for scrutiny.

And these reports have to be provided to the public too, meaning we all get to pore over them for verification.

This is why no MLM crypto company operates legally anywhere in the world. They’re all scams that, one way or another, simply shuffle newly invested funds to existing investors.

Remember Rogowski crapping on about “haterz” causing BTCV’s public trading value to drop? BTCV is a Ponzi coin Mining City launched after their initial Ponzi model began to collapse.

Newly recruited Mining City affiliates sign up and invest, BTCV’s public trading value goes up. Affiliate investors who signed up before them cash out? BTCV goes down.

It’s really that simple and precisely why BTCV’s public trading value has nothing to do with Mining City’s legitimacy.

And I’m really using the term “public trading” loosely here. Outside of Mining City BTCV is just another Ponzi shitcoin nobody has any interest in.

So to summarize, although it won’t undo operating illegally for over a year, if Avramovich and Rogowski want to establish the legality of Mining City, they not only need to register Mining City with financial regulators (not shell companies), but also provide audited financial reports. Both to regulators and the public.

There is no other way to legally offer securities in any jurisdiction. Be it the Philippines, South Korea, the US or any where else.

Simply registering with a financial regulator and doing nothing is as good as not registering with one. We see this commonly with ASIC in Australia.

ASIC are notorious for non-regulation of MLM securities fraud. So scammers create an Australian shell company, register with ASIC and hold up their certificate of registration as proof of legitimacy.

Four or five years later, if you’re lucky, ASIC might cancel the registration because after initial registration, nothing was filed. By then of course the scam has long-since collapsed and sorry for your loss.

Oliver Leonardo’s comments aside, Mining City registering with the Philippine SEC and doing nothing more would be exactly the same.

At the time of publication Alexa ranks South Africa (20%), Japan (17%) and Vietnam (9%), as the top three sources of traffic to Mining City’s website.

No matter what happens going forward, Mining City is illegally offering securities in every jurisdiction it solicits investment in.

As I’ve stated many times before, the only reason an MLM company commits securities fraud is because they aren’t doing what they claim to be.

With respect to Mining City, it’s been an obvious Ponzi scheme since day one.

 

Update 27th October 2020 – Mining City has confirmed it is not registered with the Philippine SEC.

The documents Gregory Rogowski is waving around pertain to Prophetek MiningCity, OPC, a recently created shell company.