A Joint Stipulation has seen the Trump children dismissed from the ACN fraud class-action.

Former defendants Donald J. Trump, Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump were dismissed with prejudice on May 19th. [Continue reading…]

MineBase is the latest brainchild from Harald Seiz.

Seiz, a German national, is best known in the MLM industry for ripping off a ton of people through Karatbars International.

Karatbars International began in 2011 as a gold-themed pyramid scheme.

Circa 2017-2018, Seiz partnered up Gold Standard Bank and owner Josip Heit.

This partnership saw Karatbars transition into cryptocurrency fraud.

Karatbars International’s first documented instance of crypto fraud was the KaratBank ICO in early 2018.

KaratBank flopped but eventually Seiz and Heit got KaratGold Coin (KBC) off the ground.

After months of hyping Karatbars International investors on the promise 100 KBC would be redeemable for 1 gram of gold, KBC publicly launched on July 4th, 2019.

KBC’s launch was a disaster. Seiz’s 1 gram of gold promise wasn’t honored and KBC dumped 62% in a few days.

Sitting on funds they’d milked investors out of, Seiz and Heit laid low for most of 2019 and 2020.

Sometime in 2020 “Gold Standard” was launched, and along with it yet another token reboot. This time it was G999.

By September these plans had fallen through. Harald Seiz began promoting Freebay and V999, a spinoff of the G999 token.

Sometime between Gold Standard being announced and Freebay (mid 2020 or so), Harald Seiz and Josip Heit had a falling out.

Heit split from Karatbars and went on to launch a GSPartners with the G999 token towards the end of 2020.

By the end of 2020 Freebay collapsed, prompting Seiz to have a very public meltdown.

What followed was six months of radio silence. Seiz eventually resurfaced with Lifebase in June 2021.

Lifebase collapsed after a few months. In December 2021 Seiz sent out an email to his victims, promising a proper Karatbars International reboot.

That never happened.

Instead in April 2022, Karatbars International victims were contacted by Acua Wellington.

The specifics of Acua Wellington remain murky. BehindMLM wrote it off as an obvious recovery scam, likely able to target Karatbars victims because Seiz sold the affiliate database.

Finally in August 2022 MineBase emerged.

The original launch was so comically bad that I thought I was looking at another recovery scam.

While Seiz appears to be in charge of MineBase, the initial recovery scam nature of the its launch suggests he is working with Russian scammers.

MineBase operates from two known website domains:

• “minebase.io” (primary) – privately registered on May 1st, 2022
• “minebase.com” – first registered in 2014, private registration last updated April 28th, 2023

Fast forward to mid 2023 and MineBase is still chugging along. The MLM side of the business is more fleshed out, prompting requests for an official BehindMLM review.

It should be noted that in the lead up to MineBase, Harald Seiz’s various schemes have attracted the following regulatory attention:

• Canada issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2014
• Canada banned Karatbars International and fined several promoters in 2016
• Namibia issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2019
• Germany and South Africa issued Karatbars International fraud warnings in 2019
• New Zealand issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2020
• Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2020
• the Bahamas issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2021
• New Zealand issued a Freebay fraud warning in 2021
• Germany’s BaFin issued Karatbars International with a cease and desist in 2022
• Canada’s Alberta Securities Commission issued a Karatbars International fraud warning in 2023

Seiz, originally from Germany, fled the country for Thailand at some point. This became known following a German court issuing a warrant for Seiz’s arrest a few months ago.

There haven’t been any further updates so presumably Seiz is still wanted by German authorities.

BehindMLM can’t confirm Seiz’s current status as going on the run coincided with his abandoning of social media (FaceBook in 2021 and Instagram last year).

Read on for a full review of MineBase’s MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Clayton Thomas has received an $844,706 judgment in his SEC fraud case.

Thomas’ June 9th judgment also includes an injunction, permanently prohibiting further violations of the Securities and Exchange Act. [Continue reading…]

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

GoodbuyKK’s website domain (“goodbuykk.com”), was privately registered on March 3rd, 2023.

If we look at GoodbuyKK’s website source-code, we find Chinese:

This strongly suggests whoever is running GoodbuyKK has ties to China.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money. [Continue reading…]

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

Dmatrx’s website domain (“dmatrx.com”), was privately registered on April 24th, 2023.

Of note is Dmatrix citing Singapore time on their website;

To receive profits at 00:00 Singapore time, please add Singapore time to the phone clock to view.

While not definitive, this suggests whoever is running Dmatrx might be based out of Singapore.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money. [Continue reading…]

Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority has issued an Intelligence Prime Capital fraud warning.

The FSMA cites Intelligence Prime Capital as a “new fraudulent trading platform”. A bit odd considering the Ponzi scheme collapsed in February 2022. [Continue reading…]

Family First Life has settled another robocall fraud lawsuit filed against it, this time in Florida. [Continue reading…]

Former Investview CEO Joseph Cammarata has been sentenced to ten years in prison for recovery scamming.

Cammarata will also have to pay $31.2 million in restitution. [Continue reading…]

French authorities have dropped the ball, allowing OneCoin’s Frank Schneider to flee pending extradition to the US. [Continue reading…]

Four days after Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier issued a securities fraud warning, IM Mastery Academy held a marketing event in Kirchberg on May 29th.

Police raided the event, which targeted “young students”, after receiving complaints from parents.

The raids led to the arrest of several organizers of the event. IM Mastery Academy’s founder Chris Terry doesn’t appear to have been in attendance. [Continue reading…]