Trust Your Universe has received a securities fraud warning from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

As per BaFin’s December 22nd consumer protection notice;

Providers of banking transactions or financial services in Germany require a license under the KWG .

BaFin clarifies that Universe Trading LLC does not have a license under the KWG to conduct banking business or provide financial services.

(Trust Your Universe) is offering banking transactions and financial services in Germany without permission.

The is the equivalent of a securities fraud warning in other jurisdictions.

Trust Your Universe is a Dubai-based MLM crypto Ponzi run by German national Dada Pey.

BaFin’s warning is in line with BehindMLM’s Trust Your Universe review, published October 2022.

Austria also issued a Trust Your Universe securities fraud warning last month.

As of October 2022, 100% of Trust Your Universe’s website traffic originated from Indonesia.

Since then, Trust Your Universe recruitment in Indonesia has collapsed. Today SimilarWeb tracks a continuing overall decline in Trust Your Universe website traffic.

As of February 2023, top sources of Trust Your Universe website traffic are:

  • Switzerland – 55%, up 40% month on month
  • Germany – 36%, down 50% month on month
  • Ireland – 5%, no change
  • Austria – 4%, down 57% month on month

From this we can conclude that Trust Your Universe recruitment in Germany and Austria has also collapsed. New victims are being recruited in Switzerland, outside of which there isn’t much going on.

One other notable change is Trust Your Universe shifting shell incorporation to Thailand.

Last October Trust Your Universe represented it was run through Universe Trading LLC, a St. Vincent and the Grenadines shell company.

While St. Vincent and the Grenadines is still cited in the footer of Trust Your Universe’s website…

We, Universe Trading LLC (“TrustYourUniverse”), are providing brokerage services and can do so as set by the Government of St. Vincent and Grenadines regulations.

…an address in Thailand is now provided for Universe Trading LLC. Whether this change is related to a regulatory crackdown or not is unclear.

Another entity to note is “A-Book Broker LLP”.

TrustYourUniverse is operated by Universe Trading LLC which is the primary service provider and website operator.

We are contracting with A-Book Broker LLP, which is providing all services relating to trading / MT5 access / to carry out trading services that we offer.

A-Book Broker LLP is regulated by the Ministry of Finance (License No. KZ25UWX00002083), authorizing the company to provide Prime Brokerage Services and Straight-Through Processing.

A-Book Broker LLP appears to be a shell company set up in Kazakhstan. A-Book Broker LLP’s website domain was only recently registered on October 6th, 2022.

Things get even more murky when A-Book Broker LLP refers to itself as “BlackGateBroker” on its website.

BlackGateBroker is a fully licensed and regulated entity. We possess a financial service license which allows straight through brokerage.

Company: BlackGateBroker LLP.

License Number: KZ25UWX00002083

Authorised by: National Bank of Kazakhstan

Regulated by: Ministry of Finance

Needless to say whatever shenanigans are going on, Trust Your Universe isn’t registered to offer securities in any jurisdiction. Random shell companies in Kazakhstan doesn’t provide Trust Your Universe any legal legitimacy.

Since publication of BehindMLM’s Trust Your Universe review, Dada Pey has deleted his previously active and publicly accessible Instagram account.

I did find an alternative account that’s active (@pey_trade), but I’m not sure if it’s actually run by Pey. Pey abandoned his FaceBook account in August 2022.

Unfortunately German authorities have a poor track record regulating German nationals running MLM Ponzi schemes.

Pey is assumed to still be hiding out in Dubai. Whether German authorities take further action against him remains to be seen.

 

Update 24th April 2023 – Trust Your Universe has rebranded as Universe Academy.