TelexFree @ BehindMLM

In the last few months of its Ponzi scheme operations, TelexFree took in a staggering fifty million dollars. And despite being provided with legal advice indicating that they were running a pyramid scheme as far back as August of 2013, management still went ahead and paid themselves in excess of $10,000,000. When it became clear that regulators [Continue reading…]

TelexFree is not shut down in Brazil, there’s a lot of news there, it’s liar (sic). Everything you hear from news, it’s not true. Our company, everything is ok. Nothing will affect the US. Please continue your continued dedication, this company will persevere. -Carlos Wanzeler (TelexFree owner, now a fugitive), June 2013 To the very [Continue reading…]

That the filing of bankruptcy proceedings to escape criminal liability for the running of a billion dollar Ponzi scheme was absurd, is and always will be a given. Absurder still are the fee claims submitted by firms hired by TelexFree to orchestrate the bankruptcy circus. Despite being approached and hired only after TelexFree learned a regulatory [Continue reading…]

For affiliates who invested in TelexFree, the current situation is a bonafied mess. Little to nothing has been officially communicated to affiliates, with the roadmap of fund recovery a murky minefield of uncertainty. I’ve tried my best to analyze and cover what’s happened on the legal front, but short of predicting an inevitable Chapter 7 liquidation, [Continue reading…]

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The connection between money-laundering and TelexFree has been a long-standing one. A lot of the time Ponzi schemes launder stolen funds through offshore jurisdictions, that’s par for course. But with TelexFree, it always felt a bit more organised – cartel’esque even. We first learned of the links above and beyond [Continue reading…]

Further seeking to watertight their criminal case against James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the Massachusetts District Court to order a stay on discovery in the SEC’s civil trial. The primary reason behind the request is the belief that Merrill and Wanzeler will use the discovery process in the [Continue reading…]

I can’t even begin to imagine the toll of running a billion dollar global Ponzi scheme must take on the mind. Sleepless nights, the constant looking over your shoulder, having to spew endless excuses on camera to appease your investors and so on. And when things go kaput, as they did with TelexFree earlier this year, [Continue reading…]

I tried to maintain tabs on what was going on with TelexFree while I was on break. Mostly it was paper pushing between the parties involved (scheduling, replies etc.), but there was one court document filed that I felt was a must-read. On the 18th of August the SEC filed a “Motion For Complex Case [Continue reading…]

Less than 24 hours after indictments were handed down against owners Carlos Wanzeler and James Merrill, Brazilian federal police have launched a new operation against TelexFree. Codenamed operation Orion, supposedly because the constellation Orion aligns with “the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex” in Egypt (Wikipedia), the operation has thus far resulted in [Continue reading…]

Filed on the 23rd of July, a grand jury has indicted James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler on eight counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Reading like a BehindMLM review, the grand jury described TelexFree as a pyramid/Ponzi hybrid: