Although it has likely been eclipsed by some of the scams currently doing the rounds, the SEC’s 2014 bust of TelexFree was at the time easily the biggest ever seen.

With three billion dollars purportedly pumped into the scheme by over a million affiliates, the size of TelexFree alone meant piecing together the fraud from a forensic standpoint post significant challenges.

Not helping was the fact that 80% of TelexFree investors were based outside of the US, and that many of them didn’t speak English.

Also not helping was a popular “scam within a scam” ruse run by top investors, wherein they’d directly solicit new investment on behalf of the company in exchange for backoffice credits (pins) they’d amassed.

Despite these significant challenges, as of September 28th the TelexFree Trustee’s team has processed 132,001 affiliate claims.

With the deadline for victim claims long passed, the Trustee is now looking to resolve disallowed claims and close the victim claim portal. [Continue reading…]

MLM companies attached to robotic trading software make little sense.

If you owned robotic trading software capable of generating legitimate and consistent returns year in year out, why would you share it?

The normal thing to do would be to feed it seed money, let it do its thing and reap the profits.

Opening your golden goose to the public in such a competitive environment makes little sense.

A good example of this is the collapsed MLM opportunity Cool Trader Pro. [Continue reading…]

Back in January Cleber Rocha, an accomplice of TelexFree owner Carlos Wanzeler, was caught trying to launder over twenty million dollars in stolen investor funds.

An indictment on two counts of money laundering followed in March, which Rocha initially plead not guilty to.

As of June Rocha was still contesting the indictment, however earlier this month it was revealed Rocha intended to change his plea.

On October 19th a hearing was held, during which Rocha officially plead guilty to two counts of money laundering. [Continue reading…]

Back in July it was revealed the Norwegian Gaming Board had reopened its pyramid scheme investigation into Lyoness.

The investigation was reopened following a continued stream of complaints from the public, which prompted the Gaming Board to contact Lyoness in April.

The Gaming Board sought to have Lyoness address concerns it was running a pyramid scheme in Norway.

Lyoness’ response was filed in late May but failed to satisfy the regulator.

In July the Gaming Board requested “further information” from Lyoness, and that’s when we became aware of the renewed investigation.

In a letter dated October 6th, the Gaming Board has provided updates on their investigation since July. [Continue reading…]

While gullible USFIA investors were lead to believe they were investing in GemCoin points backed by valuable amber, on the back-end Steve Chen was siphoning off millions of dollars to enrich himself and his family.

One recipient of stolen USFIA investor funds was Wei He, Chen’s ex-wife.

The USFIA Receiver alleges He received over five million dollars of invested USFIA funds is seeking full recovery. [Continue reading…]

Terri Ann Petty first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar last year, as admin of the Phoenix Power Rising cycler Ponzi.

Following complaints from her investors, authorities in Ventura County launched an investigation.

Petty was subsequently arrested for securities fraud on August 31st. [Continue reading…]

#1 Goldmine operates in the advertising MLM niche and identifies Maryanne Myers as owner of the company.

On the #1 Goldmine website, Myers claims to have history with websites going back twenty years.

I’ve owned websites since 1998 and will be my 20th anniversary when 2018 rolls in.

I’ve always done this under my own name in conjunction with the names of: Webstars2000 (Previous, it was outdated name), Webstars2K (CURRENT) or Webstars International LLC (Previous, an LLC was not needed).

Other than Pangea, Myers (right) appears to have launched and primarily been involved in low-key “get paid to” opportunities.

There’s a relevant thread on RealScam that has been tracking Myers since 2012.

According to Myers’ Facebook profile she’s based out of the US state of Indiana. This is also presumably where #1 Goldmine is being operated from.

Read on for a full review of the #1 Goldmine MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Genusity operate in the marketing MLM niche and are based out of North Carolina in the US.

A marketing video on the Genusity website reveals Randy Thomas and Tim Sebert are co-founders of the company.

In the video Sebert claims he’s

been in the network marketing industry now going on forty-one years this October.

Randy Thomas claims he’s been ‘in the network marketing industry for over twenty-six years‘.

The most prominent MLM companies they’ve been affiliates of appear to be Skinny Body Care and before that, Global Domains International.

In 2015 Sebert and Thomas signed up as HopRocket affiliates. In 2016 they launched the 10x Recruiter pyramid scheme.

Today the 10x Recruiter website is still online, however Alexa traffic estimates for the site suggest it has long since collapsed.

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

Prime Meridian Enterprises provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Prime Meridian Enterprises website domain (“pme.co.za”) was registered on September 8th, 2007. “WA Networks” is listed as the owner, with an address in Gauteng, South Africa also provided.

On their website Prime Meridian Enterprises advise the company is “an authorised Financial Services Provider”.

A search of the provided FSP registration number reveals a local address in Bryanston and two “key individuals”; Dane Matthews and Daryl Mulder.

I wasn’t able to find any additional information on these individuals.

Update 17th October 2017 – I was double checking some background information and discovered this in Brendan Benfield’s DuePoint corporate bio;

He is also the co-founder of Prime Meridian Direct and Prime Meridian Enterprises and has over a decade of experience in teh direct marketing of financial services.

DuePoint is a South African MLM company that markets financial insurance and eCommerce subscriptions.

In a 2015 YouTube video, Benfield claimed he was excited about offering tv over the internet at no cost.

Whether that idea went anywhere is unclear. I wasn’t able to find any MLM related information on Benfield outside of DuePoint and Prime Meridian Enterprises. /end update

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…]

10xBitcoin provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The 10xBitcoin website domain (“10xbitcoin.com”) was privately registered on January 27th, 2017.

Marketing images on the 10xBitcoin website state the company is “a division of Deep Profit Streams”.

Further research reveals Thomas Riley (right) crediting himself as CEO of Deep Profit Streams.

Deep Profit Streams appears to have launched in 2016 and describes itself as a “revenue sharing” company.

In the MLM underbelly, revenue sharing is code for Ponzi scheme.

According to an October 7th post on the official Deep Profit Streams Facebook page, 10xBitcoin came about after the SEC shut down the Traffic Monsoon Ponzi scheme.

There are a lot of people, who doubted us. Those of you who came aboard with us last year at the beginning, are going to be well rewarded.

But I want to make it clear, so that no one gets the wrong impression…Our revenue sharing program, software, and ads network is still there, robust and able to handle millions of clicks & ad requests DAILY.

Last year as you know, we brought on and got our Founders Mbr leaders in place, and while we allowed our members to introduce others, we did not put our ads network out into public traffic exchanges etc, because the second Software System was being integrated.

Before that was done, the main & strongest company in the entire revenue sharing industry, Traffic Monsoon, was taken down and into a pivotal lawsuit by the SEC, which because we are based in the United States, caused us to pause, wait for, and look closely at the outcome of that legal battle as to how we could work with our legal team to structure our revenue sharing products & compensation program in a way that would not be a problem with the SEC.

After Traffic Monsoon was shutdown it appears Deep Profit Streams ground to a halt. 10xBitcoin appears to be their attempt to relaunch their revenue sharing Ponzi scheme, this time round using cryptocurrency.

Thomas Riley’s involvement in the MLM underbelly prior to Deep Profit Streams is unknown. He appears to spend a lot of his time publishing religious themed content on Facebook.

Read on for a full review of the 10xBitcoin MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]