BULLETIN: California Asks Residents Who Bought Into WCM777 To Contact Department Of Business Oversight ‘Immediately’; State Says Thousands Of Locals Bought Into Scam

BULLETIN: (UPDATED 6:38 P.M. ET U.S.A.) The state of California, which last month issued a Desist and Refrain order against the WCM777 MLM “program” and called it an “investment scam,” now is asking residents who invested in WCM777 to contact the Department of Business Oversight “immediately.”

At least 5,500 Californians plowed money into the scheme, the DBO said.

The state has ordered WCM777 to halt is operations in California.

“The California Department of Business Oversight has seen a surge of high-yield investment schemes that take advantage of social networks to market illegal investments,” said Jan Lynn Owen, commissioner of the DBO. “We encourage anyone who dealt with WCM777 to immediately contact the Department.”

Affinity fraud is part of the WCM777 mix, the state said.

“Relying on Biblical themes to lure investors, the WCM777 scheme offers securities in the form of memberships that allegedly provide purchasers with up to a 60 percent profit in 100 days,” the state said.

WCM777 now is operating as Kingdom777.

From a DBO statement (italics added):

All California investors in WCM777 are strongly encouraged to contact the Department of Business Oversight to file a formal complaint at (866) 275-2677 or online at: www.dbo.ca.gov/Consumers/consumer_services.asp. The January 8 order is available on the Department’s website at http://www.dbo.ca.gov/ENF/pdf/2014/WorldCapitalMarketInc_dr.pdf.

Named in California’s order are executives Ming Xu and Zhi Liu, and YouTube pitchman Harold Zapata, all with addresses in California  Also named are World Capital Market Inc., WCM777 Inc. and WCM777 Limited.

Police raided a WCM777 outlet in Peru last month. At least one Peruvian TV station showed snippets of Zapata’s YouTube pitch as part of its coverage of the raid. The development signals that HYIP pitchmen operating from the United States or other countries and using YouTube to help a fraud scheme go viral now may find their faces plastered on TV both locally and in faraway lands.

FINRA issued a warning on HYIP schemes that use social-media sites in 2010.