The Zeek Rewards ponzi scheme shut down by SEC is the largest
Ponzi scheme in the US ever, involving up to a million victims. While it only involved $600 Million dollars, and
Madoff and Stanford involved billions, most victims of Madoff and Stanford are rich, while victims of Zeek are mostly middle class everyman.
Such a scheme are organized into FOUR levels:
Mastermind and "cadre" -- the one who setup the whole scheme, and the inner circle that implemented it. They KNOW it's a scam, and they are out to scam people.
Core
shills -- those who who were first recruited, usually "MLM Stars / Recruiter" with established group of downlines. They know it's probably not legitimate, but they will drag the judas goats into it any way. And they have
plausible deniability, or they will pull their team out just before the endgame so they will be thanked instead of getting tarred & feathered.
(See Six types of MLMers)
Judas Goats -- goats that will "lead" sheep to slaughterhouse, and would be spared themselves, judas goats were told by core shills to recruit as many people as possible, and make plenty of money in the process. And they believe it's legitimate because core shills told them it is. They will gladly demonstrate how much money they made.
Sheeple -- the victims, 98-99% of all participants, who were convinced by the judas goats (who they trusted) to join (and sometimes, become Judas goats themselves).
In the past, Ponzi prosecution had been limited to the mastermind and cadre. The core shills were almost never charged.
