Nigeria has a Securities and Exchange Commission? Who knew?

Following the collapse of MMM Global, local chapters of the Ponzi scheme have been sweeping across Africa.

The South African and Zimbabwean chapters have already collapsed, however Nigeria is still chugging along.

In an effort to combat an “aggressive online media campaign” promoting the scam, the Nigerian SEC has issued a warning against MMM Global investment. [Continue reading…]

Eden Life Club operate in the cryptocurrency MLM niche and on their website claim to be headquartered out of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

Curiously, Eden Life Club provide a corporate address in Hong Kong in the footer of their website. No explanation is provided.

Heading up Eden Life Club is CEO ReyHew Yik Choong (right).

Possibly due to language barriers, I was unable to put together an MLM history on Choong.

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

There is no information on the Mr. Movie Time Box website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Mr. Movie Time Box website domain (“mrmovietimebox.com”) was registered on the 16th of July, 2016.

Douglas Saferite is listed as the owner, with a residential address in the US state of North Dakota also provided.

Whether Mr. Movie Time Box is actually run out of North Dakota is unclear. Two corporate addresses in Texas and California are provided on the Mr. Movie Time Box website.

The Mr. Movie Time Box Terms and Conditions state the company is ‘a division of D & G Marketing‘.

This Agreement shall be governed, construed, and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict of laws rules.

Douglas Saferite (or his father) has a history of involvement with HYIP schemes dating back to 2005.

In 2012 Saferite was credited as the programmer for The Mobius Loop, a now defunct $10 a pop recruitment scheme.

Read on for a full review of the Mr. Movie Time Box MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Today’s slice of life in the MLM underbelly is brought to you by Pearse Donnelly.

Donnelly is the admin behind MoBrabus, an adpack Ponzi scheme launched early last year.

When MoBrabus began to slow down a few months ago, Traffic Powerline was announced.

Instead of adpacks, Traffic Powerline’s investments are attached to “traffic packs”. The flow of funds within Traffic Powerline however is the same: new affiliates invest and those funds are used to pay off existing investors.

Symptomatic of Traffic Powerline’s launch perhaps not going as well as envisioned, last night I received an email from Donnelly himself. [Continue reading…]

The Eagle Aurum website identifies Alejandro R. Argilla as CEO and President of the company.

No corporate address is provided on the Eagle Aurum website, however the company appears to be based out of Spain.

Update October 5th 2016 – Eagle Aurum Team now provide an address in Valencia, Spain on their website. /end update

The Eagle Aurum website domain was registered on the 15th of June, 2016. Eagle Aurum Company is listed as the owner, with an address in Valencia, Spain also provided.

On Alejandro Argilla’s Facebook profile an affiliate link for SwissGolden appears:

Under the guise of selling gold, SwissGolden was a matrix Ponzi cycler launched in 2014.

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

Crypto 888 Club launched back in April, 2015 and promised investors monthly returns on deposits of up to €10,000 EUR.

Recruitment of new Crypto 888 Club affiliates dropped off in early 2016, prompting a reboot as Octa Partners.

Six months later  Octa Partners is in shambles, with the scheme once again gearing up to reboot as Nano Club. [Continue reading…]

Econet Wireless is the largest mobile network operator, second largest company by market capitalisation, and one of the largest employers in Zimbabwe.

For local MMM Global investors EcoCash, Econet’s payment processor platform, is ‘the primary way for people to deposit into‘ the Ponzi scheme.

While that itself isn’t significant (plenty of legitimate payment processors unknowingly get caught up in the MLM underbelly), what’s remarkable is Econet’s response to being called out on facilitating fraud. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the BitKingdom website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The BitKingdom website domain (“bitkingdom.org”) was registered on the 14th of August 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

Marketing videos featured on the BitKingdom website are hosted on a YouTube account bearing the name “Arsyan Ismail”.

On his LinkedIn profile, Ismail (right) lists his location as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

At the time of publication Alexa estimate that 39.6% of traffic to the BitKingdom website also originates out of Malaysia. Vietnam is the second-largest source of traffic at 20%.

Update 10th September 2016 – Arsyan Ismail has been in contact to advise he is not running BitKingdom.

As per an email sent on September 9th;

I am not the man behind this scheme, im just a contractor who help design the website. Im hosting the youtube on my account because the client dont have an account. I will create an account for them soon to host the youtube videos.

I work in Kuala Lumpur as a web developer on a startup company and we design the website for them as a client.

When asked who his client was, Ismail replied:

I have non-disclosure agreement with the client. I can only confirm or deny who is my client.

/end update

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

Tecademics operate in the online marketing MLM niche. On the Tecademics website only a UPS Store address in the US state of Arizona is provided.

Heading up Tecademics is Founder and CEO, Chris Record.

Prior to launching Tecademics, Record (right) was an affiliate with Empower Network. Record is also quite active in non-MLM affiliate marketing.

In a video promoting Dark Post Profits, a non-MLM marketing opportunity, Record claims to have first gotten involved in MLM back in 1998.

Record describes his initial attempt at MLM as a his “first big failure”.

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

Last we checked in on the SEC’s case against Wings Network, parent company Tropikgadget was ordered to pay disgorgement of $25,213,990, prejudgment interest of $961,742, and a third-tier civil penalty of $725,000.

On August 31st a Massachusetts Federal Court entered final judgements against Wings Network management and two top affiliates. [Continue reading…]