Back in March Paul Burks demanded the government provide him with a bill of particulars and additional information pertaining to the DOJ’s criminal case against him.

A bill of particulars is provided “to enable a defendant to obtain sufficient information on the nature of the charge against him so that he may prepare for trial, minimize the danger of surprise at trial, and enable him to plead his acquittal or conviction in bar of another prosecution for the same offenses.

What a bill of particulars is not to be used for however, is to ‘provide detailed disclosure of the government’s evidence in advance of trial‘.

And so the stage was set for a showdown between the DOJ and Burks.

Did Burks actually need a bill of particulars, or was he just fishing for information about the government’s case with the intent of further delay his upcoming trial? [Continue reading…]

So weak was Faith Sloan’s case for requesting a carve-out of $30,800 in suspected stolen Ponzi funds, that the Judge signing the order didn’t even bother to provide a reason for its denial.

On May 17th Judge Gorton denied Sloan’s second carve-out request with a scribbled “motion denied”, dated and signed. [Continue reading…]

In mid 2014 Phil Ming Xu was permanently restrained from committing further violations of the Securities Exchange Act.

The sentence was handed down following an SEC investigation into WCM777, a Ponzi scheme founded by Xu in 2013.

The 2014 sentencing stipulated that Xu would be required to ‘pay disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest thereon, and a civil penalty’. 

That was almost two years ago but to date no further action has been taken by the SEC and so thus far Xu hasn’t had to pay back anything.

The SEC’s investigation into Xu is believed to be ongoing. One possible explanation for the length of the investigation is Xu’s connections with China.

China is notorious for non-cooperation with international regulatory investigations, however that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of carrying out their own.

Less than twenty-four hours ago it was announced that a man with the surname Xu was arrested in Beijing.

The Ponzi scheme Xu was purportedly scamming Chinese citizens through?

World Capital Market. [Continue reading…]

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

The AirBit Club website domain (“bitbackoffice.com”) was registered on the 27th of September 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

I have read claims that Renato Rodriguez (of ViziNova Ponzi fame) is involved in AirBit Club, but I was unable to independently verify this information.

One anomaly worth pointing out is that Alexa currently estimate that 45% of all traffic to the AirBit Club website originates out of South Korea.

Traffic itself seems to have picked up around mid February, however given the majority of AirBit Club marketing material is in Portuguese and Spanish, South Korea being the largest source of traffic is certainly strange.

Update 17th May 2016 – An AirBit Club Philippines Facebook post dated 31st March, 2016 identifies Gutemberg dos Santos as a co-founder of the company:

Dos Santos co-founded Vizinova with Renato Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is presumed to be the other co-founder of AirBit Club, however I’ve been unable to directly link him to the company. /end update

Update 19th May 2016 – An undated photo has surfaced which shows both Gutemberg dos Santos and Renato Rodriguez at what appears to be an Airbit Club recruitment event:

Rodriguez is manning the computers, which suggests an executive role within the company. /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…]

CommHubb, which stands for “Community Hubbub”, has no information on their website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The CommHubb website domain (“commhubb.com”) was registered on the 6th of October 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

In a CommHubb press-release published on May 11th, Vashek Mohr (full name: Vashek Mick Mohr) is identified as one of the Founders of the company.

My name is Vashek Mohr. I am 63 years old and one of 3 Founders (all American) of CommHubb.

The 3 of us will be the managing  partners for the first 2 years ONLY (until the IPO) and then we plan to retire.

Why the other two Founders of CommHubb are not disclosed is unclear. I also wasn’t able to put together an MLM history for Mohr, with his experience in the industry unknown.

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…]

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

Rather than disclose management details, Crowd Rising instead only provide the following:

Crowd Rising is a semi-automated system created by a group of 5 individuals who are funding and Founding members referred to as the 5 Horsemen.

The Crowd Rising website domain (“crowdrising.net”) was registered on the 26th of March 2016, with Gerhard Rempel listed as the owner. A residential address in Manitoba, Canada is also provided.

Rempel (right) first appeared on BehindMLM’s radar back in 2013, as co-owner of Belizers.

Belizers, now long since collapsed,  saw affiliates invest between $10 and $25 on the promise of an advertised 150% ROI.

In mid-2015 Rempel resurfaced as the admin of Fast Perpetual Cash Cyclone. Also collapsed, Fast Perpetual Cash Cyclone was an ad-credit Ponzi scheme.

Rempel purportedly launched the scam to ‘raise funds to get surgery to sow and patch up (his) nasty groin hernia‘.

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

Following the regulatory shutdown of Liberty Reserve in May, 2013, co-founder Vladmir Kats was the first executive to enter a guilty plea.

In November, 2013, Kats plead guilty to “money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business”.

Commenting on the plea at the time, Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated

Vladimir Kats, by his own admission, helped to create and operate an anonymous digital currency system that provided cybercriminals and others with the means to launder criminal proceeds on an unprecedented scale.

As a co-founder and operator of Liberty Reserve, Vladimir Kats served as a global banker for criminals, giving them an anonymous, online forum to hide the proceeds of their illegal and dangerous activities.

Kats’ sentencing hearing finally came up yesterday, with U.S. District Judge Denise Cote sentencing him to 10 years in prison. [Continue reading…]

Carrying on from our last set of updates in the Daniel Filho wire fraud case, today a report on the latest Status Conference.

A Status Report filed before the conference on May 9th reveals that discovery in the criminal matter is complete.

As previously discussed with the Court, the United States made the remaining electronic material seized pursuant to the warrants in this matter available for inspection and further offered to provide copies of the material to the defense upon provision by the defense of a computer drive with adequate storage capacity.

Prior to the last status conference, defense counsel requested a copy of that material.

On April 21, 2016, after defense counsel provided a storage device, the government gave a copy of the requested materials—which total approximately 6 terabytes of data—to the defense.

No additional discovery requests are pending.

The preceding Status Conference was held on May 12th, after during which it was ordered: [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Simply35 website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Simply35 website domain (“simply35.com”) was registered on the 25th of February 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

Of note is that the Simply35 website is hosted on the same private web-server as QuantumAdz:

QuantumAdz was a matrix cycler launched in late 2012. The admin of the scheme described it as having ‘the best of the features of JBP, Zeek and W4all’.

JustBeenPaid, Zeek Rewards and Wealth4AllTeam were all well-known MLM underbelly scams at the time.

Launched on December 26th, 2012, by February 2013 QuantumAdz had collapsed.

Read on for a full review of the Simply35 MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

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

The Divvee website domain (“divvee.social”) was registered on the 8th of December 2015, with Allen Davis listed as the owner. An address in the US state of Utah is also provided.

As per a Divvee marketing video, Allen Davis is the CEO of the company. Why this information is not provided on the Divvee website is unclear.

Davis (right) has a legal background, which is reflected in his positions within the MLM industry.

As per Davis’ LinkedIn profile, he has served as

• General Counsel, VP of Operations and Chief Compliance Officer for Neways (1997 to 2006)
• General Counsel and VP of Operations for Trivani (2006 to 2010)
• CEO of Qnique (2010 onwards)
• General Counsel and Chief Operation Officer for ForeverGreen International (2012 to 2015)
• General Counsel for TruVision Health (2015 onwards)

Davis ran his own law firm between 2011 and 2015, with Divvee his second stint as an MLM executive.

Davis’ former company Qnique (body wraps) appears to have been shut down. None of the companies’ websites were responsive at the time of publication.

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