Questra World are triggering regulatory alarm bells all across Europe, with the latest seeing the Bank of Slovakia issuing a warning. [Continue reading…]

As part of ongoing efforts to secure ill-gotten assets obtained by TelexFree co-owner Carlos Wanzeler, the DOJ sought to secure Boynton Beach and Coconut Creek properties in Florida.

The property in question is held in the name of Carlos Wanzeler’s brother Fabio and his wife Claudia. [Continue reading…]

As part of a filing pertaining to James Merrill’s restitution, the TelexFree Trustee has revealed

that the current estimate of the aggregate amount of allowed fraud victim claims is between $500 million and $700 million.

Unfortunately Merrill’s restitution order doesn’t name a specific amount, but rather consolidates his restitution with that of the Trustee’s efforts. [Continue reading…]

Despite the appearance of a grey area when it comes to MLM cryptocurrency companies and investment, I’ve maintained they’re still securities.

Be it Ponzi points like OneCoin or pump and dump altcoin scams, you’ve got affiliates investing real money on the promise or representation of a passive ROI; or in other words, the literal definition of a security.

Other than an enforcement action last month on a fraudulent bitcoin trading scheme, to date both the SEC and FTC have been quiet on regulation of the MLM cryptocurrency niche.

Following an investigative report into the “sales of digital assets by “virtual” organizations”, the SEC has concluded they are in fact securities offerings. [Continue reading…]

Crypto 7 Continents provide no information about who owns or runs the company on their website.

Marketing copy on the company’s “about us” section on their website appears to be copy and pasted from the Global Trading Club website:

Further analysis reveals the Crypto 7 Continents website to practically be a clone of Global Trading Club’s website.

Global Trading Club is a Ponzi scheme that launched in late 2016.

Global Trading Club affiliates invest $250 to $31,000 on the promise of a daily ROI for up to 475 days.

Reports of a collapse from Global Trading Club affiliates first surfaced in early May.

The Crypto 7 Continents website domain (“crypto7continents.com”) was privately registered on June 13th, 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…]

50 Cent Freedom provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The 50 Cent Freedom website domain (“50centfreedom.us”) was registered on July 10th, 2017. Sheri Vine is listed as the owner, with an address in Thailand also provided.

The admin email used to register the 50 Cent Freedom website uses the domain of “Horizon Homestay”.

Horizon Homestay offered rentable apartments in Malacca City, Malaysia.

The Facebook link on the Horizon Homestay website points to a Facebook profile by the name of “John Williams”.

John Williams claims to be from the UK but currently living in Malacca City itself.

MLM underbelly scams promoted by Williams date back to 2012 and include Our Matrix Club (pyramid recruitment), M2M Funds (cash gifting), Amazing5, (investment fraud), Quick Cycler (Ponzi scheme), Ultimate Bitcoin Builder (bitcoin cycler) and Global MoneyLine  (pyramid scheme).

The 50 Cent Freedom website uses nameservers hosted on the M2M Funds domain. This requires ownership of the M2M Funds domain to set.

Williams began promoting M2M Funds in early 2016. Following its collapse and his likely losing money in subsequent MLM underbelly scams, he’s now trying again with 50 Cent Freedom.

As far as I can tell Williams is based out of Malaysia. I did find a Sheri Vine promoting Horizon Homestay back in 2012;

However the relationship between Williams and Vine remains unclear.

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…]

On July 20th the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), Italy’s top financial regulator, issued a warning against Questra World and Atlantic Global Asset Management. [Continue reading…]

Hire a law firm to send out some extortion threats, tell your investors and sit back and watch them flood social media with claims websites all over the world are getting sued.

Turns out in the real world, a Ponzi scheme wishing to silence reporting of financial fraud is a little more complicated. [Continue reading…]

Master Coin Plus operate in the cryptocurrency MLM niche and name Thomas Armour as CEO of the company.

Armour is based out of Florida in the US. On his LinkedIn profile, Armour cites himself as an “internationally recognized keynote speaker, author, coach, sales trainer, and educator.”

Prior to Master Coin Plus Armour (right) was the President of YoCoin.

YoCoin is a pump and dump MLM altcoin launched just over a year ago.

Affiliates invested up to $2000 in YoCoin. After reaching a pump high of 33.9 cents in early July, 2016, today YoCoin’s dump value is just 0.3 cents.

Update 25th July 2017 – A former YoCoin affiliate reached out and stated they’d never heard of Thomas Armour being President of YoCoin.

I went to cite my research and couldn’t find the original reference I came across when researching this review.

Dug into it a bit more and realized Tom has been deleting any and all references to YoCoin on his social media profiles and video accounts.

LinkedIn doesn’t cache but below you can see Armour refer to himself as “President at the Greatest Currency”:

Under that position heading was a description for YoCoin, which I took as Armour claiming to be President of YoCoin.

No idea if that was a stealth position or Armour was telling porky pies, but it is what it is. /end update

On the affiliate side of things Armour has promoted Game Loot Network, Saivian and Magic 10 Maketing.

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

USI-Tech’s original business model saw the company charge affiliates €600 EUR for access to an automated forex trading platform.

USI-Tech claimed their bot had made ROIs of up to 150% annually in the past, but provided no proof of past or present trading taking place.

The problem with USI-Tech’s original model, at least as far as scamming people goes, is that euro is easily traceable.

This prompted USI-Tech’s anonymous owner(s) to relaunch as a cryptocurrency opportunity. [Continue reading…]