Twelve Defendants in the TelexFree class-action filed motions to dismiss the latest Fifth Amended Complaint.

Five motions were granted and one was partially granted, leaving six Defendants fully on the hook. [Continue reading…]

Cheri Beth Bowen has settled a securities fraud lawsuit brought against her by the SEC.

As alleged by the SEC, Bowen stole “at least” $303,000 through the Forsage Ponzi scheme. [Continue reading…]

TelexFree victims participating in the Trusteeship claims process are being targeted by scammers.

On September 6th the US Bankruptcy Court for Massachusetts published the following order: [Continue reading…]

Nexus Rewards is a continuation of NXR Global.

You can verify this by attempting to visit NXR Global’s old website at “nxrglobal.com”. At time of publication the domain redirects to Nexus Rewards.

Nexus Rewards and NXR Global are tied to David and Bob Bremner (right), who together with other family members have been behind a number of MLM companies over the past few years.

BehindMLM started tracking the Bremner’s MLM escapades with vStreamTV in 2015. vStreamTV was eventually rebooted as IXQ TV.

Both vStreamTV and IXQ TV sold pirated streaming content, leading to the MPA shutting down IXQ TV in late 2019.

That led us to Lifestyle Connections’ launch on or around early 2020. Lifestyle Connections was a short-lived savings subscription opportunity.

Another Bremner family company launch was Pyur Global in 2016. Pyur Global marketed a range of nutritional supplements and an “iHeart Device”.

Of note was the Bremners capitalizing on victims of the Noble 8 Revolution Ponzi, most of whom were elderly, by overseeing efforts to funnel them into Pyur Global.

In April 2019 Pyur Global was rebooted as Pyur Life. Pyur Life’s website is still up but SimilarWeb tracks negligible traffic.

BehindMLM first came across NXR Global in Lifestyle Connections marketing material. Lifestyle Connections represented it was “powered by NXR Global”.

NXR Global was somewhat of a parent company for the Bremner’s various MLM launched over the years.

NXR Global’s website DNS was last updated on November 2nd, 2021. Nexus Rewards’ operates from the domain “mynexusrewards.com”, privately registered on January 4th, 2022.

The Bremners operate their various MLM ventures through Nutronix Revolution, incorporated in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

Rather than just admit ownership of Nexus Rewards, the Bremners are representing Art and Rob Phelps are co-founders of the company.

The Phelps have been involved with the Bremners’ MLM opportunities dating back to the original Nutronix International (~2008, possibly late 2007).

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

After signalling its intent to serve Johannes Steynberg through the Hague Convention last month, the CFTC has now asked for permission to effect alternate service.

If granted, the CFTC will serve Steynberg via a Texas newspaper and the Supreme Court of Texas’ website. [Continue reading…]

ViaVeta was founded in 2019 and operates in the personal care MLM niche.

ViaVeta provides a corporate address in the Netherlands on its website. Heading up the company however is founder and CEO Hedi Khezrzadeh, who as far as I can tell is based out of Turkey.

Beyond being incorporated as Viaveta Netherlands B.V, I’m not sure what ViaVeta’s connection to the Netherlands is.

Khezrzadeh (right) made a name for himself in the MLM industry as a top earner in Mega Holdings.

Mega Holdings was a pyramid scheme, built around selling overpriced web services. Mega Holdings collapsed in early 2018.

ViaVeta’s primary website domain, “viaveta.eu”, was registered in July 2018. The company’s official FaceBook page was created in September 2018, suggesting this was on or around its launch.

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

The Success by Health Receiver’s Tenth report reveals the Receivership is insolvent

As of July 31st, 2022, the SBH Receivership has $1.85 million in liabilities.

The problem is there’s only $15,548 left in the bank. [Continue reading…]

FocuStar provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.

FocuStar’s website domain (“focustar.io”), was privately registered on April 10th, 2022.

If we look at the source-code of FocuStar’s website, we see it’s localized to Chinese:

This strongly suggests whoever is behind FocuStar has ties to China.

SimilarWeb currently tracks top sources of traffic to FocuStar’s website as Spain (59%) and neighboring Morocco (41%).

Update 4th September 2022 – FocuStar also operates from the domain “focustar.cc”, privately registered on April 10th, 2022.

SimilarWeb reports top sources of traffic to FocuStar’s .CC domain as Germany (48%), the US (15% and Ukraine (14%). /end update

Although its not linked to on their website, FocuStar has an official YouTube channel. There you’ll find a rented office video featuring “Alan Walker”:

Walker reads off a script that claims FocuStar is based out of the US. This is based off what is represented to be a Colorado shell incorporation.

Alan Walker is in fact Hassan Salim, a Moroccan actor based out of Abu Dhabi with ties to Russia.

I’m not 100% on what Salim’s ties to Russia are, but up until very recently he had a vKontakte account:

VK is Russia’s largest social media platform and operates exclusively in Russian.

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…]

Mainet fails to provide ownership or executive information on their website.

Mainet’s website domain (“mainet.business”), was privately registered on May 26th, 2022.

Further research reveals official marketing material citing Ciprian Ciceu as Mainet’s founder and CEO.

Ciceu is behind BeTrader, an MLM “crypto trading” Ponzi scheme from 2019.

BeTrader launched in August 2019 and pitched 20% to 40% monthly returns.

By October 2019 BeTrader had already or was on the verge of collapse.

Ater BeTrader Ciceu launched BeTrader Academy, a shitcoin Ponzi scheme.

BeTrader Academy sold “couches”, with the ultimate goal to get people to invest in BETRA.

BETRA was an ERC-20 shitcoin. ERC-20 shitcoins can be set up in a few minutes at little to no cost.

BeTrader Academy’s website is still up but BETRA flopped and has since been abandoned.

Now, Ciceu has returned with Mainet.

Ciceu appears to be based out of Bucharest, Romania. He might also have ties to Belgium.

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

While BehindMLM has a whole section on LaCore Enterprises, we’ve never actually reviewed Lacore’s first launch; bHip Global.

bHip Global operates in the nutritional supplement MLM niche. The company was founded in 2007 and is based out of Texas in the US.

BehindMLM first came across Terry LaCore back in 2013, as part of our coverage on Rippln.

These days LaCore Enterprises are more open about being behind the MLM companies they launch. Back in 2013 LaCore was much more secretive.

Even in 2013, LaCore (right) had been in the MLM industry for a number of years.

• in the 1990s LaCore rose to the top distributor for Strategic Telecom Systems
• LaCore secured his first MLM executive role as CEO of Netvision and CitiDirect
• after that LaCore was appointed first Vice President, and then CEO of Kaire

Towards the late 90s, LaCore eventually wound up at Natural Health Trends Corp.

LaCore’s time at Natural Health Trends Corp came to an end in 2005. Three years later the SEC filed a related civil enforcement action.

On September 3, 2008, the Commission filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas charging two former officers of Natural Health Trends Corp. of Dallas, Texas, with securities fraud and other violations arising from undisclosed related party transactions from 2001 through 2005.

The defendants are Mark D. Woodburn, of Southlake, Texas, NHT’s former president, director and CFO, and Terry LaCore, of Flower Mound, Texas, the former president of NHT’s chief subsidiary and an NHT director.

According to the complaint, from 2001 through August 2005, NHT’s top distributor paid Woodburn and LaCore, directly and indirectly, approximately $2.5 million in undisclosed payments.

As a result of Woodburn and LaCore’s activities, the complaint continues, NHT failed to disclose, or inadequately disclosed, the related party transactions in periodic filings, registration statements, and proxy statements.

LaCore settled the case in late 2008 for $50,000. As part of the settlement, LaCore was banned from being an Officer or Director of any public company for five years.

I’ll cut to the chase and note that, since then, LaCore hasn’t had any further securities fraud related run-ins.

Two years after leaving NHT and a year before the SEC filed suit, LaCore founded bHip Global in 2007.

LaCore would go on to launch LaCore Enterprises in 2011.

Initially an advertising agency, LaCore Enterprises eventually morphed into a fully-fledged white label MLM factory. The main components of LaCore Enterprises are itself and LaCore Labs.

LaCore Enterprises is the business side of the company, LaCore Labs handles products.

In addition to bHip Global, LaCore Enterprises are behind over a dozen MLM companies – all of which operate in the nutritional supplement niche.

Rippln saw LaCore try to get back into the wireless MLM niche. Launched in early 2013, by early 2014 Rippln had collapsed.

LaCore Enterprises has stuck to nutritional supplements ever since.

BehindMLM has reviewed most of the LaCore Enterprises company launches over the years. Today we’re limiting that coverage to bHip Global, the original LaCore launch.

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