Awakened hasn’t had the smoothest of launches.

The company pre-launched with an NFT cash grab, potentially grifting affiliates out of tens of millions.

Awakened’s flagship supplement Zenith has also been dogged by controversy, pertaining to a rights dispute between Vietal Nutrition and First Fruits Business Ministries.

I did my best to wade through the Zenith patent mess on September 1st. I came to the conclusion that, while Vietal Nutrition had a 2013 judgment against FFBM and owner Roger Catarino, practically speaking it was meaningless.

FFBM had clearly been manufacturing Trisynex supplements for well over a decade, regardless of any judgments Vietal Nutrition had obtained.

Zenith’s key ingredient is Trisynex, which falls under the patent 6,899,892. Anyone can look it up up and see it was assigned to FFBM in 2011.

The patent expired earlier this year, with the cynic in me believing this is why Awakend has launched with Zenith now.

Key to Awakend’s launch was the claim that it had worldwide exclusivity to Trisynex. This was supposedly purchased from Vietal Nutrition, which made no sense in light of the ‘892 patent.

After publishing that exploratory article I was contacted by Roger Catarino, who informed me he’d sent Awakend a cease and desist.

After covering the Awakend cease and desist, Vietal Nutrition’s attorney, Reid Winthrop, reached out.

Winthrop initially repeated the claims I was already mostly aware about and weighed as practically meaningless – for the reasons covered above.

No matter how many legal documents and judgments were provided, FFBM’s name was on the expired ‘892 patent and they continued to manufacture Trisynex.

Unless there was any substantial developments, it appeared Vietal Nutrition had sold the rights to a supplement formula they didn’t, practically speaking, own.

On September 13th the “substantial development” I was looking for happened. A California Judge ordered a Receiver take control of FFBM. [Continue reading…]

25X CLub is owned and operated by serial scammer Troy Mason.

BehindMLM last came across Mason only a few months ago with Our Gas Club.

Our Gas Club was a $79.95 a month pyramid scheme.

BehindMLM’s Our Gas Club review was published on April 16th, 2022. Mason abandoned the scheme and launched 25X Club on or around April 29th.

At time of publication Our Gas Club’s old website domain now redirects to 25X Club’s website. Our Gas Club itself was only launched in March 2022.

Mason is believed to be a US citizen operating out of Texas. To that end US regulators caught up with Mason in June 2021:

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced today that it has filed a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas against Troy Mason of Houston, Texas and his Texas-based company, ZTegrity, Inc., charging them with fraudulent solicitation and failing to register with the CFTC as required by the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).

The complaint alleges that from at least October 2019 to the present the defendants used various websites and social-media platforms to fraudulently market their forex trading pool as a version of a savings account that offered a greater yield with similarly low or no risk.

The defendants called this forex trading pool “The Black Club” and “The Forex Savings Club,” which their website claimed had received over $460,000 from 411 participants.

The complaint further alleges the defendants induced participation in their forex trading pool by falsely claiming to “guarantee” to repay participants the funds they contributed to their individual “Forex Savings Accounts” and falsely offered participants “with a 100% certainty” portions of the “substantial profit[s]” to be generated using participants’ pooled funds to trade forex.

Ztegrity was the precursor to Our Gas Club. It was originally a forex scam, after which Mason rebooted it as a gas themed pyramid scheme.

As of September 2022, the CFTC’s case against Mason continues.

Read on for a full review of 25X Club’s MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Wipes.ac fails to provide company ownership and executive information on its website.

Wipes.ac’s website domain (“wipes.ac”), was privately registered on July 4th, 2022.

Of note is Wipes.ac was put together by iDevLink, a group selling scam scripts and templates.

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…]

Liberium Crypto fails to provide company ownership and executive information on its website.

Rather, Liberium Crypto’s marketing videos are cartoons.

The only point of contact provided is a Telegram channel, which is typical of MLM scams.

Liberium Crypto’s website domain (“liberiumcrypto.com”), was registered in December 2021. The private registration was last updated on April 12th, 2022.

SimilarWeb currently tracks the majority of Liberium Crypto website traffic as originating from the US (62%). Cuba and Russia are second and third, coming in at 5% and 4% respectively.

Further research reveals Liberium Crypto affiliates naming Antione McBay as CEO of the company.

On LinkedIn McBay cites himself as Liberium Crypto’s Chairman:

McBay has been committing securities fraud through MLM crypto scams for years.

BehindMLM first came across McBay in April 2021, as founder of CopyProTraders.

McBay stopped promoting CopyProTraders in August 2021. The company appears to have collapsed by the end of the year.

A few weeks ago CopyProTraders’ website was pulled offline:

Liberium Crypto is a reboot of Antione McBay’s failed CopyProTraders scam:

McBay, a US citizen originally from Texas, runs and promotes his scams from Vietnam.

McBay also has ties to Dubai, the MLM crime capital of the world.

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

Provizion Global operates in the nutritional supplement MLM niche.

Provizion Global is part of LaCore Enterprises. Both companies are based out of Texas and owned by Terry LaCore.

Heading up Provizion Global is CEO Rick S. Nelson (right).

As per Nelson’s Provizion Global corporate bio;

Rick is a direct selling enthusiast and an international business development expert in a career spanning more than 25 years operating in major markets around the world.

His experience includes 12 years residing and working in South Korea and recent projects in the People’s Republic of China, both top revenue markets in direct selling.

MLM companies doing business in China is routinely associated with bribery and corruption.

1. Avon copped a $135 million fine in 2014
2. Nu Skin copped a $765,688 fine in 2016 (they also paid out $47 million in a related class-action)
3. Herbalife copped a $122 million fine in 2020 and two former executives were indicted in July 2022
4. Ariix dragged NewAge into bankruptcy and is the subject of an ongoing federal FCPA investigation

Nelson appears to have began his MLM executive career with Nu Skin back in 1989.

In 1995 Nelson was promoted to Director of Corporate Affairs for Nu Skin Korea. In 1998 Nelson was again promoted to Director of Business Development.

Nelson held the role for nine years. He finished up with a brief stint as Director of Market Development & Support for Nu Skin’s Photomax service, ending in November 2007.

During his time at Nu Skin, Nelson claims he

participated in building Nu Skin from a US and Canada only company in 1989 to launching a major Asia Pacific market successfully.

Nelson additionally claims he’s

experienced in complex mainland China business integration. Business relationship, cultural adaptation, systems, process and execution expertise.

I can’t confirm whether Nelson had a role in Nu Skin’s shenanigans in China (or let’s face it, any other MLM company operating in China).

In July 2008 Nelson signed on as Vice President of Business Development as Max International.

Nelson held the role till February 2013, after which he signed up as Vice President of International Development for Univera.

Nelson’s tenure at Univera was relatively short, ending in October 2014.

From 2014 Nelson appears to have focused on introducing businesses to Chinese, Korean and Russian markets through Rick S. Nelson and Associates.

That brings us to Provizion Global’s launch in late 2020.

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

SunSolar fails to provide company ownership or executive information on its website.

SunSolar’s website domain (“sunsolar.one”), was privately registered on April 20th, 2022.

Of note is SimilarWeb tracking over 4 million SunSolar website visits in August 2022:

The majority of these visits originate out of Nigeria (75%). Neighbouring Benin is the only other significant source of SunSolar traffic (23%).

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…]

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

BLQ Football is known to operate from two website domains; “blq99.com” and “blq66.com”. There are probably others.

Both of BLQ Football’s domain were privately registered on May 20th, 2022.

If we look at the source-code of either BLQ Football’s websites, we can see they are localized to Chinese.

This strongly suggests whoever is behind BLQ Football has ties to China.

BLQ Football’s “99” domain doesn’t have enough traffic for SimilarWeb to track. The “66” domain however registered a majority of visitors from China (64%) and Uganda (36%).

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…]

TRXMiner fails to provide information on who owns or runs the company on its website.

TRXMiner’s website domain (“trxminer.fun”), was registered on September 8th, 2022.

Konstantin Ostrovskiy is registered as the domain owner, through an incomplete address in Sverdlovskaya, Russia.

Whether those details are accurate or not is up in the air, but TRXMiner does appear to have ties to Russia:

The Central Bank of Russia issued a TRXMiner pyramid fraud warning on September 6th.

The warning reveals TRXMiner originally operated from the domain (“trxminer.pro”), registered on August 26th.

Today “trxminer.pro” redirects to TRXMiner’s newly created .FUN website. Changing domains appears to be a direct response to CBR’s TRXMiner fraud warning.

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…]

The DOJ has made reference to restitution for investors of the EmpiresX Ponzi scheme.

While it’s not much, I believe it’s the first we’ve seen restitution mentioned in EmpiresX fraud proceedings. [Continue reading…]

Hapi Travel is a spinoff of The Happy Co.

BehindMLM first reviewed Hapi Travel back in January. We were initially confused as to Hapi Travel’s compensation plan, later finding out it shared that of The Happy Co’s.

This seemed cumbersome, owing to the company’s having different products (nutritional supplements versus travel memberships).

Turns out we were on the money, leading to Hapi Travel spinning off with its own compensation plan on or around July.

Today we’re revisiting Hapi Travel as a fully-fledged stand-alone MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]