How Paris Hilton and celebrities made SEC, FTC, and FDA see red: possibly illegal endorsements and reviews are exploding; how to spot them and avoid them

What do actor Jamie Foxx, ex-Boxer Floyd Mayweather, rapper DJ Khaled, soccer player Luis Suarez, and hotel heiress Paris Hilton have in common?

They all endorsed an initial coin offering (ICO), either publicly or online. Jamie Foxx tweeted about anticipating Cobinhood, Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled endorsed Centra, Luis Suarez endorsed Stox. Paris Hilton tweeted that she supported ICO of Lydian. only to delete the tweet 3 weeks later.

New York Times wrote an expose on how boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper DJ Khaled endorsed an ICO called Centra, despite many questions about the head of the company and the business model. And that is when Security Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulatory body of investments in the US, started to see red.

SEC had already issued an investor bulletin in July specifically on ICOs, warning that some ICOs may be considered securities in the US, and promotion of such may violate security laws because they are not registered with the SEC.

SEC in September 2017 closed two fraudulent ICOs and alleged Maksim Zaslavskiy of fraudulently promoting two ICOs, REcoin and DRCoin, which were advertised as being backed by real estate and diamonds. SEC alleged that Zaslavskiy raised only 1/10th of the money he actually did, and never hired any experts nor purchased any diamonds or real estate as it claimed it did or will do. SEC obtained a court order to freeze all assets of companies related to these two ICOs.

SEC on November 1st issued a directive to all people, but specifically, celebrities who promote/endorse ICOs.

Any celebrity or other individual who promotes a virtual token or coin that is a security must disclose the nature, scope, and amount of compensation received in exchange for the promotion.  A failure to disclose this information is a violation of the anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws.  Persons making these endorsements may also be liable for potential violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws, for participating in an unregistered offer and sale of securities, and for acting as unregistered brokers.  

Paris Hilton seems to be the only celebrity who had walked back on his or her ICO endorsements as of 11/11/2017.

But SEC wasn't the only US Federal agency out looking for misleading and possibly illegal endorsements. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) are also clamping down on such illegal behavior that may be misleading consumers.

This looks familiar: SEC shuts down two ICOs (RECoin and DRC) for bogosity

Two days ago (September 29th, 2017) SEC shut down two companies ran by Maksim Zaslavskiy trying to promote ICOs, or initial coin offerings. Zaslavskiy claimed his cryptocurrencies are backed by Real Estate (REcoin) and Diamonds (DRC - Diamond Reserve Club/Coin). Turns out they are just bogus claims.

For those who track this sort of things, this is a virtually beat-for-beat clone of an earlier scam, Gemcoin, "backed by amber", shut down by SEC back in 2015.

Gemcoin was a fictional cryptocurrency released by USFIA based in Arcadia, California. Its head is Steve Chen (also known as Chen Li 陳力).  Chen ran 13 different entities that dabbled in MLM telecom, real estate, jewelry and gemstones, art imports, and so on, and also encouraged recruitment from inside China. In 2014, his latest scheme, American Mining 美洲礦業 collapsed in China leading to multiple arrests. American Mining also promised massive profits by investments in amber.

Steve Chen's final scheme, Gemcoin, is aimed at overseas Chinese ex-pats. It is supposedly a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin but backed by amber. It also claimed amber is very valuable and USFIA has exclusive mining rights and jewelry factory in the Dominican Republic. It had the backing of several local celebrities, including former mayor of Arcadia John Wuo. Steve Chen and his second, Leonard Johnson, ran investment seminars in multiple Chinatowns across North America, sometimes even dressing up his security guard, John Zhang, as a "jewelry appraiser".

When SEC finally shut down USFIA/Gemcoin in 2015, the scheme had taken in over 30 million dollars. John Wuo, who had endorsed Gemcoin, quickly resigned as city councilman "due to health reasons".  And the truth started coming out... The receiver who took over the company said there are no gem grade amber in storage, just regular 'souvenir' grade stuff. And the alleged contract for the mine doesn't exist either. It was all one huge hoax scam. 

When you go through the history of REcoin and DRC, you will find a familiar albeit accelerated pattern.

Two Ponzi Scammers Got Their Prison Sentences Handed Down...

Two ponzi scammers got their prison sentences handed down recently in early 2017.

Paul Burks, who was the head of the $939 million Zeek Rewards ponzi scheme with over 1 million victims around the world, got 14 years in a Federal prison, in addition to fines of $244 million in restitution (which he can't pay as he already gave up all his possessions) and 3 years probation. Given that Burks is already 70 years old and is believed to be not in the best of health, he may spend his final days in prison.

Two other top heads of the scheme, Daniel Olivarez (computer guru) and Dawn Wright-Olivares (VP of Operations and spokesperson) have been sentenced previously to lesser terms for their contributory roles in the scam that was shut down in 2012 by SEC and Secret Service. It was believed they were fined and have to give up their residence. There was no word on what happened to a restaurant Dawn allegedly operated, or what happened to her job at a different MLM company called iWowwe.

MLM Skeptic had been tracking Zeek Rewards for over a year before it was shut down and published several articles explaining how Zeek Rewards cannot be legitimate. Indeed, in the final days of their scam they tried to gag me with a "takedown request" to my content host by claiming MLMSkeptic had violated their trademark when it was quickly realized that the alleged trademarks was not even owned by them! Must be really desperate over there in their final days, as only a few weeks later when SEC and Secret Service stepped in.

In other news, co-leader of a smaller ponzi known as "The Achieve Community", Kristine Johnson, was sentenced to 21 months in Federal Prison. TAC, which is peanuts compared to Zeek, was shutdown in 2015 by SEC. It was a pretty simple Ponzi scheme that didn't bother to polish itself by hiring celebrity lawyers and experts and pretending to be legitimate. They mainly stuck to Facebook and such, by claiming "triple algorithm" that can multiply money... What utter nonsense.

MLM Skeptic had not been tracking TAC but it was identified early on by Oz of BehindMLM as a simple cycler ponzi scheme.

What do these two scams have in common? It's actually quite simple..

GREED.