On August 1st the SEC filed civil fraud charges against Forsage co-founder Vladimir “Lado” Okhotnikov.

The regulator alleges Forsage is a $300 million dollar Ponzi scheme.

That same day Okhotnikov doubled down and held a webinar titled, “Burning Question to Meta Force Founder”.

You’d be wrong if you thought addressing the SEC’s lawsuit was a “burning question”. [Continue reading…]

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

Cryptexify’s website domain (“cryptexify.com”), was first registered in May 2021. The private registration was last updated on June 21st, 2022.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Cryptexify provides corporate addresses in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, the US and Zimbabwe.

With the addition of Nigeria, basic incorporation certificates for various shell companies are also provided.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, these addresses and incorporations are meaningless.

Cryptexify’s official FaceBook page was created in September 2021. As opposed to any of the countries above, Cryptexify’s FaceBook page is managed from India.

Cryptexify uploaded its first five video to its YouTube channel in August 2021. These were your typical stock footage marketing hype, all coming in at 15 to 30 seconds.

On March 26th 2022, Cryptexify decided to go the Boris CEO route:

Well, not so much a Boris CEO as Boris “Tour Guide”. “Sandra Davis” takes us on a tour of the usual rented office setup.

There we meet Cryptexify’s actual Boris CEO, “Zane Hayden”:

I don’t have a name buy Hayden is an actor based out of Eastern Europe. He recently appeared in a marketing video for Jaoken, a company based out of Georgia.

Georgia neighbours Russia, where practically all Boris CEO videos are produced from.

Who owns Cryptexify comes down to two possible scenarios:

1. Russian scammers run Cryptexify with social media outsourced to India; or
2. Indian scammers run Cryptexify and hired Russians to make the Boris CEO video.

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…]

Meta Force has received a fraud warning from the Central Bank of Russia. [Continue reading…]

David Wayne Mayer is co-founder of Silver Star Live.

The CFTC sued Mayer, who also goes by the pseudonym “Quicksilver”, for forex fraud in 2020.

On July 27th 2021, the CFTC was granted a $5 million default judgment against Mayer.

The judgment also saw Mayer (right), subject to a permanent injunction that prohibits him

from engaging in conduct that violates the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), registering with the CFTC, and trading in any CFTC-regulated markets.

In violation of the 2021 judgment, Mayer has returned to forex fraud with Autobot Trading. [Continue reading…]

Joshua Nicholas’ EmpiresX criminal trial is currently scheduled for August 15th.

That’s not a typo, the trial is ten days away.

Whether it actually goes ahead though is now up in the air, following an August 2nd motion to continue. [Continue reading…]

Bravenly operates in the nutritional supplement MLM niche. The company is based out of Florida in the US.

Heading up Bravenly Global are co-founders Aspen and Brent Emry.

Aspen Emry serves as Bravenly Global’s CEO. Her husband Brent is Chief Operating Officer.

Bravenly Global launched in 2020. That same year BehindMLM reviewed Emris International, of which Aspen Emry was co-founder and CEO of.

Emris International launched in 2019. It too was a nutritional supplement MLM company, focusing on weight loss and CBD oil.

Prior to founding Emris International, Emry was an It Works! distributor.

At time of publication Emris International still has a website up. Matthew and Ilean Harris still run the company, but it’s vastly different to what launched in 2019.

Emris International now markets Momentum Business Academy. The company represents it is based out of South Africa, and that seems to be its target marketing demographic.

I went looking for a reason why Emry left Emris International. I couldn’t find one, or a specific date she left.

The best I was able to do was narrow it down to the sometime in the last four months of 2020:

Bravenly Global officially launched on December 8th. It was in prelaunch before then as far back as October 2020. That further narrows when Emry left a bit.

I found an official press-release incorrectly stating Bravenly Global launched in Feb 2021:

Not sure what that’s about.

Ultimately why Emry left Emris International remains unclear. And, as far as I know, this hasn’t been publicly addressed.

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

Following an August 3rd Status Conference, a March 2023 EminiFX criminal trial date has been set. [Continue reading…]

CashFlow NFT’s website is currently nothing more than an signin/signup form:

To the right is an unlisted marketing video, which leads to CashFlow NFT’s official YouTube channel.

There you’ll find two additional CashFlow NFT marketing videos.

One of them, titled “Cashflow NFT – An Amazing Opportunity”, his narrated by someone going by Daniel Wood.

Wood claims to have a history in real-estate. He claims he’s done with real-estate though (for now), and instead wants to focus on being a crypto bro “for the next five years”.

Wood is a co-founder of Momentum Property Education, a company selling property investment guides:

Wood also runs the Swedish Wealth Institute with his wife.

The Swedish Wealth Institute was founded by Daniel and Gisela Wood to promote entrepreneurs, investors and people who want to develop.

Wood appears to have begun his crypto bro career, at least publicly, earlier this year with E-Forest:

eForest is a crypto “pay to play” Ponzi scheme, wrapped up in “save the Earth” marketing:

eForest has gone nowhere and, evidently bitten by the crypto fraud bug, Wood has come up with his own real estate crypto grift.

If I had to guess, Wood’s private crypto bro journey probably began with crypto infecting Swedish Wealth Institute.

And so the well-trod process of the founder of an established business running it into the ground because crypto begins.

Update 16th August 2022 – While David Wood might be the public face of CashFlow NFT, in  May 2022 marketing video, Micah Theard introduces himself as the company’s founder.

Theard has a long documented history of promoting MLM scams and Ponzi schemes. /end update

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

Lucent Trader provides no credible company ownership or executive information on its website.

Supposedly, Lucent Trader is headed up by Chairman James Brent Craig;

James Brent Craig is Chairman and Executive Director of Lucent Trader, a Commodity analyst and forex trader with over 16 years experience in the Financial industry.

He has been trading since 2005 within which he developed a proven strategy and has been able to teach his strategy to other successful traders with consistent results.

James is a family man from Miami, Florida, USA, loves to travel and engage in meeting clients.

Not surprisingly, Craig doesn’t exist outside of Lucent Trader’s marketing. This makes him a prime Boris CEO candidate.

What I believe whoever is actually behind Lucent Trader has done, is misappropriated the identify of an actual James Brent Craig.

The actual Craig is based out of Florida and is registered with FINRA. Lucent Trade’s fictional Craig biography appears loosely based on the actual Craig’s FINRA record.

The man on Lucent Trader’s website appears to be of middle-eastern or Indian heritage. Public records confirm the actual James Brent Craig in Florida is “white, not Hispanic”.

Regardless of where he’s actually from, the man representing Craig on Lucent Trader’s website is clearly not “white, not Hispanic”.

This isn’t the first time scammers have misappropriated the identity of a FINRA registered broker.

Lucent Trader’s website domain (“lucentrader.com”), was first registered in March 2021. The private registration was last updated on March 14th, 2022.

Despite being around for just over a year at best, Lucent Trader falsely represents it was established in 2014.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Lucent Trader provides a corporate address in the UK on its website. For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, this is meaningless.

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 CFTC has informed the court it intends to serve Johannes Steynberg through the Hague Convention. [Continue reading…]