Speak Asia Online @ BehindMLM

Following on from the arrest and interrogation of Speak Asia mastermind Ram Sumiran Pal on Tuesday, news broke today that his accomplice Satish Pal (no relation) had also been arrested. Following a grilling by Indian authorities, Satish Pal revealed that he ‘played a major role in’ the business operations of Speak Asia, working closely with [Continue reading…]

Despite the Speak Asia scam fleecing hundreds of millions of dollars from over a million email address accounts, to date only a dozen or so First Information Report complaints have been filed against the company. One of the main reasons for this has been the constant quelling of the scheme’s participants, under the promise of [Continue reading…]

When the Mumbai High Court ordered that the Economic Offences Wing file a chargesheet against Speak Asia by December 16th, the general consensus amongst the scheme’s supporters was that the police were going to come up blank. Two and a half years had passed since Speak Asia had been shut down, surely if the EOW [Continue reading…]

May 2011 saw India’s Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) shut down Speak Asia, the biggest Ponzi / pyramid hybrid scheme in Indian history at the time. Come December 16th, two and a half years after Speak Asia was shut down, the Mumbai High Court has ordered the EOW finally file a chargesheet against the company. One [Continue reading…]

Despite the assertion that Indian regulatory agencies are sitting on their hands as the December deadline to file a chargesheet in the Speak Asia Ponzi fraud case approaches, evidence that their investigations are still very much open continues to surface. Following the granting of anticipatory bail just over a week ago to Speak Asia panelist [Continue reading…]

It’s been a while since I wrote on the ongoing Speak Asia case. Long time readers of BehindMLM will know the saga began with our initial review of Speak Asia back in March of 2011. Speak Asia, credited with being the largest Ponzi scheme in Indian history, was shut down in late May of that [Continue reading…]

When we last checked in with the MLM industry’s fight for legitimacy over in India, the various government agencies involved were engaged in ongoing discussion as to what constitutes a legitimate MLM company. In response to the multitude of scams operating within the MLM industry and local authorities seemingly all but powerless to regulate them, [Continue reading…]

It’s been nearly two years since Speak Asia was shut down by the Indian authorities and since then, apart from some very public arrests, publicly little progress seems to have been made. Led by a group of ringleaders with a murky connection to Speak Asia’s upper management, those who profited in the Speak Asia scheme [Continue reading…]

To claim that the aftermath of India’s Speak Asia scam has been long and arduous would be an understatement. Back in mid 2011 the company had their primary bank accounts frozen and was effectively shut down. It was later revealed however that, amidst multiple investigations into the company, Speak Asia convinced a judge to unfreeze [Continue reading…]

About two months ago, news broke in India that the long-running TVI Express pyramid scheme had resurfaced amongst Nagpur state-run railway employees. Known as the “Central Railway Department”, with senior management ringleading the recruitment drive it was estimated that “hundreds” had been duped into believing they would receive ‘double returns in eight days‘. Following a [Continue reading…]