Following the announcement of a TRO granted against Charles Scoville and his Traffic Monsoon Ponzi scam, we now take a look at the details behind the granting of the TRO.

The SEC’s filed memorandum accompanying their motion for a TRO is thirty-one pages long. I’ve broken down points of interest from the filing into relevant subheadings below. [Continue reading…]

MMM Asia is an offshoot of the MMM Global Ponzi scheme. Like MMM Global, MMM Asia promises investors 100% a month ROI on bitcoin investments.

Through a centrally-managed cash gifting scheme, MMM Asia tracks newly invested funds which are used to pay off existing investors.

MMM Global ran out of newly invested funds and collapsed earlier this year. Smaller local chapters of the Ponzi scheme in South Africa and elsewhere have since also collapsed.

MMM Asia appears to be one of those chapters, with police in Bengal receiving recently filed complaints from investors. [Continue reading…]

Traffic Monsoon was a HYIP that promised affiliates a $55 ROI on a $50 investment. Traffic Monsoon investors were also paid to recruit new investors.

Launched by Charles Scoville in 2014, Traffic Monsoon is estimated to have scammed around 145,000 investors out of $207 million dollars.

Yesterday the SEC moved to shut Traffic Monsoon down and freeze Scoville’s assets. [Continue reading…]

The battle between the FTC and Tom Alkazin continues, with the latest filing from the FTC seeing Xango dragged into the feud.

After the FTC shut down Vemma for being a pyramid scheme last year, Alkazin went on to join Xango.

Commenting on a response filing by the FTC yesterday, BehindMLM pointed out incidental similarities between Xango and Vemma’s compensation plans.

BehindMLM reviewed Xango in 2013 and identified, among other things, a focus on affiliate autoship recruitment.

The same issue was a major consideration in the FTC’s shutdown of Vemma.

In their response filing the FTC claimed that if Alkazin was not subject to a preliminary injunction, that he would engage in “deceptive income claims and pyramid marketing” with “a different (MLM) company”.

Alkazin appears to have since left Xango, however the reason for his departure is unclear.

A new motion by the FTC now asks for permission to file additional evidence against Alkazin, pertaining to his brief time at Xango. [Continue reading…]

Last week James Merrill’s probation officer recommend the current curfew and monitoring in place be removed.

Since the restrictions were imposed two years ago, Merrill has only violated his curfew once in a minor incident he accepted full responsibility for. [Continue reading…]

In an email sent out yesterday, Yevo have announced they are closing down.

“A lack of success with Yevo’s network marketing model” is the official reason for the closure. [Continue reading…]

CUF Marketers stands for “Corporate and Unique Field Marketers”. The company operates in the insurance MLM niche and is based out of Lagos, Nigeria.

CUF Marketers launched earlier this year and is headed up by its founder, Samson Adeniran.

This entrepreneur has countless years of direct sales experience, but was dissatisfied with other companies and not enough job opportunities to the common man.

He realized that the only way to find a company that will cater for the common man is to create that company.

Prior to launching CUF Marketers, Adeniran (right) was a Syntek Global affiliate.

Syntek Global primarily paid affiliates to recruit new affiliates. Marketing material from the company suggests Adeniran was a Syntek Global “top earner”.

Why and when Adeniran left Syntek Global is unclear.

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

There is no information on the Red Cloud Mine website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Red Cloud Mine website domain (“redcloudmine.com”) was registered on June 3rd 2016.

Despite this, Red Cloud Mine claim to have been in business since 2011:

We have been in business since 2011 but officially we started in full pace since 2014.

The Red Cloud Mine website itself appears to be a cheap template clone design, with the same design featuring on other websites:

Of note is the “about us” section of the template design has been left as “John Doe”.

I am John Doe, a senior advisor and administrator for an independent owned cloud mining company called Red Cloud Mine, Inc.

First of all I am a mining expert and I was a mining analyst for 13 years.

The 13 year mining claim it totally bogus, with decentralized cryptocurrencies only surfacing in 2009 (7 years ago).

Photos used to represent businessmen on the Red Cloud Mine website are stock photos belonging to Minerva Studio.

A “corporate address” on the Red Cloud Mine website is actually that of Lundin Mining.

Lundin Mining appears to be a legitimate mining company, with precious metal mining operations around the world. As far as I can tell it doesn’t have anything to do with Red Cloud Mine.

As far as the company itself goes, everything on the Red Cloud Mine website appears to be made up.

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…]

Earlier today OneCoin’s CEO appeared in a YouTube video to promote the scheme’s new €118,000 EUR investment packages.

Less than 24 hours after it was published, YouTube has removed the OneCoin video for violating their policy on ‘spam, deceptive practices and scams‘. [Continue reading…]

Following Tom Alkazin’s response to the preliminary injunction granted against him, the FTC have filed their reply.

In it regulator alleges ‘many of the arguments Alkazin‘ filed in his response are redundant, based on the courts ‘finding that Alkazin participated in both the deceptive income claims and pyramid marketing‘.

The FTC claim the granting of the injunction against Alkazin is evidence enough of this to begin with.

Nevertheless, the regulator’s reply does acknowledge “new legal discussion” raised by Alkazin in his response and seeks to address them. [Continue reading…]