Masterworks Investment provides no credible information about who owns or runs the company on its website.

Masterworks Investment’s website does have a “team members” page. Names on the page however are fictitious and represented by stock and/or stolen photos:

The same stock photo used to represent Ewan Charlton (CEO of …), appears on multiple dodgy forex sites:

The reason for this is MasterWorks Investment’s website is running a stock template designed for scams:

The one marketing video on MasterWorks Investment’s website is hosted on a YouTube channel named “Investment crypto”.

Multiple marketing videos for other schemes are on the channel, suggesting it is part of a scam website hosting package:

In an attempt to appear legitimate, MasterWorks Investment provides a doctored SEC certificate:

SEC certificates of incorporation aren’t a thing. This suggests that whoever is running MasterWorks Investment isn’t a native English-speaker, is targeting particularly stupid investors, or both.

This is in line with MasterWorks Investment’s marketing video being a stock footage robo voiceover job.

Accompanying MasterWorks Investment’s fake SEC certificate is an address in New York.

This address belongs to MasterWorks, an unrelated art investment company. It appears MasterWorks Investment are, at least in part, trying to pass themselves off as MasterWorks the actual company.

MasterWorks Investment’s website domain (“masterworks-investment.ltd”), was privately registered on August 10th, 2021.

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…]

Smart Business Corp doesn’t provide company ownership or executive information on its website.

Further research reveals Ernesto Reséndiz being credited as Smart Business Corp’s founder and CEO:

On LinkedIn Reséndiz represents he is based out of Mexico. This ties into Smart Business Corp representing it is based out of Mexico. The company also uses a Mexican domain.

Smart Business Corp’s website domain (“smartbusinesscorp.com.mx”), was first registered in 2015. “Ernesto Resendiz Lopez” is listed as the owner, through an incomplete address in Benito Juarez, Mexico.

A visit to the Wayback Machine reveals Smart Business Corp’s website domain was redirected to “smartfundlimited.com”.

This was the case till at least November 2020. I believe Smart Business Corp’s current website went live around mid 2021.

On the footer of the Smart Fund Limited website it states:

This website is operated by SBC.

SBC operates and/or provides services in:
1276 Kumul Hwy, 1st Flr Govant Bldg, Port Vila, Vanuatu

Smart Business Corp, or SBC, clearly has no ties to Vanuatu. Registering shell companies in scam-friendly jurisdictions to run MLM companies through is typically the work of scammers.

The earliest video on Smart Business Corp’s official YouTube channel is dated March 2020. It depicts the opening of SBC’s offices in Mexico:

From this we can ascertain Smart Business Corp has been around under its own name since at least early 2020.

Smart Fund Limited is a failed trading opportunity. Back then SBC represented it was a broker:

SBC was founded in 1996 and is one of the largest and most highly respected brokers in the industry.

We generate massive trading volume and provide high liquidity to numerous traders around the world.

I initially assumed Smart Business Corp was a relaunch of Smart Fund Limited. Turns out it’s a reboot of a prior collapsed Ponzi run by Resendiz.

IBF International solicited $410 investments on the promise of a perpetual $100 a month ROI.

IBF International targeted South America. It appears to have first collapsed in 2014, prompting Ecuadorian authorities to arrest founder Ernesto Reséndiz while on a promo tour.

Reported Ecuavisa in July 2014;

A new case of massive fraud is registered in Machala. The Police arrested a Mexican citizen in the capital of Ourense for allegedly being involved in a new massive scam, through the internet advertising system.

So far, there are 30 complaints from people who deposited between 250 and 410 dollars as a membership to enter the advertising business, but who have not received their payments for two months.

Separately, El Comercio reported;

The foreigner, who claims to be the director of the IBF International firm, explains to a group of people how what he calls “the largest and most lucrative capitalization system without debt ” works.

The alleged director of the company , Ernesto L., 42, was arrested last Thursday in Machala, capital of El Oro . The Police apprehended him in an office, after a group of members denounced him for the alleged failure to pay .

On July 4, the Second Court of Criminal Guarantees ordered his preventive detention for the crime of fraud.

I couldn’t find any follow up to Resendiz’s arrest.

This running a Ponzi scheme behind “debt elimination” nonsense however has been going on in Mexico since at least 2011;

As part of the tour carried out at the national level, the director of Smart Business Corp, Ernesto Reséndiz López, went to Zacatecas to present this new concept of doing business.

The way this company works, which already brings together 11,000 affiliated people nationwide, is that members come together to give each other financial support, in addition to being given training to create productive businesses.

Although the idea of ​​lending money to each other, seeking advice for training and generating profit among members is simple, he warned that putting it into practice is complicated.

The innovative project that starts from not getting into debt and has been running for a year, has transcended borders to begin to be applied in other countries, according to its creator, who was in a Fenaza room to give a conference.

Putting all of this together, we have:

1. Ernesto Resendiz launches Smart Business Corp Ponzi scheme in Mexico circa ~2010;
2. Smart Business Corp collapses, prompting Resendiz to launch IBF International;
3. IBF International expands beyond Mexico and eventually collapses in mid 2014;
4. Resendiz is arrested in Ecuador in July 2014, case goes cold following his arrest;
5. Resendiz makes his way back to Mexico at some point and launched Smart Fund Limited, a non-Ponzi trading platform;
6. Smart Fund Limited goes nowhere, prompting the relaunch of Smart Business Corp;
7. Smart Business Corp is relaunched alongside Smart Fund Limited, but only moves onto its own “smartbusinesscorp.com.mx” domain sometime in 2021; and
8. Mexican authorities appear to be asleep at the wheel on Resendiz’s various Ponzi schemes for over a decade.

The current iteration of Smart Business Corp is what we’re taking a look at today.

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

HyperPay, the payment processor attached to Hyperverse, is pretending it has nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme. [Continue reading…]

OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova has been added to Interpol’s red notice wanted list.

Ignatova is wanted by Germany, who seek to hold her responsible for “jointly committed especially serious case of fraud (and) money laundering”. [Continue reading…]

Elevate Pass appears to have collapsed.

At time of publication Elevate Pass’ website has been down for over twelve hours. Attempts to visit the site return a DNS configuration error. [Continue reading…]

Melissa Sorenson is a former Paparazzi employee.

Sorenson was terminated in January 2022. The circumstances of the termination have not been disclosed by herself or Paparazzi.

What we do know, courtesy of a chatlog exhibit, is Sorenson feels she was “wrongfully terminated”.

To that end she’s filed multiple complaints with state and federal labor regulators. [Continue reading…]

The greater the efforts Coenie Botha goes to keep his CBI Global Ponzi running, the harder his investors get screwed.

The latest is 16% deposit fees, withdrawal fees, KYC roadblocks and hard daily withdrawal limits. [Continue reading…]

You’d think Paparazzi would kinda have its hands full, what between killing consultants at company events and poisoning customers with toxic jewelry.

Not so. The company has found time to sue an ex-employee and former consultants.

Paparazzi claims the group “stole confidential and protected information” and distributed it on social media. [Continue reading…]

There doesn’t appear to be any cohesion when it comes to Mirror Trading International’s liquidation proceedings.

Back in February nobody was recovering anything except owner on paper Johann Steynberg.

Then, on the assumption Mirror Trading International would be declared an “illegal scheme” (which for some reason hadn’t happened yet despite the FSCA stating publicly MTI was an “illegal operation” in December 2020), liquidators cut MTI victims a recovery deal.

For some reason submitted claims from net-winners were part of that deal, but liquidators promised to process claims from net-losers first.

Now, out of the blue, liquidators have summoned eighteen MTI employees to court.

As a group of net-winners, liquidators are demanding the scammers hand over R4.6 billion (~$291 million USD). [Continue reading…]

Five Paparazzi customers in North Carolina have filed a class-action against the MLM company.

Central to the lawsuit are alleged misrepresentations regarding toxic metals in Paparazzi jewelry. [Continue reading…]