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

The Adikas website domain (“adikas.us”) was registered on the 24th of February 2015, with an “Adika Michael” (below right) listed as the domain owner. An address in Oyo, Nigeria is also provided.

Far be it from me to comment on stereotypes, but Michael Adika’s Facebook profile reads like something you’d expect from someone in Nigeria:

7th August, 2014: Hello, I will like to help those who want to help them self now. I have a per day income software, the software pay $100 daily.

19th September, 2014: This is the Best way to earn $50 without investing, or reffering (sic). It only takes 2-3 hours to earn.

29th November, 2014: Turn $5 to $10 within 2 hours payment accepted: Payza, Ego pay, Perfert (sic) Money, Solidtrustpay.

16th December, 2014: Part Time Work For Serious People Earning Potential = $ 5000 per month. Steps 1. Get $5…

16th December, 2014: JOB VACANCY FOR PART TIMERS AND FULL TIMERS.

JOB DETAILS: Copy and paste Username and Emails

27th December, 2014: DO YOU KNOW YOU CAN EARN $500 DAILY WITH THIS THREE SYSTEM ? NO BE JOKE OO, ITS REAL.

January 19th, 2015: BEST DOUBLER PACKAGE

Turn $1.50 to $10 above Hourly

January 24th, 2015: <<<====Double your $1.50 Hourly====>>>

Let me teach you how to Double $1.50 Hourly, you only Needs $1.50 to get the software and the Set up.

February 16th, 2015: Lets Teach you to Earn $200 per Day Just with $3.

Advertisements for Adikas first appeared on Adika’s profile on the 6th of March, 2015.

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

Last month Amazon removed the popular plugin Kodi from its app store.

When combined with third-party plugins, Kodi is easily the platform of choice among stream box sellers.

Now the crackdown continues, with news of UK police raiding sellers of stream-capable piracy boxes. [Continue reading…]

At an initial appearance hearing held yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kristine Johnson formally plead guilty to one count of wire fraud.

The court accepted Johnson’s plea, with sentencing still to come. [Continue reading…]

Not too happy with being detained after posting bail in the visa fraud case against him, Sann Rodrigues has requested the court order his release. [Continue reading…]

With a July 2nd show cause deadline looming, Troy Barnes has written to the court in an attempt to explain himself.

Barnes fell foul of  the court for having thus far failed to participate in the SEC’s civil case against him.

As such a warning was issued directing Barnes to show cause by July 2nd. In his response, the court expected Barnes to explain why he was not present at a June 3rd status conference, and why he should not be held in contempt.

In a handwritten letter dated June 22nd, Barnes submitted his response. [Continue reading…]

At a bond hearing last Friday Sanderley Rodrigues coughed up $200,000 for bail.

Then, if reports out of Brazil are to be believed, on Monday Rodrigues was promptly arrested again.

Ouch… [Continue reading…]

Following a series of delays, a final preliminary hearing was held today in the Samoan uFun Club Ponzi case.

Three individuals were arrested earlier this month, who now face “at least 7 charges of obtaining by deceit” in a case before the Samoan Supreme Court.

After heavily promoting uFun Club in Samoa throughout May, funds invested by locals and businesses were marked for transfer out of Samoa. The total amount of funds Samoans have invested into uFun Club is believed to be close to a million dollars.

This caught the attention of the Central Bank of Samoa, who promptly began an investigation.

That lead to the arrest of Nicolas Giannos, Rosita Stanfield and an unidentified seventy-four year old local pastor.

The trio plead not guilty earlier today, with a hearing seeing questions about the case against them raised. [Continue reading…]

Often one of the casualties of the MLM underbelly is that of charity.

With less than legitimate business models, MLM underbelly opportunities often seek to artificially create legitimacy through charitable association.

Typically an MLM opportunity will either directly set up an organization themselves as a charity make donations to third-parties.

OneCoin is one such example, having set up the One World Foundation through which its charitable donations are made. [Continue reading…]

Whereas our recently published BehindMLM review of USFIA primarily concentrated on their business model, in this article we take a deeper look into the origins of the scheme, what management have been up to and what’s been going on with USFIA outside of the US.

There’s a lot of information to get through (sourced from readers and my own research), so let’s get right into it. [Continue reading…]

I’ve had a few requests to review USFIA over the past month or so, but have held off due to the difficulty in accessing accurate information about the company.

Following bits of pieces coming in from the various readers along with my own research, I now believe I’ve got enough to put together an accurate USFIA review.

For MLM opportunity evaluation purposes, USFIA’s website isn’t very helpful but does provide some basic background information:

USFIA INC. is founded and owned by the US China Consultation Association, specialized in gem mining and processing, headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

According to the website, USFIA stands for “US Fine Investment Arts”.

There’s no information about who’s running USFIA on their website, nor any further information about it purportedly being run out of California.

The USFIA website domain (“usfiainc.com”) was registered on the 19th of July 2013, with a “Steve Chen” of “Alliance Financial Group Inc.” listed as the owner. An address in the US state of California is also provided, which is presumably where USFIA is being operated from.

Chen appears in various marketing material pertaining both to USFIA and the US China Consultation Association.

The following image is taken from a USFIA marketing material and identifies Chen as the President of USFIA:

Alarmingly the above slide also identifies John Wuo (cited as “John Wu”), an elected government official of the City of Arcadia, California.

Wuo, identified above as the mayor of Arcadia, is an Arcadia City Council member.

John Wuo was first elected to the City Council in 2002 and has been re-elected for his third four-year term in 2012, after sitting out for the required two year “timeout” in 2010.

He has served as a Centennial Mayor for the City of Arcadia in 2003 and three full terms in 2005-2006, 2009-2010 and 2014-2015.

I believe the “centennial mayor” position is likely the cause of his misidentification in USFIA marketing material.

In any event, the slide also credits Wuo as the Honorable Chairman of the USFIA Currency Fund.

Further research reveals the USFIA Currency Fund credited with the issuing of GemCoins, a cryptocurrency attached to the USFIA business opportunity.

Whether or not there is any direct relationship between USFIA and the City of Arcadia is unclear.

As to what the US China Consultation Association (UCCA) is, according to one USFIA affiliate presentation the organization is

made (up) of Chinese and American counselors from top industry fields around the world.

The goal is to establish a high level platform to facilitate communication between China and America, politically as well as economically.

The same presentation credits Steve Chen (right) as Vice Chairman of UCCA.

For all intents and purposes, it appears Steve Chen is the owner of USFIA.

Trying to dig deeper than that is where the headaches begin.

Going through Chinese isn’t my forte, so instead for further reading I’ll direct you to a RealScam forum thread full of well put together information.

Pay particular attention to posts #17 and #18 which, based off a Chinese news report, suggest USFIA is a reload scam that has previously collapsed twice in China.

When you’re done, read on for a full review of the USFIA MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]