The widest reaching lawsuit against BitConnect thus far is the first Florida class-action.

Filed on January 24th, the initial class-action complaint sought to hold BitConnect, Glenn Arcaro, Nicholas “CryptoNick” Trovato, Ryan Hildreth, Trevon James and Craig Grant liable for $771,000 in BitConnect investor losses.

On January 30th an amended complaint was filed, adding Ryan Maasen and Joshua Jeppesen as defendants.

Maasen is another YouTube promoter. Joshua Jeppesen is credited as BitConnect’s Development Director.

Joshua Jeppesen played an integral role in developing and promoting the BitConnect websites.

Without his vital contributions, the BitConnect websites would not have functioned as well as they did and would not have ensnared as many victims who fell prey to Defendants’ promotion of the BitConnect Investments.

Following a similar filing in the Kentucky class-action, on February 5th a TRO was sought against each of the named defendants above. [Continue reading…]

New Level Coin provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The New Level Coin website domain (“newlevelcoin.co”) was registered on November 21st, 2017.

Ricardo Joseph is listed as the owner, through an address in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I wasn’t able to find anything further on Joseph in connection with New Level Coin or the MLM industry.

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…]

AladinCoin provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The AladinCoin website domain (“aladincoins.com”) was privately registered on March 21st, 2017.

In what appears to be an attempt to feign legitimacy, AladinCoin provide a HSBC UK “Deposit of Fund” certificate on their website.

The deposit is for $1 billion USD and was made by Taswin Tarib, an Indonesian citizen, on November 14th, 2017.

For some reason AladinCoin took it upon themselves to block out the company owner on the document.

Where things get interesting is the provided address for Aladin Coins LLC is in California.

According to a Business Entity Search with the California Secretary of State, Aladin Coins LLC is not a registered entity in California.

Getting back to the certificate itself, note the different font used for the address and non-alignment of the “Principal Owner” field:

Three other anomalies are the US spelling of “legalized”, the presence of a Homeland Security stamp on a UK deposit certificate and in the first page of the document, a purple border digitally covering the watermark:

Out of curiosity I ran both pages through ELA and perhaps not surprisingly, it indicated text areas had been digitally altered:

Although no conclusive, that was enough for me to flag the deposit certificate as highly suspicious.

On the website for Aladin Capital, Kevin Gluckstal (right) is identified as co-founder and CEO of the company.

As per Gluckstal’s Aladin Capital bio;

Kevin D. Gluckstal is experienced and knowledgeable in many fields such as: international economics, real estate, infrastructure development, renewable energy, telecommunications, oil & gas, mining of previous metals, securities and public finance.

Corporation Wiki ties Kevin Gluckstal to “Aladin Capital LLC“, which was purportedly incorporated in Florida on September 15th, 2017.

A search with Florida’s Division of Corporations confirms Aladin Capital LLC was incorporated by Kevin Gluckstal on September 15th.

The address used to incorporate Aladin Capital LLC and provided for Gluckstal actually belongs to Capital Executive Suites.

On their website Capital Executive Suites market virtual office space.

Whether Aladin Capital LLC or Kevin Gluckstal have any physical operations in the US is unclear.

I also noted an Aladin Capital LLC incorporated in Delaware, however I wasn’t able to find anything further.

In any event, Gluckstal’s Facebook profile suggests he married abroad (South East Asia by the looks of it) late last year.

At the time of publication Alexa estimate that 75% of traffic to the AladinCoin website originates out of Vietnam.

In addition to running AladinCoin, Gluckstal is also the founder and CEO of MacroTrend Capital Group.

From the MacroTrend Capital Group website;

Mr. Gluckstal has extensive knowledge of markets which include securities trading, international economics, real estate and infrastructure development, renewable/clean energy, telecom, oil and gas, precious metals mining, public securities and finance, private secondary market finance and institutional banking.

Mr. Gluckstal is CEO and Chief Investment Officer Aladin Capital AG, as well as Chief Investment Officer and General Manager of the MacroTrend Investment Fund, LP.

Gregory Lustic and Barry Manning, two MacroTrend Capital Group executives, also hold executive positions in Aladin Capital.

Whether Gluckstal has any prior MLM experience is unclear.

Read on for a full review of the AladinCoin MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

An internal investigation by Germany’s top financial regulator revealed OneCoin had received around 360 million euros into German bank accounts.

The funds were deposited and transferred through OneCoin’s international money laundering network between December 2015 to 2016.

Unfortunately by the time BaFin was in a position to seize the funds, only 29 million EUR remained in the accounts.

Nevertheless the 29 million euros were frozen and remain so pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation. [Continue reading…]

BitXGroup provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The BitXGroup website domain (“bitxgroup.trade”) was privately registered on December 23rd, 2017.

BitXGroup provide a UK incorporation number on their website, which corresponds to “BitX Group Limited”.

BitX Group Limited was incorporated on December 1st, 2017 through a residential address in London.

“Kyle Horton” is listed at the sole Director of the company, through another residential address in Hampshire.

Given that no information on Kyle Horton and BitX Group Limited exists outside of the incorporation, it’s a good bet Horton doesn’t actually exist.

UK incorporation is dirt cheap and for the most part unregulated. It is a favorite for scammers looking to incorporate dodgy companies.

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…]

Empire Coin Club provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Empire Coin Club website domain (“empirecoinclub.com”) was privately registered on July 7th, 2017.

Despite a website presented in English, the official Empire Coin Club compensation plan is written in Spanish.

This suggests that whoever is running Empire Coin Club is likely based out of Europe or South America.

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…]

While nothing has emerged from the SEC yet regarding fraudulent ICO lending Ponzi schemes, Texas is on a roll.

An emergency cease and desist order against DavorCoin marks the third enforcement order Texas has taken against ICO lending Ponzi schemes. [Continue reading…]

MartCoin launched in late 2017 and promised investors ‘a clear and specific plan for Martcoin to reach $290 by the end of Q2-2018′.

Whatever plans the ICO Ponzi scheme had have been tossed, following the official collapse of MartCoin on February 2nd. [Continue reading…]

BitsTrades provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The BitsTrades website domain (“bitstrades.com”) was first registered on July 20th, 2016.

The Wayback Machine reveals that the current BitsTrades website went live sometime after September, 2017. Prior to the latest iteration, BitsTrades was an “index trading investment” scheme.

Alexa traffic estimates for the BitsTrades website show an uptick from November, 2017, which is probably around the time the current BitsTrades website went live.

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…]

Ribbon Coin provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Ribbon Coin website domain (“ribboncoin.co”) was privately registered on November 21st, 2017.

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…]