MTI leader Joel Santiago has an epic meltdown
A recording of a late December Mirror Trading International leaders zoom meeting has emerged.
In the wake of MTI’s collapse, top US investor Joel Santiago has an epic meltdown.
On the call with Santiago are Cheri Marks, Peter Muller, Rich Simmonds and other MTI leaders and top earners.
Seven minutes into the call, one of the hosts reads out a message heard received on her phone.
(Atter?) Simon says that one of his members just stabbed one of his downline with a knife.
To which Rich Simmonds (right) replies, “that sounds like Nigeria for you”.
After the female host directs someone else to further investigate, Santiago chimes in;
[7:26] Yeah I’m sure we’re gonna be hearing a lot about this stuff.
I gotta be a little vocal here ‘cuz this is killin’ me. You know we need to uh, we need to relay something.
You know there’s members… I haven’t had sleep, I haven’t slept in like seventy-two hours.
At this point Santiago’s voice cracks and he becomes emotional.
[7:50] I’ve been on calls with members that are suicidal, that have lost everything y’know?
And then we’re sitting here. We’re laughing. We’re making comments about Nigeria and people getting stabbed.
You know, we have people live’s at stake here. You know, we have people’s live’s at stake here.
And if we can’t see that, if we can’t see that… if we can’t agree to the biggest aspect of everything is lives of our members, then I can’t be a part of this.
I’ve already made the decision. My family can’t move forward with this. But it is my goal and my duty to be here for everyone.
These people believed in us. They followed me. Do you know what I’m saying?
For the last few weeks I’ve been paying out of my pocket. Out of my family’s home. These people that don’t have money to pay their mortgage.
Well it’s gone. I don’t have the ability to do that anymore. I’m not gonna lie anymore. I’m not gonna continue to do this.
And if we can’t come together, if you guys can’t come together to relay this then I’m sorry, I’m done. I am done.
I have to repair my family. I have to repair my marriage and on top of that I will not abandon our members.
I will not abandon our members for anything for the life of me. And if we can’t realize that that is the foundation of all of this.
Not any of the other nonsense… not our perspective, not whether we believe whether we’re right or wrong, people are suffering right now.
And I’m disgusted. I’m disgusted with all of us. I’m disgusted with how we’re handling this. And it’s not right. It’s not right. Period.
As Santiago pours his heart out, suspected MTI owner Cheri Marks listens with a stone-cold expression.
So fix this please. Fix this, relay something. Let the repairing start.
But to try to drag people on with hope? There is no hope.
Charlie said on the call that yesterday that MTI was dead. Several times, that MTI is done, MTI is done.
And then we asked to have the meeting at, an hour after had that meeting, so that we can relay it to our teams.
All of us voted to do it. Charlie overruled our vote. You know what I’m saying?
So we can’t progress. He does that and what happens to me, what happens to us? We get attacked!
Cheri Marks steps in at this point and asks Santiago to “take a second”.
That doesn’t go down well with Santiago;
[10:24] I mean Cheri what you need to understand it I’ve taken more than just a second.
I’ve been in this, one hundred percent and and and, I’m for the people.
And when things don’t add up and I’m over here trying to defend this vision that now… I don’t believe anything anymore. And I’m tired of being involved in this.
I’m tired of going through this and dragging our members through the mud. I’m not gonna do it. Okay?
As Santiago continues to sob, Cheri Ward attempts to console him with a wishy-washy “I know your heart” response.
That doesn’t appear to have worked. Santiago has since deleted all MTI promotional material from his social media profiles.
According to the initial MTI data leak, Santiago had personally recruited over 100 affiliate investors into MTI as of mid September.
Curiously, Santiago doesn’t appear in the latest data leak list of MTI’s top two hundred earners.
Update 9th January 2021 – Despite being uploaded nearly three weeks ago, within hours of this article going live Joel Santiago’s epic meltdown video was deleted from YouTube.
Here’s a screenshot of the video as it was available less than twenty-four hours ago:
Center left you have brother and sister team Charles Ward and Cheri Marks.
Up top, left to right, you have Joel Santiago, Cheri Marks’ webcam, some guy with an awkward username, Charlene Chiang, Johnny Kruger and Marinus Bell.
For prosperity, here is a screenshot of the comments prior to video deletion (replies to comments aren’t available now that the video is gone):
General consensus is nobody else is buying what Cheri’s airing either.
Update #2 9th January 2020 – A reupload of the original Joel Santiago meltdown video is available here.
Does Joel Santiago have an MLM history, or is this his first attempt at MLM scamming?
Is Santiago “Ignatius Michael Bell”?
Of course he has form:
dishonest.co.za/doku.php?id=joelsantiago
(There could be more, that site lays no claim to being exhaustive.)
Ignatius Bell is a real, and different, person.
I checked out PassingBy’s link (comment #3), and there’s a picture of a smiling Joel Santiago, arms folded, calling himself a “Trainer and Presenter,” claiming to be “Creating a Culture of Servant Leadership.”
Barf.
A friend of mine got sucked into Visalus years ago, and one of the things he conveyed to me was how impressed he was that the founders believed in “Servant Leadership.” They sure know which buttons to push, don’t they?
Was Santiago really breaking down, or is he just a good actor? Is he really so dumb as to be involved in multiple Ponzis yet not see that MTI was more of the same, or is he just playing dumb?
One thing is clear: no honest person should involve themselves in anything Santiago is involved in.
Whatever motivates him, his track record speaks for itself.
I tend to trust the collective wisdom of the people on the Mybroadband.co.za forum on anything MTI-related.
They’be been following things closely since MTI started getting some traction, and the participants have collectively done a great job in digging up, and cleverly piecing together, information.
The consensus there is that Santiago was putting on an act, playing all dumb and innocent and concerned, with the intention all along of leaking the recording when it suited him.
There is no doubt he is the source of the recording: he can be heard speaking after he’s been muted. (Or so I’m told – since you have to sign in to Youtube to watch the video I haven’t seen it myself.)
By no means is Joel Santiago an innocent bystander in this.
I’d say he’s not acting but having a cry after the fact and given his Ponzi history there is no excuse.
If I thought the performance was genuinely remorseful I wouldn’t have titled it an epic meltdown.
Oh and I see the video has been removed from YouTube. Hi Cheri and the gang!
Added what I was able to salvage from the video.
I got an hour and fifteen or so in before going to bed, so if anything happened after that I missed it.
Main points I didn’t cover in this article was the floating of hiring a team to forcefully repatriate Steynberg to South Africa.
Charlie Ward puts forth he’ll forcibly get Nerina Steynberg to file a missing persons report. And he doesn’t want any of this made public because it “legally implicates us”.
Ward states he doesn’t trust Nerina Steynberg, is “selective” with the information he shares with her and believes she’s protecting husband Johann.
Other MTI leaders are worried letting their downlines know all of this will tip Steynberg off and he’ll go deeper into hiding.
And unsurprisingly almost immediately reuploaded by someone else: youtube.com/watch?v=8Ep3-7FS2zw
Sweet. I can finish watching now, thanks.
I’m listening to the call (thanks PassingBy), a few stray point.
*The date of this call is December 23rd as per a comment about it being “two days before Christmas”.
*Cheri claims that there are outstanding arrest warrants for her and Clynton are. Sadly as with anything she says it looks like a lie (presently).
*Cheri is repeating the “Steven Twain” exit strategy, blaming Johann, while pretending she isn’t culpable for her roll in the fraud.
*It’s clear that this recording was originally made by Joel Santiago.
*Joel makes an impassioned plea for transparency swearing he’ll be open and honest with his downline. But I’m in his “Santiago Secret” facebook group and besides a half assed plan to repay everyone. no matter how long it takes, he fell far short of informing his downline of the the sad, shabby truth of MTI.
*Charlie Ward is a little too calculating when he says (several times) that any effort from an upline to refund those they stole from would “legally implicate” them.
Here’s a tip, being in the “corporate leadership” of a dying ponzi scheme legally implicates you.
*It’s vaguely fascinating to see that the lies in a ponzi scheme go straight to the top.
Charlie and Cheri controlled the conversation and all blame was being deflected to Johann instead of the people who made the most money off this scheme (Clynton and Cheri).
The webinar was held on December 23rd. Later that same day Cheri Marks would release the “corporate response”, throwing Nerina Steynberg under the bus and blaming Russian hackers.
https://behindmlm.com/companies/mirror-trading-international/mti-announcement-throws-ceo-and-wife-under-the-bus/
It was obvious the document was written by her when it surfaced. This confirms it.
This is the “transparency” Santiago was pushing for. Armed with the recording that preceded its release, you can see the tale Cheri spun is nothing akin to what they discussed.
I agree that Charlie Ward is likely involved in MTI’s operations. Honestly it seems like running BTC Ponzi schemes is all the Marks/Ward family do for a living.
SA authorities could have prevented all of this by following through with the BTC Global investigation. Instead here we are.
Leak 2 purports to be up to 24 Dec.
Ah. I remember clicking one of the profiles and seeing it go up to mid November.
I’ll go by the late December dating then.
Yeah, it seems that the last payments went around 8 Dec, anything after stuck in pending, at least for the current leak’s top people.
They all knew it was the end. They were just stealing and taking the commissions from poor people.
With they I mean: Cheri Marks, Clynton Marks, Joel Santiago, Liz Malton, Scott Smith and all the other “top” leaders and in the staff.
Have you watched this video of Cheri Fraud lecturing about Ponzi Schemes to some Smucks which includes her kids own as well I guess lol.
youtube.com/watch?v=Eb9y1behb1Y
I try to avoid Cheri Ward on video. She’s Ken Labine tier irritating to watch perform.
Give this a whirl (if you have not seen it)
youtube.com/watch?v=NODrXG53LNg
I don’t know if anyone can be as irritating as Ken. Cheri certainly is irritating however. And she has grown substantially.
I don’t go for the body shaming thing, but to look like that stealing from people in a country and on a continent where starvation is a real thing, makes me feel physically sick.
Some people put their last few Rands into MTI. SA has no safety net. If you are broke, you die. Sick, sick, sick.
@ Ruoall
Someone needs to point out to this idiot on the video that in SA it is illegal to hold unworked precious metal of any kind except in very specific circumstances.
Last I heard, silver is a precious metal. They give all us South Africans a bad name.
I was in the Army with the one participant. He was stupid then, he is stupid now.
So, you’re saying Cheri Ward is the female Ken Labine?
And here I thought Ken Labine already was the female Ken Labine.
Thanks Stevie.
Actually, Silver is unregulated in South Africa. So it’s fair game at this point. Gold on the other hand is a different story.
Hi.Wh is “Steven Twain”Master Trader”.. it started in 2018,i was asked by a friend, to look into the “Operations” of BTC Global.
what makes this interesting ,that at the same time there was this person using “StevenTwain22” as reference-as BTC Financials-we fast forward 2021-ive uncovered a wealth of information,which indicates that “StevenTwain” could very well be “Mario Urlic” based on various number loockups – as 1 of the numbers used by “StevenTwain” was used on a defunct/deleted website-into forex trading called-(removed).
the then whatsapp number used was (removed), (2018)-over the years various numbers have cropped up all originating from the USA.
but a person of interest is this “f Henry Obianyo was … Koncepts Free Signals, a binary signals Telegram private chat group…strange he was using the same-criteria as “StevenTwain”.
now on instagram, is a profile Steven_Twain-which lists a video where he claims to be training bitcoin – (removed) – the whatsapp number given there is linked to a us business account-question where and whose number is it.. in addition his prifile images on facebook originate from this website (removed) – he references the link.
now the photo that “Joel Santiago” uploaded corrosponds to some photos in his gallery.. in addition here is a telegran number also used by “Steven Twain” which is active-has a very interesting person of interest on its profile -Telegram – (removed) – what makes this interesting is that BTC Global is also registered at a London-UK Office Park Address..
(the same Steven-Twain is also on twitter as-Steven Twain (@StevenTwain) | Master Trader In Bitcoin-Nigeria-Facebook profiles steven Twain Is Back-Steven twain-use same imaging from same website given here a ip trace on the original BTC GlobalTeam web ended up at 2 locations in the USA.
1 on a godaddy domain-and 1 on secure server domain-both are in suburban locations tracked down via google earth, it turns out to be you have affiliated persons claiming to be steven twain – but everything is pointing to this being us based operation – as the “Brain Behind the BTC Global collapse, in addition, steven twain is on blogger.. wordpress-are you dealing with a fake person?
no you are not for now he is a person of interest.. “Mario Urlic” .. as 1 number look up indicates.. he aint using VOIP numbers.. his using landline/mobile numbers-all us based-there are ads on australian websites – just as steven twain-coincidence that henry obianyou was trading as BTC Financials/Steven Twain BTC Financials..
he is getting less in social media search criteria, even other search engines dont pick him up.. “StevenTwain” is us based with global affiliates, but everything is indicating that his trading as a trader at the trading website, that is where it must start, from there-MTI BTC .. are but 1 of his scams–BitGlobal”.. his scams are in london, spain, france, italy, india, scammers using his criteria…
“Update” – on steventwain facebook page it reads as account manager at bitcoin minining-his profile indicates-united states – houston-texas – when you click on the place of work it ends up on linkdin as – Senior Account manager – at bitcoin mining-nigeria-in bitcoin mining you need a lot of capital to put in bitcoin mining equipment-
now make a note of these 2 locations (google earth-33.61190032959l-latitude:))-(longitude:-111:89060211182)-website btcglobalteam.com-host name-ip-184-168-131-241.ip.secureserver.net city scottsdale-postal code 85260)-now it will hopefully showup on google earth – that is what it says now on godaddy it shows up as follows-33°36’07.0″N 111°53’17.0″W-both locations are ip trace lookups-cross checked as being correct –
what significance has the godaddy domain.. btcglobalteam.com that it has over 350 abuse complaints – now what makes these 2 locations very interesting that both ip lookups -show the map details-
is this where operations are done-on godaddy domain search you get the full details of the btcglobalteam.com registration…details..it would appear there are global team affiliates working in a network together – but where does nigeria fit in-?
nigerian/russian mafia links?..could very well be-?-go to (removed) what has come out of all this investigation is that the mystery mr.steventwain world is getting very, very small, when it comes to being public..
social media some 1 is going to find him and split.. money talks somewhere — the south african connection has some very interesting routines used by nigerian scammers operating from lagos-hope this gives insight into the mystery mr.steventwain/mario urlic?
Steven Twain doesn’t exist. If South African authorities did their job there wouldn’t be need to speculate.
What we do know is Cheri Marks was behind BTC Global and MTI. 2+2=4.
Who Marks worked with is really something SA authorities should have figured out by now.
@Oz, check out Santiago’s latest scam operating via Discord. Shilling NFTs and, of course, the #1 crypto trading bot!!! Lol, you can’t make this stuff up.
(Ozedit: link removed, see below)
Interested in taking a look at Santiago’s new scheme if it’s MLM. Not so much on Discord.
Does it have a name?
@Oz Santiago Academy. The website has been pulled though, now exclusively working through Discord.
Is it MLM then? They have to be tracking signups through something.
Not certain as of yet. But it’s Joel Santiago, it’s guaranteed to be about as dodgy as it gets.
What amazes me are the people who fell for MTI, Finiko, Finalmente, Copy Pro Traders, etc. are signing up with Joel.