Finiko founder Kirill Doronin has been denied release from custody.

At the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Doronin will remain locked up until November 28th. [Continue reading…]

Alcor Trade has received a securities fraud warning from the British Columbia Securities Commission. [Continue reading…]

Liyeplimal has received a securities fraud warning from British Columbia’s Securities Commission. [Continue reading…]

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority was the first regulator to issue HyperFund with a securities fraud warning.

In its initial March 23rd warning, the FCA put HyperFund on notice through an affiliate’s website.

Now the regulator has added HyperFund’s company homepage to its warning. [Continue reading…]

Praetorian Group International has received a securities fraud warning from the Philippine SEC. [Continue reading…]

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

Model Farming’s website domains (“modelfarming.com” and “modelfarming.life”), were privately registered on November 8th, 2020.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Model Farming provides a UK incorporation certificate for “Model Farming Limited”.

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.

On Facebook Model Farming represents it has incorporated a shell company in Kentucky:

As with the UK shell incorporation, with respect to MLM due-diligence basic incorporation in the US is meaningless.

Update 6th May 2022 – Since publication of this review Model Farming has hired a bunch of actors to play company executives.

BehindMLM first noted this in covering Model Farming’s securities fraud warning from Russia last month.

There are nine executives featured on Model Farming’s website. None of them exist outside of the company’s marketing. /end update

At the time of publication Alexa ranks the US as the top source of traffic to Model Farming’s .COM website (99.5%).

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…]

Bastion Invest provides no credible information on their website about who owns or runs the company.

On the “our staff” section of Bastion Invest’s website, random executive names are provided.

“William Hardy” appears to be running the show as Bastion Invest’s “administrator”.

On the same page is an office photo, featuring poorly photoshopped placement of Bastion Invest’s logo.

The original office belongs to Fiera Trading, a company based out of Kazan, Russia.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Bastion Invest provides UK incorporation details for Bastion Invest Limited.

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.

Probably because it represents it made-up executives from Sweden, Bastion Invest also provides a Swedish corporate address.

This address belongs an unrelated cloud networking company.

As opposed to the UK or Sweden, the use of a Russian office photo suggests Bastion Invest’s admin is based out of Russia.

Bastion Invest’s website domain (“bastion-invest.com”) was privately registered on July 12th, 2021.

Alexa currently ranks top sources of traffic to Bastion Invest’s website as Russia (49%) and Vietnam (8%).

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…]

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

ZetBull’s website domain (“zetbull.com”) was privately registered way back in May 2019.

The original version of ZetBull’s website was quite primitive:

The current version went live on or around March 2021.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, ZetBull provides UK incorporation details for ZetBull Limited.

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.

Finally ZetBull provides a marketing video on their website. The video was uploaded on June 19th and is the usual rented office production.

“Jack Pierce” is presented as a ZetBull senior manager. In the marketing video the actor playing Pierce has his likely Russian accent dubbed over.

I wasn’t able to ascertain the Pierce actor’s name. At [~0:40] into the video however another dubbed over actor appears:

“Sophie Cooper is played by Ekaterina Yakovleva, an actor from Moscow, Russia.

It follows that whoever put ZetBull together is thus also based out of Moscow, Russia.

Alexa currently ranks top sources of traffic to ZetBull’s website as Egypt (21%), Saudi Arabia (14%) and Russia (11%).

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…]

Mag Markets provides no information on their website about who owns or runs the company.

Mag Markets’ website domain (“magmarkets.com”) was privately registered in December 2020.

Mag Markets’ domain was registered through a German registrar. The company’s website also has native German language elements:

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Mag Markets claims its “regulated by the FSC”.

The company follows the regulated laws highlighted by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).

MAGMarkets is operating under the legal umbrella of Geomatrix Ltd, which is audited by BDO and under the €20000 Financial Commission’s Compensation Fund.

Geomatrix Ltd is a shell company incorporated in the Cook Islands. Mag Markets appears to have obtained a financial license in the Cook Islands through Geomatrix.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, this is meaningless. Mag Markets has no business operations in the Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands is one of those tiny South Pacific nations scammers love to incorporate in, primarily because there’s little to no active MLM regulation.

MLM companies incorporating shell companies to launder money through is a due-diligence red flag.

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…]

Solar Group is an investment themed MLM company based out of Russia.

Solar Group also goes by “Duyunov’s Motors”, referencing its founder Dmitry Duyunov.

As far as I can tell Duyunov doesn’t have a digital footprint prior to Solar Group surfacing in 2019. He appears to be a random Russian citizen leading the company.

Whether that’s just on paper (puppet owner) or in actuality is unclear.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Solar Group claims to be incorporated in Vanuatu as Solar Group LTD.

The bar to register a shell company in Vanuatu is low. There is also no active regulation of MLM related fraud.

Unless it is actually operating out the country, any MLM company representing it is incorporated in Vanuatu raises a red flag.

A “front office” address in Moscow is provided on Solar Group’s website. Punching the address into Google suggests it belongs to a hotel.

Solar Group operates from the domains “solar.group” and “solargroup.pro”. These are the domains known to me, there are probably others.

Alexa traffic estimates reveal the majority of visitors to Solar Group’s website are from Russia and Vietnam.

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