Profitable Sunrise Facebook Site Again Used To Drive Business To TelexFree, An Alleged Pyramid Scheme

Despite at least seven pyramid-scheme probes into TelexFree, an apparent affiliate of the MLM “program” was promoting it yesterday on Facebook — on a site once used to lead cheers for the Profitable Sunrise scheme.

A Facebook cheerleading site for Profitable Sunrise — alleged in April by the SEC to have conducted an offering fraud that may have gathered tens of millions of dollars through offshore bank accounts — again is being used to drive dollars the TelexFree scheme. The same Facebook site has been used to drive cash to multiple schemes. Some of the schemes already have disappeared, taking unknown sums with them.

“100% Guaranteed Get Paid To Post Telexfree Ads,” a post on the Profitable Sunrise site roared yesterday. There was no mention that at least seven pyramid-scheme probes into TelexFree are under way in Brazil.

The TelexFree pitch on the Profitable Sunrise Facebook site is surrounded by claims that a “conference call” has been held with a purported Profitable Sunrise “Admin” and that a new call will be held today and that some sort of good news is in the offing.

With respect to Profitable Sunrise, a post dated Aug. 21 declares that the U.S. government “Is The Crooked One.”

In 2010, FINRA said that HYIP fraud schemes were spreading though social-media sites through which pitchmen seek to sanitize the scams by making them appear to be legitimate programs.

“Whack-a-mole” also is an element in the scams: As soon as one scam is shut down, others pop up to replace it. The interconnectivity of the schemes and the willful blindness of many participants put banks and payment processors in the position of becoming warehouses for fraudulent proceeds, leading to questions about money-laundering, wire fraud and national security.

In August 2012, the SEC said the Zeek Rewards MLM scheme had gathered at least $600 million through a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme. The final haul of Profitable Sunrise, which the SEC described in April 2013 as a scheme operated by an apparent ghost, is unknown.

By some estimates, TelexFree has gathered $300 million or more. Some promoters have planted the seed that TelexFree was “authorized” by the U.S. government. The U.S. government does not authorize such schemes.

BehindMLM.com is reporting today that investigators in Brazil have established promotional links between TelexFree and BBOM, another alleged fraud scheme operating in Brazil.