Bulgarian authorities have taken the extraordinary step of disowning OneCoin Ponzi founder Ruja Ignatova.

Ignatova, who was born in Bulgaria, held dual Bulgarian-German citizenship.

In an April 18th press-release, Bulgaria’s Ministry of the Interior declared Ignatova has been “released from Bulgarian citizenship.” [Continue reading…]

The Quwiex Ponzi scheme has collapsed.

Following disabling of withdrawals over a week ago, Quwiex told investors they would be resumed on April 18th.

Instead of that happening, Quwiex disabled its website and it’s now been down for two days. [Continue reading…]

Neumi (“new me”), operates in the nutritional supplement MLM niche.

The company is based out of Utah and headed up by Steven K. Scott.

On his personal website, Scott (right) describes himself as “a best selling Christian author & billion-dollar business builder.”

Steve’s blessed entrepreneurship journey has funded his ministry.

His latest project is called “Neumi” and he refers to it as the biggest health breakthrough he’s ever seen.

Scott appeared on BehindMLM in 2013, as co-founder of Max International.

At the time Scott was Max International’s sole remaining co-founder. Citing “drama at Max International and the integrity issues raised by top leaders”, BusinessForHome noted Scott left Max International in August 2019.

I did go looking for specifics but couldn’t find any. What I did find was Swish30, a glutathione supplement sold by Biotech Nutritional Sciences.

BNS doesn’t appear to have a standalone website. Swish30 has a website up, on which it states BNS was “founded in 2018 by Steven K. Scott.”

As per Swish30’s website, the supplement only appears to be available to wholesalers.

Reading between the lines, it appears Neumi’s 2021 launch was the combination of BNS, Swish30 and MLM under new branding.

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

The Traffic Monsoon Receivership has flagged work starting on a “plan of distribution”.

The announcement follows resolution of a significant percentage of investor claims. [Continue reading…]

Authorities in India have launched a pyramid fraud investigation into Amway.

The preliminary stage of the investigation has seen ₹ 757 crore in assets frozen ($99.1 million USD). [Continue reading…]

The DOJ has filed for permission to notify OneCoin victims of upcoming criminal proceedings. [Continue reading…]

Paymoney’s website provides no ownership or corporate information.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Paymoney provides UK incorporation details for Paymoney Digital LTD.

An MLM company operating or claiming to operate out of the UK is a red flag.

UK incorporation is dirt cheap and effectively unregulated. On top of that the FCA, the UK’s top financial regulator, do not actively regulate MLM related securities fraud.

As a result the UK is a favored jurisdiction for scammers looking to incorporate, operate and promote fraudulent companies.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, incorporation in the UK or registration with the FCA is meaningless.

At time of publication Alexa cites Thailand as the only notable source of traffic to Paymoney’s website (57%).

Paymoney’s current website domain (“paymoney.digital”), was privately registered in July 2021.

The company launched using “paymoney.io”, believed to have been acquired in November 2021. Why Paymoney’s .IO domain was abandoned is not clear.

Paymoney does have an official YouTube channel. The company’s marketing videos however are voice dubs set to stock footage.

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…]

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

Supposedly Attiora is headed by founder and CEO “Josef Moravec”:

Moravec has an English accent. He doesn’t exist outside of Attiora marketing, making him a prime Boris CEO candidate.

Attiora represents they are based out of Sydney, Australia. To that end Attiora marketing videos are represented as being shot on site “inside the Zenith Tower”.

There is a Zenith Tower in Sydney, however that’s not the building’s logo or what the foyer looks like.

Also as the actor playing Moravec walks to the building’s elevators, we pass this signage:

While I can’t quite make out the language (the camera sign comes up clearer on YouTube), it definitely isn’t English.

Then there’s this paragraph on Attiora’s website;

The last are especially interesting to us due to the fact that it was the Czech Business Angels Fund, headed by Zdenek Moravec, who is the father of CEO Attiora.

There is a Zdenek Moravec from the Czech Republic. He’s a well-known astronomer and astrophysicist.

As per videos uploaded to Attiora’s official YouTube channel last July, here’s their cartoonish caricature:

This is peak Boris CEO.

In an attempt to bolster the “we’re based out of Australia” charade, Attiora provides basic incorporation and ASIC certificates for Attiora Holding Pty Ltd.

ASIC are known for non-regulation of MLM fraud. Furthermore anyone can register a company with ASIC using whatever bogus details, there is no verification.

For this reason ASIC registration is favored by scammers residing outside of Australia.

With respect to MLM due-diligence, ASIC registration certificate as proof of legitimacy is therefore meaningless.

Needless to say Attiora is not based out of Australia and its actor executives don’t actually exist.

I wasn’t able to identify the “Z” building Attiora used in their video for the outside footage, but inside was shot in Estonia.

Update 19th April 2022 – A reader in the comments below has located Attiora’s Zenith Tower as “Zenith Arimaja” in Estonia:

You can verify this yourself over at the developer’s website. /end update

Amid the temporary Attiora signage, we have a sign for Paxful in the background.

It reads “Be a hero. Build for people. Stay connected to the streets.”

Amusingly, Attiora tried to hide Paxful’s branding a few moments later:

Just a few moments later again, a quote from Paxful founder Ray Youssef is in shot:

Paxful are an unrelated crypto exchange, headquartered in New York.

Paxful also has an office in Estonia which, courtesy of GlassDoor, looks like this:

I’ve highlighted the same orange storage cabinet/seat with a green arrow in the Attiora shot above.

One last thing, Australia uses three prong power plugs. Estonia uses a circular two-prong plug, which you can see in this shot:

Again, when it was perhaps a little too obvious, Attiora hid visible power plugs in their video:

Conclusion: The space Attiora rented for their shoot is in the same building as Paxful’s Estonian office.

Boris CEO schemes are typically the work of Russians and/or Ukrainian scammers. Estonia borders Russia to the west.

Attiora’s website domain (“attiora.com”), was privately registered on April 20th, 2021.

Alexa currently ranks top sources of traffic to Attiora’s website as Venezeula (18%), Burkina Faso (16%) and Algeria (10%).

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…]

Our Gas Club’s website doesn’t directly provide company ownership or executive information.

For that you have to specifically visit the “webinars” section, wherein it is disclosed Troy Mason is President and CEO of the company.

BehindMLM first came across Mason back in 2013 with Gas Club of America.

Gas Club of America was a simple matrix-based pyramid scheme, combined with penny auctions.

Penny auctions were a thing at the time, mostly owing to success of the by then shutdown Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme.

Other MLM companies launched by Troy Mason include Zlicense (2015) and ZBlackCard (2018).

As recounted by Mason in an April 8th 2022 Our Gas Club corporate webinar;

I saw a trend, okay, that I’d seen before, okay.

And so I want to make this perfectly clear to you guys. When I saw this trend started to happen, it was something that was happening back in 2008 I think it was, in which I noticed that kinda the gas prices were starting to creep up.

I watched it for a minute and I sad, “Waitaminute, hold on. This is getting ready to repeat 2008.”

And so we started preparing back over four months ago, for what’s happening right now today.

Our Gas Club’s website domain was registered on March 2nd, 2022.

Figuring there was a high probability Mason had launched other gas schemes between 2008 and 2022, I ran a search and came across Ztegrity.

Note the date of the video, November 4th 2021. This loosely fits in with Mason’s “four months ago” claim above.

Here’s where things get interesting. Prior to being rebooted as the precursor for Our Gas Club, Ztegrity was a forex opportunity.

In June 2021, the CFTC sued Mason and Ztegrity for fraud.

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.

I pulled up the case docket. On June 9th the CFTC filed an emergency motion seeking an ex parte statutory restraining order.

The motion was granted on June 10th, prohibiting Mason from

withdrawing, transferring, removing dissipating, or disposing of any funds, assets or other property received in connection with (the) unlawful operation of the Forex Savings Club.

Mason was also prohibited from destroying and related Ztegrity evidence.

On July 2nd the CFTC filed for a preliminary injunction, which would supersede the already granted statutory restraining order.

A preliminary injunction was granted against Mason and Ztegrity on July 13th.

As of September 1st, a trial has been scheduled for February or March 2023. Mason filed his response to the CFTC’s lawsuit on September 23rd.

Ztegrity’s late 2021 gas offering was put together after the CFTC shut down Mason’s forex scheme.

For all intents and purposes Ztegrity’s gas offering is a reboot of Gas Club of America, and Our Gas Club is a rename/reboot of Ztegrity.

The rebranding is likely an attempt to distance public association with the CFTC’s Ztegrity fraud lawsuit.

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

The problem with ignoring Ponzi schemes, apart from inevitable widespread losses, is people running them start to believe they’re above the law.

“Scamming is an inalienable right, how dare you stop me!” That sort of thing.

We’ve seen it in South Africa with Cherie Marks and Mirror Trading International. Charles Scoville in the US took his fight for the right to Ponzi scam to the Supreme Court.

Or tried to. The Supreme Court wasn’t interested.

The latest example of Ponzi scammer outrage over regulation is Coenie Botha in Namibia. [Continue reading…]