As one of BitConnect’s top promoters, Ryan Maasen profited handsomely by investing in and convincing others to invest in the BitConnect Ponzi scheme.

As I understand it, Maasen boasted about paying off his house and buying a new car as a result of his BitConnect promotional efforts.

When BitConnect collapsed, Maasen was one of the first to set about systematically wipe all content he’d published about BitConnect on the internet.

He then proceeded to begin pitching DavorCoin, a BitConnect Ponzi clone, to his viewers.

That didn’t go down well and Maasen soon found himself at the center of a rage shitstorm.

Maasen’s victims are out for blood and as a result of his promotional efforts, Maasen is a named defendant in two proposed class-action lawsuits.

Whether Maasen’s swift deletion of BitConnect content is an admission of guilt is debatable. But it’s a bona fide fact that Maasen personally convinced a ton of people to invest in BitConnect.

Since his naming as a defendant, Maasen’s social media profiles and YouTube channel went dark.

That was the case up until a few hours ago, wherein Maasen uploaded a video titled “I am Ryan Maasen”.

In it Maasen attempts to defend his profiting off other’s misery by claiming he’s a “child of god”. [Continue reading…]

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

The Bitconcent website domain (“bitconcent.co”) was privately registered on September 24th, 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…]

With the lies about their working with US regulators exposed, USI-Tech management have switched focus to announcing their next moves on a “need to know” basis”.

That is to say unless you’re a gullible dumbass who still believes USI-Tech hasn’t collapsed, management don’t want you knowing what they’re up to. [Continue reading…]

BTC Global Team launched in late 2017 and quickly rose to be one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in South Africa.

As I write this Alexa have BTC Global Team pegged in the top 1000 visited sites in South Africa, with the country making up 87% of traffic to the BTC Global Team website.

On the business side of things, BTC Global Team solicited investment on the promise of a 14% weekly ROI.

Payments were made in bitcoin up until a few days ago, with it now appearing that BTC Global Team has collapsed. [Continue reading…]

Stepium provide no information about who owns or runs the company on their website.

The Stepium website domain (“stepiumusa.com”) was privately registered on October 21st, 2017.

A marketing video on the Stepium website states the company is a “high-tech American-based international project”.

This appears to be baloney, with Stepium only creating the illusion of being a US company.

Facts supporting this include:

• Russian and English being the only provided languages on the Stepium website
• Stepium’s social media profiles are written in Russian
• Russian marketing videos featured on the Stepium YouTube channel
• Alexa tracking Russia as the only significant source of traffic to the Stepium website

Oh and the voice-over for Stepium’s English marketing videos were purchased through a Fivver gig.

It is far more likely that whoever is actually running Stepium is based out Europe over the US.

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…]

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

The LendexCoin website domain (“lendexcoin.co”) was privately registered on November 9th, 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…]

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…]