Empire fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

Empire’s website domain (“empire-trading.com”), was privately registered on July 15th, 2024.

Further research reveals official Empire marketing material citing Stan Koubatika as founder and CEO of the company.

Koubatika’s LinkedIn profile places him in France, with an MLM history dating back to 2016 with Kyani.

In 2020 Koubatika was promoting something called “Golden Ticket Club”:

By 2023, Koubatika was promoting investment schemes from Dubai:

On its website, Empire represents it is run the UK shell company “Empire Golden Group LTD”. Empire’s provided London address is a virtual office address owned by Your Virtual Office London.

It is unclear whether Koubatika is still in Dubai or has returned to France.

Due to the proliferation of scams and failure to enforce securities fraud regulation, BehindMLM ranks Dubai as the MLM crime capital of the world.

BehindMLM’s guidelines for Dubai are:

  1. If someone lives in Dubai and approaches you about an MLM opportunity, they’re trying to scam you.
  2. If an MLM company is based out of or represents it has ties to Dubai, it’s a scam.

If you want to know specifically how this applies to Empire, read on for a full review.

Empire’s Products

Empire has no retailable products or services.

Affiliates are only able to market Empire affiliate membership itself.

Empire’s Compensation Plan

Empire affiliates purchase “copy trading” subscriptions from the company. This allows them to generate automated passive returns on invested funds.

Empire advertises passive returns of up to 20% a month.

The MLM side of Empire pays on recruitment of affiliate investors.

Empire Affiliate Ranks

There are ten affiliate ranks within Empire’s compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

  1. Jade – sign up with a minimum $50 subscription and generate 200 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  2. Gold – maintain a $50 higher subscription and generate 500 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  3. Sapphire – maintain a $50 or higher subscription and generate 1500 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  4. Ruby – maintain a $50 or higher subscription and generate 3500 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  5. Platinum – purchase a $250 or higher subscription and generate 7500 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  6. Diamond – purchase a $1000 subscription and generate 25,000 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  7. Blue Diamond – generate 75,000 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  8. Green Diamond – generate 200,000 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  9. Black Diamond – generate 500,000 BV in downline subscription sales volume
  10. Crown Diamond – generate 1,500,000 BV in downline subscription sales volume

 Referral Commissions

Empire pays referral commissions on subscription fees paid by personally recruited affiliates.

  • Jade ranked affiliates earn a 6% referral commission rate
  • Gold ranked affiliates earn an 8% referral commission rate
  • Sapphire ranked affiliates earn a 15% referral commission rate
  • Ruby ranked affiliates earn a 20% referral commission rate
  • Platinum ranked affiliates earn a 25% referral commission rate
  • Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 30% referral commission rate
  • Blue Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 35% referral commission rate
  • Green Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 40% referral commission rate
  • Black Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 45% referral commission rate
  • Crown Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 50% referral commission rate

Note that referral commissions are coded. This means that 50% is always paid out on subscription fee payments.

The coded nature of referral commissions allows higher ranked Empire affiliates to earn the difference between their referral commission rate and lower ranked downline affiliates.

Diamond Pool Bonus

Diamond and higher ranked affiliates earn a share in the Diamond Pool.

Empire claims the Diamond Pool is funded based on internal trading activity.

Rank Achievement Bonus

Empire rewards affiliates for qualifying at Gold and higher with the following one-time Rank Achievement Bonuses:

  • qualify at Gold and receive $25
  • qualify at Sapphire and receive $75
  • qualify at Ruby and receive $175
  • qualify at Platinum and receive $375 and Airpods
  • qualify at Diamond and receive $750 and an iPhone
  • qualify at Blue Diamond and receive $2250 and an iPad
  • qualify at Green Diamond and receive $5950 and a MacBook
  • qualify at Black Diamond and receive $17,500 and a “voyage”
  • qualify at Crown Diamond and receive $57,500 and a Rolex

Joining Empire

Empire affiliate membership costs between $50 and $1000:

  • Basic – $50 annually
  • Premium – $250 annually (adds access to live trading training)
  • VIP – $1000 one-time

Empire Conclusion

Empire is your typical “lulz can’t touch our money!” fraudulent investment scheme.

The core due-diligence question behind such schemes is, if through trading Empire was able to generate 20% or close to every month, why not just do that instead of offer access to randoms over the internet?

Even with a modest capital amount 20% a month soon turned into a fortune.

Empire affiliates sign up, pay a fee and then effectively place funds under the control of a purported automated trading bot.

With copy trading, your investments automatically replicate the transactions of an experienced trader.

Benefit from professional management and transform your investment into passive income with confidence.

While Empire’s investment scheme isn’t illegal in and of itself, it does require Empire to be registered with both securities and commodities regulators.

Empire fails to provide evidence it has registered with financial regulators in any jurisdiction. This means Empire is thus operating illegally, committing both securities and commodities fraud.

Additionally with nothing marketed or sold to retail customers, the MLM side of Empire operates as a pyramid scheme.

The “lulz can’t touch our money model” allows affiliates to invest funds in their own exchange account. This is done on the promise of passive returns, derived through Empire’s purported trading of unknown origin.

Under this model Empire investors are duped into believing that because funds are traded in their own broker/exchange accounts. In other words, they can’t be stolen.

This is false. Typically “lulz can’t touch our money!” schemes exit-scam through blowing the bot up or rigged trades.

Pending Empire trading losses are in addition to funds lost through its pyramid scheme. This alone will affect the majority of Empire affiliates when said pyramid scheme inevitably collapses.