Michael Sander helps ViziNova run offshore Ponzi
Last month saw the publication of a BehindMLM review on startup MLM opportunity ViziNova.
Launched by WCM777 Ponzi kingpin Renato Rodrigues and accepting $1000 to $3000 investments from affiliates on the promise of a 150-166% ROI, we called out ViziNova for what it is: a WCM777 reload Ponzi scheme.
Evidently not to happy with our review, ViziNova approached Obtainer Online to write a fluff-piece designed to disassociate themselves from WCM777 and founder Phil Ming Xu:
ViziNova – Suspected, Condemned in advance and Denounced
It’s sad but, unfortunately, true that on the internet many don’t bother to look behind the scenes before they start trumpeting out alleged “facts”.
Often fundamental research falls by the wayside because today the motto is: The quicker something is published, the better. However, this attitude contains dangers and can cause considerable harm.
In the digital age information and statements are like toothpaste: Once they’re out, you can’t get them back into the tube. How true this saying is something that a young company is currently experiencing at first hand.
Hardly had it been announced that ViziNova had been founded by Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg dos Santos, than a well-known scam website immediately reported without doing any precise research of its own that ViziNova was the successor of WCM777 and that Dr. Phil Ming Xu was behind the foundation of the company.
Taking care to do proper research and to listen to all sides, as in the case for respectable journalism, seems to be superfluous for many. Instead of reporting objectively, the aim is to trumpet out their own opinions which lack any substance.
So important was the vindication of ViziNova to Obtainer Online, that they
got the magazine’s founder Michael Sander involved in the discussions, because it was necessary to have somebody with sound knowledge and experience in global MLM in order to do everything right from the very outset.
So how does someone with “sound knowledge and experience in global MLM” separate a Ponzi scheme’s top promoters from the company itself?
The fact that Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg dos Santos were among the top leaders at WCM777 isn’t in dispute. Nor is the fact that both of them earned millions. But the allegation that ViziNova is a new edition of WCM777 is quite simply false.
The success of the two of them at WCM777 wasn’t a matter of chance. It’s just a pity that they get lumped together with Dr. Phil Ming Xu.
Phil Ming Xu was the owner of WCM777. What a shame his top promoters, who admittedly made millions fleecing those below them in the scheme, are “lumped together” with him as Ponzi scamsters. What an outrage!
Obtainer’s article reads like any other fluff-piece, with Sander doing his best to wash the WCM777 Ponzi stink away with disingenous parallels between ViziNova and the likes of Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. Neither of which accept money from affiliates on the promise of a >100% ROI.
Sander ultimately concludes
ViziNova has a business concept that is coherent, transparent and profitable.
ViziNova isn’t a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid system because from the very outset Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg dos Santos are demonstrating transparency.
At this point you’re probably wondering why Obtainer and Sander have gone to such lengths to distance ViziNova from WCM777. I mean, it’s almost like Obtainer and Sander themselves have a personal stake in the company…
ViziNova has engaged OBTAINER’s founder Michael Sander, who as chief consultant has developed the company structure and the set-ups.
But that of course is only scratching the surface.
How deep does Michael Sander’s relationship with the MLM Ponzi scheme underworld go? Read on.
Upon being made aware of Obtainer’s ViziNova article, my suspicions were first raised when I noted the big giant banner ad marketing Obtainer’s “business solutions”:
Clicking the banner takes you to “obs.obtainer-online.com”, which states:
Your offshore company directly from authorized local agents!
The advantages and possibilities of an offshore company based in Ras Al Khaimah are almost unlimited in its use and practical appliance. The right to make use of a trustee in the UAE, the independence from the EU and the U.S. as well as their internal information exchange and ultimately the overall safety of the persons involved in the Offshore Company.
We are not an intermediation company, but an agent – directly certified and registered by the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority.
See for yourself and give us a mandate for setting up your offshore company today.
Now why would ViziNova feel the need to operate in a jurisdiction that has “independence” from the EU and US?
Probably because WCM777 was recently shut down by the SEC for being a Ponzi scheme. “Personal safety” of course referring to the stashing of the millions Rodrigues made in WCM777.
But Ok. So ViziNova engaged Sander and Obtainer Online to launch register ViziNova in the UAE to hide from US regulators. So what? What does that have to do with WCM777?
Well, turns out paying Michael Sander large sums of money to register your business offshore comes with additional perks. Perks you won’t find advertised on Obtainer Online or publicly disclosed by ViziNova.
Our first stop is an article on the flow of money through WCM777 over at SelfBrander:
After following the path of the money, one lands in the tax heaven of the United Arab Emirates. Since the US authorities, especially the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the States of California and Massachusetts have issued a desist and refrain order in January 2014 and November 2013, respectively, against WCM777 and all of its known offshoots, the money suddenly started to flow into the Middle East – namely to Dubai.
The motto of these criminal manipulators seems to be the following: Move East, far away from the seizure of U.S. authorities, i.e. holders of the jurisdiction.
Only by following the money trail there is hope towards ending the fraud. Upon further investigation, more often than not, the search resembled a black box detection, but now it seems more has come to light into this case.
Large amounts of money, as proven by remittance receipts, have been transferred to the Emirates into an account, which belongs to a company called PJ International Trading LLC.
Accompanying SelfBrander’s article is a screenshot of one such remittance receipt, which I’ve reproduced below:
So who owns PJ International Trading LLC?
According to authorities, the owner and manager of this company is Michael Manfred Sander (formerly Wobbe).
Not entirely satisfied with “according to authorities”, I pressed on. And that eventually led me to Michael Sander’s personal Facebook profile.
In an April 24th post in which he discusses his recent divorce, Sander addresses the issue of his ex-wife talking to some of his business associates. He also goes onto reveal:
English (auto-translate):
To answer the question whether I was a consultant for WCM and Kingdom777 or some leaders who worked there: Yes, but that was never a secret. Am I looking (after) Vizinova -. Well yes Just as I was there for many companies and am and will be in the future. It’s my job.
German (original):
Um gleich die Frage zu beantworten ob ich als Consultant für WCM und Kingdom777 bzw. einiger Leader dort tätig war: Ja, aber das war nie ein Geheimniss. Bin ich es für Vizinova – auch ja. So wie ich es für viele Unternehmen war und bin und auch in Zukunft sein werde. Ist ja mein Job.
Still not entirely convinced due to not being able to tie Sander directly to PJ International Trading LLC, I continued to dig.
On Michael Sander’s personal website, he provides the following contact information:
Note the PO Box. From the remittance receipt published earlier in this article, here’s PJ International Trading LLC’s address:
Bank details:
Account Holder: PJ International Trading LLC:
PO Box 212880
Dubai, UAE
One and the same.
And so there you have it: Michael Sander, owner of Obtainer Online, “somebody with sound knowledge and experience in global MLM”, business consultant and Ponzi enabler and accountant extraordinaire.
Sander, as “chief consultant has developed the company structure and the set-ups” of WCM777, a Ponzi scheme shut down by the SEC, and now he’s doing it again for ViziNova – a Ponzi scheme run by WCM777’s top two net-winners.
But yeah, the two companies are absolutely not related in anyway. They just happen to share similar key people, accountants and an unhealthy relationship between Michael Sander and Obtainer Online.
What a farce.
As for all of this not being a secret, as Sander claims in his Facebook posting, there’s no mention of any of this on ViziNova’s website or that of WCM777 (prior to it being shutdown). Nor is the extent of Sander’s involvement in WCM777 and ViziNova disclosed on the Obtainer article.
Sander also fails to mention his involvement in setting up and “protecting” WCM777 and ViziNova on his LinkedIn profile. He does however mention he’s
known as the top network marketing professional and most influencing person in the MLM industry in the world.
Now that you know Michael Sander was consulting for WCM777 and now ViziNova, in addition to handling their money and “protecting” management from US regulators, I recommend you go and read Obtainer Online’s ViziNova article in its entirety.
Fair warning though, you might want to have a gag-bag on hand. The level of deception and blatant misrepresentation inherent in Sander’s piece is nauseating.
Ponzi schemes are ruining a lot of people’s lives… including quite a few so-called “professionals”.
TVI Express was first ruin quite a few “coaches”.
Zeek really got a lot of mud on both Troy Dooly and Ted Nuyten.
And now looks like Mr. Sanders is going to get himself a lot of mud.
Sad. I used to like Obtainer. They were the first in Europe to investigate TVI Express scam. It’s sad to see them trying to “monetize” this way.
Agree with ‘K. Chang’, and not only people and ‘professionals’ lives are getting ruined, but our complete industry of MLM.
I am getting a lot of questions about Wings Network, and for me is CLEAR to be a Ponzi Scheme and the relaunch of BBOM (can be sure of that) but can you OZ, give us an actualization of this company so i can share it with all my team.
Thank you
https://behindmlm.com/companies/wings-network-review-cloud-service-bbom-reboot/
Search bar is on the top right of every page.
FWIW, Carlos Costa’s wife was withdrawing in a week (month?) roughly the same amount as TelexFree ever made selling VOIP since 2012.
Oz, if you’re basing yourself in that “creditor list” Telexfree has published, I believe we don’t know what those values are about, nor the reasons for those names being there.
It possibly is the general amount Telexfree owes to the 30 major accounts. It doesn’t even seem to represent what it owes to the people there, since Graça Luísa has stated that the amount in the list refers to only one of her accounts. It is not even clear if all those people are promoters, or had another relation with the company. It’s all mixed together (e.g., it now includes SEC and US government people along with the first 30 names).
Even if those first 30 are all promoters, we don’t know what that money is about, if it was just the last batch they couldn’t withdraw, or accumulated credit.
Fair enough call, not withstanding that the amount claimed to be owed to just one of the credits is equal to or more than what TelexFree made in VOIP sales since 2012.
That alone tells you all you need to know about the retail viability of $50 VOIP in today’s market.
@KC Chang:
Ted Nyuten got mud on himself due to TelexFree? How do you figure that? He wrote an article quite a while before their demise warning people that there were a number of red flags and recommending not to join the program.
You must be referring to the poll of most popular companies that appeared on the Businessforhome.org website, but those were based on the votes of a lot of uninformed, misinformed people-all Ted did was publish the results of that poll.
By the way, has anyone bothered to review Helping Hands International? It appears to be another big illegal pyramid scheme in the making! Wondering what everyone’s thoughts are on their deal?
He organized that “award” which ended up in Dawn “Burger Analogy” Wright-Olivares’s hands. Didn’t he?
I wrote him MONTHS before that and he basically blew me off. Back in June 2012 he wrote me “I have no time to go into this in depth” when I questioned him about his long profile on Zeek including Dawn’s interview.
How fast we forget…
BTW, I meant Zeek, not TelexFree.
@K. Chang:
I wouldn’t say that he organized an award-all he did was post a poll of favorite or best CEO and, just as in the case of the poll of the poll that TelexFree ended up #1 in for best opportunity where you had a large number of idiots voting, he published the results of the poll.
I don’t recall if he personally was a big fan of Zeek Rewards or not.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of “polls,” as they are nothing more than popularity contests based on who can get the most number of people to click on a button, and most of the people doing the clicking are uninformed, misinformed people with little to no knowledge of and/or experience in network marketing, all of which makes the results of the polls laughable in many cases, as demonstrated by the fact that she won the best CEO poll when she was heading up an illegal pyramid scheme, and Telexfree winning the “best MLM” poll, a program that will, as I predicted if you recall, go down as the biggest illegal pyramid scheme in the history of network marketing when all is said and done.
@Ken — this was 3 weeks BEFORE the poll closed. I wrote him 3-4 different emails, asking him to read my LONG hubpages article (the one temporarily took down by Craddock) in June, and instead of “Hmmm, I’ll look at it” he blew me off.
I shrugged. We both knew who was right.
Michael Sander has received Money all along from innocent people investing in WCM, WCM777 or Kingdom777. You can contact many people from Europa WHO has wired their Money to his PJ account in RAK, this has happened way back in January as well.
Contact Dubai authorities and ask WHO is the owner of PJ, the owner is MICHAEL MANFRED SANDER. He is a mean fraudster, a manipulator, a traitor, a man whore using his rented cars and rented house to glamourize his fake lifestyle.
He is a shame for human mankind and finally it looks like together people will get him stopped.