The first TelexFree bankruptcy hearing in Massachusetts went down yesterday, and the end-result was swift and conclusive.

Any objections TelexFree might have had to the proceedings were swept away:

A Massachusetts bankruptcy judge on Tuesday signaled he will move quickly to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee to take control of TelexFree LLC.

Judge Melvin Hoffman of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Worcester, Mass., said that once additional paperwork is on file, he would approve the appointment of the trustee, an independent outsider who will replace the company’s current management.

And with that, Stuart MacMillan’s short stint as TelexFree’s CEO in hiding is all but over. Ditto Labriola (the rest of TelexFree management had already been dismissed or terminated from their positions by MacMillan).

I have no idea how badly MacMillan might have needed the $180,000 TelexFree dangled infront of him to accept the position, but now at the cost of his entire professional career, it hardly seems worth it.

Meanwhile TelexFree’s initial reaction to the ruling is somewhat puzzling: [Continue reading…]

Victory100 launched in mid 2013 and are based out of the US state of Texas.

On the management side of things, heading up Victory100 is CEO and President, Kevin Harding.

In his Victory100 executive bio, Harding (right) claims he ‘entered the network marketing industry after graduating with a business degree‘. That was some time back, with Harding entering Sportron International, an MLM company founded by his father, Keith Harding.

Sportron International was launched in 1992 and market a series of health and wellness products. Sportron’s primary market appears to be that of South Africa.

Kevin Harding was eventually made President of Sportron, with his father serving as CEO. In Victory100, Kevin is CEO with his father serving as Chairman. Reading between the lines, it would appear Victory1000 is Kevin Harding’s attempt to strike out on his own (whilst still maintaining his position at Sportron).

Read on for a full review of the Victory100 MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

UniverTeam launched in late 2013 and provide two corporate addresses on their website.

The primary address provided is in Balio Portugal, which appears to be where UniverTeam is being run out of. An additional address in Hong Kong is provided, however a Google search reveals multiple businesses operating out of the same address. This is typical of virtual office space, indicating that UniverTeam exists in Hong Kong only as a virtual mailing address.

Credited as the CEO and Founder of UniverTeam is Alexandre Arenales. Arenales’ past MLM experience sees him credited as an “Executive Director” in the Brazilian Ponzi scheme Multiclick (guy in the red tshirt):

When Arenales joined MultiClick is unclear, however videos of him promoting the scheme on YouTube exist that were uploaded over a year ago.

Similar to TelexFree, Multiclick was your typical “spam the internet daily” Ponzi scheme. Affiliates invested between R$600 and R$2750 per position, and under the guise of spamming the internet daily with ads for Multiclick, were promised a ROI of R$160 to R$800 a month.

After TelexFree was shutdown in June 2013 by regulators in the Brazilian state of Acre, many investors jumped ship to MultiClick. Multiclick had purportedly sucked in around 300,000 investors (most of which were from Brazil and Portugal), before regulators froze the company’s assets.

In addition to MultiClick being a Ponzi scheme, allegations of money laundering and embezzlement also surfaced, with regulators announcing that authorities in the US, Venezuela and Europe had been alerted to the company’s actions.

MultiClick challenged the freeze in court, arguing that the regulatory investigation “was a mistake”. In November the original decision was not only upheld but extended. The new freeze extended to all bank accounts and assets belonging to MultiClick and their management, and also prohibited the company from signing up new investors.

MultiClick’s offices were raided later that month, and as I understand it the case against the company continues.

How much money Alexandre Arenales had tied up in MultiClick is unclear, however the month after Brazilian regulators raided the company and shut it down, he went on to launch UniverTeam in Portugal.

I did a search for some of the other executives listed on the UniverTeam website, and not surprisingly also found them to be ex-affiliates of MultiClick. Antonio Leite for example, is listed as the CFO of UniverTeam and can be seen above with Alexandre Arenales in the MultiClick marketing video screenshot.

Here’s another Multiclick promotional video example, showing Arenales again but this time with UniverTeam’s “Venezuelan President”, Francisco Vegas:

I’d be willing to wager that most, if not all, of UniverTeam’s executive staff were involved in MultiClick directly under Arenales, or otherwise as other top Portuguese affiliate investors of the company.

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

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

The Conligus website domain (“conligus.com”) was registered on the 22nd of January 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

If one clicks the “blog” link at the top of the Conligus website, they are redirected to a page with a “read our blog” button on it.

Clicking this redirects to the “conligus.org” website domain, which appears to be used backoffice services for Conligus affiliates (you can’t do anything there unless you “sign in”).

This conligus.org domain was registered on the 23rd of January 2014 (one day after the .com), and lists a “Jonathan Camilleri” as the domain owner. An address in Malta is also provided, which matches the corporate address provided on the Conligus website.

Jonathan Camilleri’s name appears online in relation to Conligus only in conjunction with the registering of various Conligus website domain names. His relationship with the company is unclear.

Update 18th October 2014 – Jonathan Camilleri has been in touch and writes

I am no longer affiliated or connected to Conligus or its operations as I have resigned.

No clarification as to what Camilleri’s role was within the company, why he resigned or who owns Conligus was forthcoming. /end update

As always, if a 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…]

When it became evident that Carlos Wanzeler’s $1 billion dollar Ponzi empire was about to come crashing down, he instructed his wife to lie about his whereabouts and hatched his getaway plan.

Aware that fleeing directly from the US would likely attract the attention of US authorities, Wanzeler opted to slink across the US-Canada border in the dead of night. Assisted by some of his closest TelexFree investor friends, he then hid out for a few days before escaping to Brazil.

In the aftermath of the TelexFree Ponzi shutdown, Wanzeler’s partner in crime James Merrill and his wife, Katia Wanzeler, are both being detained following their respective arrests.

Merrill has been charged with wire fraud, and Wanzeler’s wife is being held until she can be produced infront of a grand jury to testify.

While they sit in jail cells, Wanzeler is living it up in Brazil. Rather than co-operate with US authorities, with TelexFree and its management repeatedly stated they would prior to the SEC shutdown, Wanzeler to date has refused to surrender any of the money US regulators have not frozen.

One particular sore point was $3 million dollars sitting in a bank account in Singapore. This, and presumably whatever else Wanzeler had stashed around the world and didn’t want to return to those he stole it from, is now being used to fund his life on the run.

Some of that money is also being used to pay a celebrity lawyer in Brazil, who has in recent days become a spokesperson for the fugitive. [Continue reading…]

One of the common questions we get after a major Ponzi scheme bust in the US is “what about affiliates overseas?”

Surprisingly, arrests have yet to be made in Brazil (the “heart” of TelexFree), with the company’s management and top affiliate investors still running about professing TelexFree’s innocence.

Over in the Dominican Republic, some initial reports came in suggesting arrests had been made, but to date nothing concrete has surfaced.

Other than that though, to the best of my knowledge, anyone involved in TelexFree outside of the US has yet to be arrested.

Making some progress on rounding up local fraudsters though is the unlikely candidate, Uganda. [Continue reading…]

MyAdvertisingPays (commonly abbreviated as “MAP”), launched in late 2013. The company was originally advertised as being based out of the US, but within a month of launch appears to have “relocated” to Anguilla.

A Google search on the provided corporate address reveals multiple businesses using the same address. This is typical of virtual office space.

As such, MyAvertisingPays’ being located in Anguilla appears to be in name only, indicating a lack of belief in the company’s business model will stand up to the regulatory scrutiny in the US.

Named as CEO and Founder of MyAdvertisingPays is Mike Deese (he also goes by “Michael Deese”). Deese is based out of the US state of Mississippi (where MyAdvertisingPays is actually run out of), and circa early 2013 was an affiliate of Rocket Cash Cycler:

Rocket Cash Cycler was a matrix-based pyramid scheme that charged participants $315 to join, and then paid them $5000 when enough new recruits had joined.

In the article “Get to know Mike”, posted on a marketing blog set up to promote Deese and MyAdvertisingPays, Deese hints that he’s been repeatedly burned by opportunities that have collapsed:

I would work so hard to create a reliable income and help others do the same, only to have the business shut down and take all of our collective hard work with it.

Deese doesn’t explicitly mention which businesses he was an affiliate of. In another blog post, titled “Why MyAdvertisingPays will Succeed Where Many Others Have Failed”, Deese demonstrates some knowledge of the Ponzi and pyramid scheme underbelly of the MLM industry, specifically referencing Zeek Rewards, Profitable Sunrise and Fortune High-Tech Marketing.

Whether or not Deese was an affiliate in any of those programs however, is unclear.

I was unable to find any mention of Deese running any other MLM companies, indicating that MyAdvertisingPays is his first attempt at running a company.

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

Despite the website domain “geteasygroup.com” being registered in October of last year, it appears GetEasy launched in earnest only a few months ago.

The company’s website domain is registered anonymously, and the company provides no specifics about who is running or owns it on their website.

Get Easy provide two purported corporate addresses on their website, one in Macau and one in Portugal.

The Macau address is that of “20/F, AIA Tower, 251A-301, Av. Comercial de Macau”, and appears to be solely virtual in nature. A Google search reveals multiple other businesses using this same address, with “The Executive Center” specifically referencing “virtual offices” on the 20th floor of the AIA Tower.

A virtual office provides your business with the corporate image and business infrastructure of a multinational company without the cost.

Your business will get a prestigious business address and a designated local phone number with a receptionist answering your calls in your company name.

As per The Executive Center’s virtual office price list, a “virtual business address” at the AIA Tower tower costs 400 MOP ($50 USD) a month, with monthly virtual office services costing between 900 to 3000 MOP ($112 to $375 USD).

I tried punching in the provided Portugese address into Google, but it failed to understand the provided syntax. In any case, practically all of GetEasy’s marketing material and online prescense is in Portugese, indicating that their precnse in Macau is entirely virtual.

Despite not mentioning anything about management or company ownership on their website, GetEasy do maintain several social media profiles. One of these is a YouTube account, with one uploaded marketing video revealing a “Tiago Fontoura” as CEO.

Why this information is not provided on GetEasy’s website is unclear.

Possibly due to language barriers, I was unable to find any information on any past activity by Fountoura in the MLM industry.

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

A new letter from Bonofa appears to have surfaced, and claims that the company might be clear of troubles in Lebanon.

Last we reported, a Bonofa executive had been arrested entering Lebanon, and a case had been filed against the company by Public Prosecutors. Case “GZ 2207/2014” was filed in early May, and is purportedly supported by 3000 pages of collected evidence.

Now, if this latest letter is to be believed, Bonofa are claiming their

legal status on the Lebanese territories is proper to its fullest extent, and no legal claims were found against it.

How odd. [Continue reading…]

A bail hearing for James Merrill, co-owner of the $1 billion dollar TelexFree Ponzi scheme, was held last Friday in Massachusetts. Taking the matter under advisement, Magistrate Judge David Hennessy made a decision yesterday to keep Merrill in custody.

Citing that ‘the Government has met their burden‘ in establishing why Merrill should not be granted bail, Judge Hennessy ordered he be ‘remanded to the custody of the US Marshals‘ until further notice.

Supporting evidence provided by the government against Merrill (right) included

• a binder containing letters from TelexFree affiliates
• phonecall logs
• a corporate profile of TelexFree Canada Inc. and
• evidence collected from the Facebook page of “TelexFree Canada”

The nature of the phonecall logs or what relevance TelexFree Canada has to the case against Merrill were not disclosed.

In related news, further information has been revealed detailing the arrest of Katia Wanzeler (TelexFree co-owner Carlos Wanzeler’s wife). [Continue reading…]