David Carmona, founder of the iComTech Ponzi scheme, has pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

After initially pleading not guilty following his arrest in late 2022, Carmona changed his plea at a December 22nd hearing. [Continue reading…]

A visit to Infinity Pi’s website reveals new “Infinity X” branding.

Infinity Pi was a short-lived MLM crypto Ponzi run by Chinese scammers.

Launched in Q3 2023, Infinity Pi first collapsed in October. An Infinity Pi 2.0 reboot was launched, only to collapse again a week before Christmas.

It seems Infinity Pi isn’t done milking gullible saps, with Infinity X now marking the second reboot of the scam.

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

Nexus Rewards launched in 2022. It was a reboot of the collapsed NXR Global pyramid scheme, combining recruitment commissions with “savings and cashback apps”.

I’m not exactly sure when but Nexus Rewards recently revamped its compensation plan. The official compensation documentation on Nexus Rewards’ website was created on January 1st, 2024.

Nexus Rewards’ reboot resulted in renewed marketing efforts. This in turn led to reader requests for an updated review.

Today we revisit Nexus Rewards for 2024 and see what’s changed. [Continue reading…]

As a point of policy, BehindMLM’s contact form categorically states anything to do with “reputation management enquiries/demands” and “SEO” will be ignored.

Unfortunately that doesn’t stop shady operators from falsely marketing they can get BehindMLM content removed.

Today we’re covering marketing lies from Mike Munter and Matt Peters. [Continue reading…]

A German court has sentenced OneCoin promoter and money launderer Frank Ricketts to five years in prison.

As tweeted by Johan von Mirbach, producer of the CryptoQueen docu series, Ricketts’ wife Manon Hubenthal received four years.

Disgraced attorney Martin Breidenbach, who assisted Ricketts and Hubenthal with laundering OneCoin Ponzi funds, was sentenced to two years and nine months. [Continue reading…]

Rodney Burton, aka “Bitcoin Rodney”, was arrested in Florida on January 4th, 2024.

Burton has been indicted on HyperFund fraud charges, filed as part of a wider criminal case in Maryland. [Continue reading…]

ABC Holdings fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

ABC Holdings has two known website domains:

1. abcholdings.io – privately registered on September 28th, 2023
2. abcmining.me – privately registered on October 27th, 2023
3. abcai.me – privately registered on October 29th, 2023

On both of ABC Holdings’ websites there are references to “Arkbit Capital Holdings”.

Arkbit Capital was an MLM crypto Ponzi that launched in late 2022.

Heading up Arkbit Capital was Boris CEO “Thomas Brewer”.

Brewer was played by US actor Mike Wolfe. Other than the same photo appearing on ABC Holdings’ website (“abcmining.me”), Wolfe doesn’t feature in ABC Holdings’ marketing.

It appears Wolfe stopped playing Brewer prior to BehindMLM’s January 2023 Arkbit Capital review.

On December 3rd, 2022, Arkbit Capital uploaded a YouTube video revealing new CEO “Delmar Estabrook”.

I don’t have a name but the man playing Estabrook has a North American accent. Like Wolfe, he’s likely an actor picked up from somewhere.

As of November 2023, the actor playing Estabrook still featured in ABC Holdings’ marketing:

In the video above, Estabrook notes Arkbit Capital’s rebranding to ABC Holdings. This followed a June 2023 securities fraud cease and desist order from the Arkansas Securities Department.

BehindMLM noted Arkbit Capital’s collapse on November 24th, 2023. ABC Holdings is an effective reboot.

While we can’t say for sure who’s behind ABC Holdings, Boris CEO MLM Ponzi schemes are typically the work of eastern European scammers (Russia and/or Ukraine).

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…]

Nordea Partners has misappropriated the corporate identity of Nordea.

Nordea is a multi-billion European bank headquartered in Finland. Nordea Partners has nothing to do with Nordea but misappropriates the company’s name, Finnish headquarters and executives.

There are some cracks in Nordea Partners’ facade on its website. One obvious mistake is the use of a UK company certificate to represent Nordea’s Finnish company registration.

Whereas Nordea operates from “nordea.com”, Nordea Partners operates from “nd-limited.com”.

Nordea has been around since 1820. Nordea Partners’ website domain was only recently registered on September 27th, 2023.

If we look at the source-code of Nordea Partners’ website, we find references to “hyipcustomize.com”.

HYIP Customize sells Ponzi scripts to scammers for $299 to $599. Who runs HYIP Customize is unclear.

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…]

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

SmartSteps’ website domain (“smartstep.live”), was privately registered on January 9th, 2023.

SimilarWeb tracked ~11,500 monthly visits to SmartSteps’ website as of November 2023. Three sources of traffic were identified; Canada (93%), the US (4%) and the UAE (2%).

If we look at the source-code of SmartSteps’ “powered by GitBook” whitepaper, we can see it was set up in Chinese:

While I can’t say for sure, SmartSteps appears to be anonymous Chinese admins in Dubai targeting Canada and the US.

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…]

Following a January 3rd article from the Guardian trying to uncover Hyperverse CEO Steven Reece Lewis, I couldn’t help but revisit the collapsed Ponzi scheme.

There wasn’t much to go on. I tracked Lewis to Thailand’s nightlife but couldn’t find anything definitive to publish.

Someone else who read the Guardian’s article is “Nobody Special” of the “Nobody Special Finance” YouTube channel.

On January 5th, Nobody Special Finance published a video titled “BUSTED: Fake HyperVerse CEO Who Stole $1.3 Billion Unmasked!“.

In the video, “Steven Reece Lewis” is outed as Thailand resident Steve Harrison. [Continue reading…]