Paul Burks trial has concluded, with a jury finding him guilty on all four indictment counts.

He faces up to 65 years in prison and a $1 million fine. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn will sentence him at a later date.

After all those delays, all those nonsensical filings and all the weak arguments about Zeek Rewards not being a Ponzi scheme… turns out of course it is. And Paul Burks is wholly responsible. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Lara With Me website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Lara With Me website domain (“larawith.me”) was registered on the 2nd of June 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

A promotional video on the Lara With Me website is in the Russian language, strongly suggesting the Lara With Me admin is based out of Russia.

This is supported by Alexa estimating that 53.9% of traffic to the Lara With Me website originates out of Russia. Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine, is the second-largest source of traffic at 10%.

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…]

Swiss Gold Global operate in the precious metals MLM niche and are based out of Zurich, Switzerland.

The company also provides a “precious metal management” address in Dubai on their website.

Heading up Swiss Gold Global is Founder and CEO, Bill Rowell.

Bill Rowell is an Australian entrepreneur with a history of business success and a passion to expand the lives of others.

In 2008 he founded Joseph Wealth Systems a Swiss Company with the objective of putting Gold the money of Kings into the hands of Ordinary People.

Today the Company is called Royal Golden Enterprise GmbH and New Golden Life DMCC trading as Swiss Gold Global and continuing to provide global Wealth Solutions for all people.

Rowell (right) was on Joseph Wealth Systems’ Board of Directors, along with Philip Judge (President), Simon Heapes and Mike Turton (CEO).

A 2009 article from MLM The Whole Truth quotes Phillip Judge, claiming:

JWS’s [sic] is not concerned with waging, fighting and winning a monetary, legal or moral crusade with the US or any other government, but rather it maintains the clear mandate to put superior, non-confiscateable, gold ownership back into the hands of ordinary people.

Whether this was a reflection of compliance issues between government regulators and Joseph Wealth Systems or not is unclear.

In any event, Joseph Wealth Systems went on to become Younique Wealth in 2009. Rowell served as the company’s European Operations Mangaer.

Rowell seems to have gone off and done his own thing with Swiss Gold Global at some point.

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

Following a court order issued a few weeks ago, Tom Alkazin has filed his response to the FTC’s preliminary injunction request.

Alkazin was originally excluded from the preliminary injunction granted against Vemma. Last October the FTC sought clarification on the matter, which resulted in Alkazin being added to the injunction on June 30th. [Continue reading…]

Citing James Merrill’s ongoing compliance with curfew and monitoring conditions ordered back in 2014, a probation officer has requested Merrill’s monitoring be dropped. [Continue reading…]

Dorian da Silva Santos, 29, was a relatively well-known TelexFree net-winner residing in Serra Preta, a city in the eastern state of Bahia, Brazil.

Known for “changing lives”, TelexFree may certainly have changed the life of Santos.

On Tuesday Santos was found dead in a field. His hand were tied and he’d been shot multiple times in the head. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Paid Instantly Club indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Paid Instantly Club website domain (“paidinstantly.club”) was registered on the 5th of July 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

The official Paid Instantly Club Facebook group is adminned by a Facebook account bearing the name “Michael Morris”.

The Michael Morris Facebook account was only created on July 7th and is likely to be fake.

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 Royalty Crowdfunding website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Royalty Crowdfunding website domain (“royaltycrowdfunding.org”) was registered on the 15th of June 2016. “Royalty Crowdfunding” is listed as the owner, with an address in Manila, Philippines also provided.

Further research reveals the email address used to register the Royalty Crowdfunding domain belongs to Edwin Ramos.

On the 28th of June, Ramos published a Royalty Crowdfunding marketing pitch on his Facebook wall. The affiliate referral code used was “royaltyadmin”.

Edwin Ramos (right) first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar as the owner of Blessing4All in 2014.

Blessing4All was a matrix cycler pyramid scheme. It collapsed shortly after launch.

Recent scams marketed by Ramos include the Ponzi schemes iGems2Gold and Global InterGold (formally EmGoldex).

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

This is starting to get a bit predictable.

On July 13th Troy Barnes filed yet another Motion to Continue Docket Call, again requesting more time to go over discovery. [Continue reading…]

The evidence part of Paul Burks’ criminal trial appears to be over, with a Motion for an Acquittal filed by Burks on July 19th.

Burks is seeking an acquittal on count four of his indictment (tax fraud), after a Motion to Dismiss the count was denied last month. [Continue reading…]