Legend Holdings serves up quite the unverifiable company history on its website;

Legend Holdings Corporation was founded in 1984 by Liu Chuanzhi and 10 other researchers with funding from the Computing Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Starting from the IT industry, Legend Holdings has gone through the development of over three decades, and now it is a leading diversified investment holding company in China.

It builds up a unique business model of “strategic investments + financial investments” with synergy between the two-wheel-drive businesses.

Naturally no information on Liu Chuanzhi is provided. Legend Holdings Corp’s website does have a “from the Chairman” link but, rather conveniently, it’s currently broken.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences is an actual institution, but there’s no link with Liu Chaunzhi.

Liu Chuanzhi is the name of Lenovo’s founder. If I didn’t know any better I’d say whoever is behind Legend Holdings Corp has “borrowed” the name.

Supporting this is Legend Holdings Corp’s website domain (“legendholdingscorp.com”), being first registered in March 2020.

The domain registration is private and was last updated in March 2021.

Looking a little deeper into the name, it seems there’s an actual Legend Holdings operating from “legendholdings.com.cn”. This Legend Holdings is headed up by Liu Chuanzhi

Legends Holdings Corp’s website appears to be modeled after the genuine Legend Holdings website. It has nothing to do with the actual Legend Holdings or Liu Chuanzhi.

One breadcrumb I found was a Facebook page titled “Legend Holdings”. Up until February 2021 it was going by SmartWorkz.

SmartWorkz appears to be a short-lived 2019 Ponzi scheme that targeted the Philippines.

References to the SmartWorkz Ponzi scheme have been scrubbed off the internet over the past month or so.

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…]

Last month BehindMLM reviewed EzyTRX. We noted at the time that a reboot, EzyTRX II, had just been announced.

Today we revisit EzyTRX to see how the EzyTRX II reboot is going.

As opposed to a replacement, EzyTRX II was launched in tandem with EzyTRX. This is despite the original EzyTRX smart-contract having collapsed.

Of note is EzyTRX II is not promoted or even mentioned anywhere on EzyTRX’s public-facing website.

Information appears to only be made available to those who have signed up as affiliates.

Both EzyTRX and EzyTRX II are run by Nicklaus D’Cruz, who operates the companies from Singapore. [Continue reading…]

Exp Realty operates in the real-estate MLM niche. The company described itself as “the first cloud-based brokerage”.

Heading up Exp Realty is founder and CEO Glenn Sanford.

Sanford’s LinkedIn profile ties him to a number of real-estate and ecommerce ventures.

In addition to Exp Realty, Sanford (right) is Chief Strategy Officer of VirBela and CEO of eXp World Holdings.

VirBela has a platform they claim helps “move businesses forward while minimizing travel and person-to-person contact.”

Exp World Holdings claims it “develop(s) next generation Cloud-based organizations”.

Outside of Exp Realty, Glenn Sanford doesn’t appear to have any MLM experience. [Continue reading…]

Project Lantern has no website or public presence. The company is promoted in secret.

Inspired Enterprises Ltd is the marketing entity responsible for the promotion of the project and interacting with users involved with the project. The Brand name is Project Lantern.

What Project Lantern does have is an affiliate login page, which is hosted at a specific domain as per the company’s FAQ:

What URLs are associated with the company?

The URL associated with this project is inspiredenterprises.club. The log in URL for users is inspiredenterprises.club/login. The URL for the Support Team is support.iebo.club.

The three executives behind Project Lantern are Michael Faust, Chris Thomson and Azli Noor.

Michael Faust (right) is a serial promoter of Ponzi schemes.

In his Project Lantern corporate bio, this is reduced to

36 years in business, 20 years of that working online.

Has developed referral networks compromising of tens of thousands of people in 100+ countries multiple times; founded, co-owned, and managed companies, and consulted internationally.

Through his Digital Tycoons team, Ponzi schemes Faust has promoted include USI-Tech, Ormeus Global and Wenyard.

Faust also promoted SilverStar Live, a trading scam that collapsed in 2019.

Owners Hassan Mahmoud, Candace Ross-Mahmoud and David Mayer, have each been sued by the CFTC for SilverStar Live related fraud.

Prior to the CFTC crackdown, Faust threatened BusinessForHome for suggesting SilverStar Live was committing securities fraud in the US.

According to his Facebook profile Faust, originally from Australia, is hiding out in Chonburi, Thailand.

There’s a few Chris Thomsons in the MLM industry. I wasn’t able to pin down Project Lantern’s Thomson specifically.

Azli Noor is based out of Malaysia. He doesn’t appear to have any MLM experience, at least nothing he’s willing to share publicly.

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

Although it’s been on my radar, BehindMLM hasn’t covered the AMG v. FTC lawsuit as it isn’t itself an MLM related case.

That said, on April 22nd the Supreme Court handed scammers a victory. That victory has ramifications for MLM fraud related lawsuits. [Continue reading…]

While South African authorities continue to twiddle their thumbs and do nothing, liquidation proceedings against Mirror Trading International’s ringleaders continues.

The latest decision has seen provisional sequestration granted against Johann and Nerina Steynberg. [Continue reading…]

Following a successful appeal last month, the Kristijan Krstic extraditions were punted back to a Serbian High Court.

That High Court has now reaffirmed that “that all legal preconditions for extradition have now been determined”.

This means that extradition is once again on the cards, pending the outcome of another new appeal. [Continue reading…]

Universal Abundance’s website provides no information about who owns or runs the company.

Universal Abundance’s website domain (“universalabundance.co”) was first registered in October 2019. The private registration was last updated on October 9th, 2020.

Videos embedded on Universal Abundance’s website are hosted on a YouTube channel named “The Angel of Abundance”.

The channel’s first video upload was two years ago, predating Universal Abundance.

The Angel of Abundance channel belongs to Noel Strane. He originally used it to market some “Waarior” program.

That flopped, with the channel repurposed for Universal Abundance on October 15th, 2019.

Up until recently Noel Strane was representing he was based out of out of Miami, Florida.

In recent Universal Abundance marketing videos, Strane claims he’s now in Tulum, Mexico.

MLM companies Strane has promoted in the past include Nerium (now Neora) and Le-Vel.

Prior to getting into MLM Strane worked as a model.

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

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

BNB Stake’s website domain (“bnbstake.finance”) was privately registered on March 4th, 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…]

MultiplyWESA is Graham Frame’s latest attempt to pump his WESA Ponzi token.

MultiplyWESA follows an earlier pyramid scheme launch and removal of a manipulated token value guarantee.

For information on the original 50% a month Ponzi scheme, check out BehindMLM’s We Share Abundance review.

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