In February 2014, the PP Blog reported that TelexFree had planned a purported “international convention” in Spain in early March.
The pitch for the convention, hosted in Madrid, was voiced by Sann Rogrigues, whom the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission successfully had sued in 2006 amid allegations he was operating a pyramid scheme and engaging in affinity fraud aimed at the Brazilian community.
Rodrigues, now accused of securities fraud and a defendant in the SEC’s TelexFree civil case announced in April, reportedly was one of TelexFree’s top hucksters and had “earned” millions of dollars.
As the PP Blog reported in February (italics added):
The promo [for the Madrid convention] curiously is playing against the backdrop of an image of the Pyramids of Giza. For good measure, images of other famous world landmarks are thrown in. These include St. Basil’s Cathedral (near the Kremlin) in Moscow; Big Ben in London; The Eiffel Tower in Paris; the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty in New York; the Leaning Tower of Pisa; and the Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai.
Despite the fact TelexFree was under investigation in Brazil and almost certainly knew its days were numbered in the United States because investigators were closing in, TelexFree proceeded with the Madrid event. The confab was held under a cloud growing increasingly black. On Feb. 28, the eve of the convention, the PP Blog reported that Massachusetts securities regulators were investigating TelexFree, the first confirmation of such a probe by a regulator in the United States.
James Merrill, TelexFree’s former president, attended the Madrid event with at least two other TelexFree executives or managers: Carlos Wanzeler, now described as an international fugitive who’d engaged in a criminal wire-fraud conspiracy with Merrill, and Steve Labriola, another defendant in the SEC’s fraud case.
Here is part of what Merrill said from the stage in Madrid, as reported by the PP Blog on March 3, 2014 (italics added):
Carlos Wanzeler was up here talking about Carlos Costa . . . two of the greatest leaders that I’ve met in my life,” Merrill said. “They’re very strong. They’re courageous, and they’re fighting for you. And I want you all to know that they didn’t join my team, I joined their team. OK. They’re great leaders.”
Racketeering allegations later would surface in the United States, questioning the greatness of all three men. MLM attorney Gerald Nehra, billed as an honoree at the Madrid convention, is another defendant named in the RICO actions, which were brought as prospective class-action lawsuits by TelexFree members.
Despite the fact Nehra had been billed as a star attraction of the Madrid confab, he appears not to have shown.
Instead, Labriola, who suggested from the Madrid stage that TelexFree was suited for the impoverished people of Haiti, strolled out to accept Nehra’s award.
“I was asked to come up and receive this for Jerry,” Labriola told the crowd.
Labriola did not say who asked him to accept the award for Nehra. Precisely how long TelexFree had been operating in Spain remains unclear. But only in MLM La-La Land does the juxtaposition of the images of a recidivist securities violator-in-waiting (Rodrigues) and an MLM lawyer (Nehra) make sense in marketing materials, especially since TelexFree promoters were claiming $15,125 sent to the firm returned $57,200 in a year without the need for members to sell a single product.
Now, El Pais, Spain’s largest newspaper, is reporting that TelexFree might have fleeced 50,000 Spanish investors.
Read the El Pais story. (Use the Chrome browser for a translation from Spanish to English or another language or access Google’s translation tool here.)
NOTE: Our thanks to a longtime PP Blog reader who provided the El Pais link.
ALSO: Coming soon on the PP Blog: a Special Report titled “How TelexFree’s ‘Big Revolution’ Dragged The MLM Trade, Lawyers, Payment Vendors And Service-Providers Into A La-La Land Rabbithole.”
Here’s a snippet (italics added):
On at least one occasion — in March 2014 — undercover [Homeland Security Investigations] agents were in the same conference room as TelexFree “speakers,” including alleged owners James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, both of whom were charged criminally in May with wire-fraud conspiracy. The room was part of the Marriott Copley Place Hotel in Boston, according to an affidavit. It turned out that, on the same date agents were in the room, a TelexFree speaker claimed from the stage that certain affiliates had been provided a private jet and that the jet had flown between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Passengers on the jet were said to have been greeted by “the Prime Minister of Haiti’s motorcade.” The rep was pitching a TelexFree-related credit-repair “program.” Just two days earlier, on March 7, a TelexFree-related Blog falsely claimed that the TelexFree “program” at large had gained “SEC Approval from USA.”
UPDATED 10:48 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A plaintiff bringing a prospective class-action lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court has accused 10 TelexFree figures of committing crimes and — as a group — committing racketeering violations through an “association-in-fact enterprise.”
Unlike other prospective TelexFree-related class-actions, this one names neither attorneys nor banks nor TelexFree itself defendants. Rather, it pins the onus of the conduct exclusively on James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler, Steve Labriola, Joe Craft, Fabio Wanzeler, Sann Rodrigues, Santiago De La Rosa, Randy Crosby, Faith Sloan and Carlos Costa.
Costa, a Brazil-based TelexFree figure, is described in the complaint as the “mastermind of the TelexFree pyramid scheme of fraud.” The complaint further asserts Costa conducted business in Massachusetts, where TelexFree operated an entity known as TelexFree Inc.
Olavo F. Magalhaes of Milford, Mass., is the plaintiff. The complaint says Magalhaes invested more than $209,000 in TelexFree LLC, the Las Vegas-based TelexFree business that operated in a Massachusetts office suite.
The crimes alleged against the defendants include fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. Violations of civil law also are alleged.
On the racketeering front, the complaint alleged, the members of the “association-in-fact enterprise” associated together between January 2012 and April 15, 2014, “for the purpose of conducting an illegal pyramid scheme and wrongfully enriched themselves” at the expense of Magalhaes and others.
“Each member of the enterprise played a role in the targeting of victims, advertising and working together to make the TelexFree enterprise work,” the complaint alleged.
Fabio Wanzeler is the brother of Carlos Wanzeler, an alleged international fugitive accused criminally by federal prosecutors of wire-fraud conspiracy in the United States. Carlos Wanzeler is believed to be in Brazil.
Fabio Wanzeler, formerly of Worcester, Mass., is believed also to be in Brazil, according to the Magalhaes complaint.
In other TelexFree news, a federal judge has denied a motion by Faith Sloan to make more than $15,000 available to her.
MLM attorney Gerald Nehra, his law partner Richard Waak and their law firm are now lawyered up in the TelexFree bankruptcy case.
Groups of TelexFree members have sued them in bankruptcy court, alleging violations of the federal racketeering (RICO) statute and violations of federal securities laws. TelexFree filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on a Sunday evening in April, just prior to fraud actions filed by securities regulators.
Attorneys Christopher F. Robertson and William J. Hanlon, partners in the Boston office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, entered appearance notices for Nehra, Waak and the firm yesterday.
Also named defendants in some or all of the actions are TelexFree, alleged officers or executives James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler, Carlos Costa, Steve Labriola and Joe Craft, alleged promoters Sann Rodrigues, Randy Crosby, Santiago De La Rosa and Faith Sloan, and several alleged financial vendors or service-providers.
In a complaint filed May 3, 2014, plaintiffs accused Nehra of counseling TelexFree “on methods to evade United States securities laws that were intended to offer, in part, protection from pyramid Ponzi schemes; all to enrich himself financially and serve his own selfish interests.”
He further was accused of encouraging unknowing TelexFree members to “participate in the evasion of federal and state securities laws.”
Sloan, in response to fraud allegations against her filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said she “believed what [SEC Co-] Defendants Carlos Wanzeler, James Merrill, Steve Labriola and their attorney, Gerald Nehra, had told her, until TelexFree continued to miss the deadlines for the launch of its new products.”
Nehra, Waak and the law firm are not defendants in the SEC action. Nor are they defendants in a TelexFree-related securities action by the Massachusetts Securities Division. Sloan, who later was accused by the SEC of violating the asset freeze against her in the SEC case by sending thousands of dollars to another “program” and transferring her interest in a real-estate trust to her mother, is a longtime HYIP huckster.
In a separate criminal case that alleges wire-fraud conspiracy against Merrill and Wanzeler, Merrill has signaled that he intends to use a defense of reliance on Nehra’s lawyering. The Massachusetts Securities Division has described TelexFree as a “financial pariah” and a combined pyramid- and Ponzi scheme that had gathered more than $1.2 billion. The SEC likewise has accused TelexFree of hatching a billion-dollar pyramid-and Ponzi scheme, saying it was aimed largely at Brazilians and Dominicans.
Nehra, according to plaintiffs suing him in in at least one of the TelexFree-related actions in bankruptcy court, advised at least two other “programs” regulators accused of operating massive pyramid or Ponzi schemes: Zeek Rewards (2012/$850 million) and AdSurfDaily (2008/$119 million).
Sloan is known to have promoted Zeek Rewards. Some HYIP promoters move from scheme to scheme to scheme, piling up purported “earnings” alleged to be fraudulent along the way.
“Attorney Nehra’s extensive experience in multi-level marketing, and particularly his involvement with the Ponzi schemes involving Ad SurfDaily and Zeek Rewards, armed him with the knowledge of what constitutes violations of United States securities law,” plaintiffs alleged. “Indeed, Attorney Nehra was well aware that the use of semantics and obscured phraseology to obfuscate securities laws fails to legitimize TelexFree’s illegal Pyramid Ponzi Scheme.”
Zeek-related actions still are winding their way through the courts. The Zeek “program” was back in the news yesterday, with the court-appointed receiver alleging that an affiliate who appears to have invested $10 filed a claim for $30 million and that a vendor alleged to have aided Zeek wanted nearly $15 million.
The Nevada Public Utilities Commission has rejected TelexFree’s telecom application. Image source: PUC document. Red highlight by PP Blog.
Nevada, the state in which TelexFree operated an alleged $1.2 billion pyramid- and Ponzi scheme through a mailbox and filed its initial Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, has rejected the company’s application to become a telecom provider.
The Nevada Public Utilities Commission denied the application in an order dated June 2. The staff of the PUC pressed for the denial last month, noting that TelexFree filed for the license on April 1 but then declared bankruptcy only 12 days later. The staff also said it was aware TelexFree had been charged civilly with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and that its assets had been frozen. At the same time, the staff said it was aware TelexFree also is the subject of state-level civil action by the Massachusetts Securities Division.
Former TelexFree President James Merrill currently is jailed on a criminal charge of wire-fraud conspiracy. That charge was filed May 9. Merrill continues to seek his release on bail. Carlos Wanzeler, Merrill’s TelexFree business partner, also was charged criminally with wire-fraud conspiracy last month. U.S. federal prosecutors have described him as an international fugitive.
TelexFree faces challenges to its license in other states. The firm says on its website that it “has suspended all business activity.”
A U.S. Bankruptcy Judge in Nevada transferred the TelexFree petition to Massachusetts last month, after the SEC argued the state was TelexFree’s nerve center. Litigation against the firm is centered in Massachusetts, although a prospective class-action lawsuit against TelexFree and alleged managers, promoters and vendors also has been filed in federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
At least two civil actions against TelexFree, including the one in North Carolina, allege violations of the federal racketeering (RICO) statute. There also is active TelexFree-related litigation in Brazil. An alleged promoter of TelexFree was arrested in Uganda last month and paraded in front of TV cameras.
In the United States, the SEC has referred to a number of TelexFree-related promos on YouTube. HYIP schemes are notorious for using social media to gain a head of steam. The actions by various governments and private litigants show that promoters are not insulated from prosecution and can become defendants in cases that allege fraud.
With its assets frozen, whether TelexFree has the resources to address lawsuits and licensing challenges in multiple jurisdictions remains an open question. Individual promoters named in complaints could rack up high legal bills, with the company unable or unwilling to provide assistance.
Because some of the actions name “Doe” defendants, it is possible that other TelexFree promoters will find themselves with the need to hire attorneys at their own expense. Named promoters so far include Faith Sloan, Sann Rodrigues, Randy Crosby and Santiago De La Rosa.
It is known that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security opened an undercover probe into TelexFree by at least October 2013.
One TelexFree huckster, according to court records, told an undercover agent that “he [the huckster] had earned $1,600,000 as a TelexFree promoter, without selling a TelexFree product.”
Precisely how many TelexFree promoters interacted with undercover agents is unclear.
The 2008 AdSurfDaily Ponzi probe began as an undercover operation. Such techniques also have been used in penny-stock cases and cases involving “carding.”
Sann Rodrigues. From a promo for a March TelexFree event in Spain at which Sann Rodrigues was feted.
Politicians appear to have spared themselves some embarrassment, but MLM had another La-La Land PR train wreck today.
iG (Brazil) is reporting that an effort to honor accused TelexFree pitchman and two-time SEC defendant Sann Rodrigues in a Brazilian Senate hall today was thwarted. The effort to fete Rodrigues appears to have been staged by a Brazilian MLM cheerleader, who reportedly also wanted Rodrigues named to the Multilevel Marketing Regulatory Agency of Brazil, which is not a government arm despite its name.
The effort collapsed when iG contacted a Senate member, iG reported.
From a translation from Portuguese to English by Google translate (italics added):
The event was canceled after the iG contacting the office of Senator Cicero Lucena (PSDB-PB), which had made the reservation request the auditorium Petronio Portella Senate at the request of Regino Barros.
An assessor’s office reported that such requests are common and that senators do not participate in drawing up the list.
Earlier this month Rodrigues was accused of racketeering by TelexFree members suing the enterprise and several individuals, including accused TelexFree Ponzi schemers James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler and MLM attorney Gerald Nehra.
TelexFree staged a March 1 and March 2 awards ceremony in Madrid, Spain, at which Rodrigues was feted. Nehra also was feted, but appears not to have shown up to accept the award.
Merrill, Wanzeler and Steve Labriola, another TelexFree SEC defendant, also were feted at the Madrid event. Merrill was jailed in the United States two months later, and Wanzeler allegedly fled to Brazil and became a fugitive.
The massive TelexFree pyramid- and Ponzi scheme began to collapse on March 9, just a week after the Madrid event, according to court filings and other documents.
“Rodrigues used investor funds to buy expensive automobiles, including a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and two Mercedes Benz,” the SEC charged in an amended TelexFree complaint earlier this week. (See May 27, 2014, PP Blog story.)
In 2006, Rodrigues was named an SEC defendant in a complaint that charged he operated a pyramid scheme involving phone cards. The phone-card scheme was targeted at the Brazilian community, the SEC said at the time.
TelexFree also offered a communications product and, like the 2006 Rodrigues scheme, was targeted at the Brazilian community. TelexFree also targeted Latinos, according to records.
BULLETIN: (8th update 9:10 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) In an amended complaint in the SEC’s pyramid- and Ponzi case against TelexFree, the agency says alleged TelexFree fugitive Carlos Wanzeler was using investors’ money to build a “small real estate empire” that consisted of 34 properties in Massachusetts and Florida.
Wanzeler, 45, also allegedly acquired a 40-foot yacht for “$273,878 in cash,” along with two other boats and “a fleet of fancy automobiles.”
“He paid $192,868 for two Ferrari F340 Spiders in March 2013 and $56,610 for a Porsche in February 2013. He also bought three BMW’s and a Toyota Highlander,” the SEC charged.
TelexFree purported to be a VOIP firm branching out into apps, cell phones and credit repair.
On the real-estate front, the SEC charged, Wanzeler went through at least $6.3 million — mostly in cash — to acquire the 34 properties, including $950,000 for the home he shared with his wife in Massachusetts and $450,000 for a home for his son in Florida.
From the SEC’s complaint (italics added)
“He made most of the acquisitions using companies under his control including: (i) JC Real Estate Management Company LLC, a Nevada limited liability company that was formed in July 2012 with Wanzeler and [James] Merrill as managers; (ii) Above & Beyond the Limit, LLC (“Above & Beyond”), a New Mexico limited liability company that [Joe] Craft formed for Wanzeler in September 2012, (iii) CNW Realty State, LLC, a Nevis corporation that was formed in October 2012 with Above & Beyond as manager; (iv) KC Realty State LLC, a Florida limited liability company that Craft formed in October 2012 with Katia Wanzeler as manager; (v) Acceris Realty Estate, LLC, a Massachusetts limited liability company that Craft formed in February 2013 with Katia Wanzeler as manager; and (vi) Makeover Investments LLC, a Florida limited liability company that was formed in July 2013 with Marilza Wanzeler, Wanzeler’s 65-year-old mother, as a manager.”
James Merrill is TelexFree’s alleged co-owner with Carlos Wanzeler. Joe Craft is TelexFree’s former CFO. All three men are accused of fraud at TelexFree and receiving millions of dollars from the company.
Nevis is an island in the Caribbean.
Steve Labriola, another TelexFree executive accused of fraud, received $46,600 through the New Mexico entity in 2013 and only $8,500 from TelexFree, according to a preliminary analysis by the SEC.
TelexFree filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States on April 13, with Wanzeler and Merrill effectively appointing Craft to the TelexFree CFO post, according to court filings. It’s almost certainly the case that TelexFree members at large did not know about the network of other companies associated in one way or another with the Wanzeler family, Merrill and Craft.
In its bankruptcy filing, TelexFree sought to reject its contracts with members. The SEC has described the TelexFree “program” as a massive pyramid- and Ponzi swindle. A U.S. Bankruptcy Judge intends to appoint a trustee in the TelexFree case, the Wall Street Journal reported late this afternoon.
“The information available to date indicates that, between November 2012 and February 2014, Wanzeler and members of his family received almost $13.7 million from TelexFree,” the SEC charged.
Investor funds were used to make the real-estate acquisitions and to purchase the cars, yacht and boats, the SEC charged.
Today’s amended complaint also alleges that TelexFree promoter Santiago De La Rosa used investor cash to support his lifestyle, including “$501,000 in cash for a house in Lynn, Massachusetts” and money spent on a BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Accused promoter Randy Crosby, meanwhile, “paid $70,000 in cash for a Porsche in September 2013 and $99,000 in cash for another Porsche in December 2013, the SEC charged, citing information available to date.
At the same time, the SEC charged while citing information available to date, accused promoter Faith Sloan “received more than $160,400 from TelexFree investors and $51,000 from TelexFree itself.”
Accused promoter Sanderley Rodrigues (a/k/a Sann Rodrigues) received $317,220 from TelexFree between September 2012 and March 2013 through entities known as WWW Global Business Inc. and VICSS Inc., the SEC charged, again citing information available to date.
The SEC further alleged that Rodrigues had claimed to have made $3 million through TelexFree.
“Rodrigues used investor funds to buy expensive automobiles, including a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and two Mercedes Benz,” the SEC charged.
(UPDATED 8:21 P.M. EDT U.S.A.) The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says in new court filings that accused TelexFree promoter and securities fraudster Sann Rodrigues appeared in an April 16 YouTube video and asserted that “God” made MLM and “binary” and that Rodrigues claims he’s “never going to stop this.”
Rodrigues is now a two-time SEC defendant. He settled charges in 2007 that he was operating a pyramid scheme targeted at the Brazilian community through the purported sale of phone cards.
TelexFree is a combined Ponzi and pyramid scheme with a phone product that masked a massive, underlying fraud that gathered more than $1.2 billion, the Massachusetts Securities Division alleged on April 15. The SEC said the TelexFree scam mainly was targeted at Brazilian and Dominican immigrants.
Fellow TelexFree defendant Faith Sloan, meanwhile, appears to have removed certain videos but nevertheless has invoked “divine authority” elsewhere, according to SEC filings.
On March 15, the SEC alleged, Sloan claimed on her website that the TelexFree compensation plan was changing and was not in final form — “[b]ut is Getting BETTER as Jesus said.”
Sloan, a former promoter of the Profitable Sunrise and Zeek Rewards securities swindles, earlier claimed that the SEC was “picking on” her.
Separately, the agency alleged that TelexFree may be violating a temporary restraining order by putting its website back online.
“It appears that TelexFree and/or one or more of the individual defendants may be improperly using investor funds for that purpose,” the SEC alleged.
Moreover, the SEC said, none of the defendants has submitted the written accounting required under the order.
Sloan and Rodrigues are among four promoters charged by the SEC. TelexFree executives or co-owners James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler, Joe Craft and Steve Labriola also were charged. The firm and related entities filed for bankruptcy protection in Nevada April 13.
Claims of divine authority or inspiration are not unusual in MLM HYIP frauds. In the 2008 AdSurfDaily case, for instance, accused operator Andy Bowdoin claimed God was on his side and compared the U.S. Secret Service to “Satan” and the 9/11 terrorists.
Bowdoin, who also fraudulently traded on the name of then-President George W. Bush to sanitize the ASD scam, had experience as a securities swindler prior to ASD, according to court records. He is now serving a 78-month term in federal prison for his role in the $119 million ASD swindle. One of his business partners, according to federal records, was implicated by the SEC in the 1990s in three prime-bank swindles, including one that touted a return of 10,000 percent.
Brazil-based TelexFree figure Carlos Costa also routinely invokes God over TelexFree-related issues.
On Dec. 19, 2013, the PP Blog reported that TelexFree puff pieces were appearing in a publication that featured a columnist who asserted Jesus Christ was the person who inspired modern network marketers through his recruitment of 12 disciples.
Ads for an apparent cash-gifting scheme appeared in the same publication.
Images of Jesus Christ also were used in the alleged Profitable Sunrise and WCM777 HYIP swindles.
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (11th update 3:03 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The state of Massachusetts has alleged that TelexFree is a “massive” Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that gathered more than $1.2 billion and targeted the Brazilian community.
In alleged dollar volume, TelexFree appears to be at approximately the same level of the epic Scott Rothstein Ponzi and racketeering scheme in Florida in 2009. Rothstein is serving a 50-year prison sentence.
TelexFree, the office of Massachusetts Commonwealth Secretary William Galvin alleged in an action, raised $90 million in Massachusetts alone. The scheme, according to the filing, is “untenable without a continuous influx of new capital.”
The 46-page complaint paints a picture of an incredibly elaborate domestic and international fraud scheme featuring interconnected companies and operated by individuals who told tales of incredible riches — at one time supplementing the story by plunking down more than $100,000 at a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Orlando, Fla., to acquire what effectively were stage props to lure the masses.
A check uncovered by Massachusetts investigators, according to the complaint, had a memo line that read, “Cars for Extravaganza . . .”
Despite stage props, “lavish meetings,” sea cruises and suggestions TelexFree somehow was affiliated with jewels of American business, TelexFree was racking up liabilities in the billions of dollars and encountering serious problems from its financial vendors, the complaint alleged.
“The financial activities of TelexFREE have raised red flags in many United States[‘] financial institutions where it maintains accounts,” the complaint alleges.
One of those vendors was a Massachusetts bank that booted TelexFree “after only 2 months,” the state alleged.
Another vendor — a processor of credit cards — dumped TelexFree “after less than 6 months,” the state alleged.
Meanwhile, the state alleged, TelexFree financial filings with the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission were at odds with information TelexFree had provided the investigators in Massachusetts.
At the same time, Massachusetts alleged, TelexFree was turning a blind eye to an investigation in Brazil and effectively evading an asset freeze imposed there on an arm known as Ympactus.
“TelexFREE fails to verify investor residency information — information manipulated to circumvent legal issues TelexFREE faces elsewhere,” the state alleged.
In fact, the state further alleged, one witness testified that he’d recruited affiliates in Brazil after Ympactus’ assets were frozen and its recruitment activities were enjoined.
Cash payments to Brazilian affiliates were made despite the action in Brazil, the state alleged, further alleging that affiliates in Brazil appear to have posed as residents of the United States or England.
Moreover, the state alleged, TelexFree members had set up side businesses in which their recruits paid them directly, rather than paying TelexFree. (Editor’s note: This situation exists in many HYIP scams.)
“These participants received uncontrolled cash deposits outside of the TelexFree system,” the state alleged.
The state also expressed concerns about a black-market economy popping up around TelexFree.
One Massachusetts entity asserted that it bought “TelexFree packages, and all sorts of real estate within the U.S.A. or foreign countries,” the state alleged, further alleging that the enterprise asserted it was backed by “Dubai investors.”
On Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day — an ad appeared “seeking to sell an automobile in the Commonwealth in return for [TelexFree] AdCentral Packages and AdCentral Family Packages,” the state alleged.
TelexFree also featured Sann Rodrigues as its top pitchman, the state alleged.
Rodrigues “had operated a similar multi-level marketing phone card fraud shuttered by the SEC in 2006,” the state alleged.
Named respondents in the Massachusetts action were TelexFree Inc. of Massachusetts and TelexFree LLC of Nevada.
“Related Parties” were identified as Carlos Nataniel Wanzeler of Northborough, Mass.; James Matthew Merrill of Ashland Mass.; Steven M. Labriole (also known as Steve Labriola) of Upton, Mass.; Carlos Roberto Costa of Brazil; Fabio N. Wanzeler of Coral Springs, Fla.; Ympactus Comercial LTDA-ME of Brazil; Lyvia Mara Campista Wanzeler (no residency listed); Disk A Vontade Telefonia Ltda (also known as Diskavontade and Disk) of Brazil and Massachusetts; Brazilian Help Inc. of Massachusetts; Sanderley R. De Vasconcelos (also known as Sann Rogrigues) of Orlando, Fla.; and TelexFree Financial Inc. of Florida.
Among the assertions by Galvin’s investigators is that TelexFree is a combined Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that engaged in the sale of fraudulent and unregistered securities and allowed and encouraged “participants to structure deposits in order to avoid heightened bank scrutiny.”
Structuring transactions is a somewhat common element in Ponzi schemes.
UPDATED 9:24 A.M. EDT (MARCH 22 U.S.A.) TelexFree, alleged to be a pyramid scheme using a VOIP product as a front to mask an investment program, has been under investigation in Brazil since at least June 2013. There’s also an ongoing securities probe in Massachusetts. The government of Rwanda, meanwhile, has announced it booted a TelexFree enterprise after a joint investigation with the African nation’s central bank sparked money-laundering concerns.
Yes, Rwanda has banned TelexFree, something that might set a new standard of embarrassment for an American MLM company. Though the timing may be coincidental, Rwanda did this after a TelexFree pitchman suggested to troops in Boston on March 9 that TelexFree has so much free cash laying around that the two-year-old business can saddle up a “private jet” for trips to Hispaniola and Haiti, perhaps the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Just a week earlier, promos for a TelexFree convention in Spain bragged that the firm was holding a “Gala Dinner” in Madrid and providing “direct Limo Service” to its recruiting stars. TelexFree also sponsors a professional soccer club in Brazil.
One can hardly blame Rwanda if it is protecting its dignity while wondering what happened to the cash gathered from Rwandan affiliates. And because Uganda has signaled it may follow Rwanda’s lead, the imagery in African media of out-of-touch, greedy American MLMers may not be at its zenith. From a PR perspective, these things couldn’t be happening at a worse time for MLM. Herbalife, an industry stalwart, is under investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
There have been rumors for days that Massachusetts-based TelexFree was hiring a CEO. That appears not to have happened. Or, if it has happened, TelexFree hasn’t expressed it clearly in print.
There is a new hand on board, according to a TelexFree news release issued this morning. But nowhere does the release describe the new hand — former MLM telecom executive Stuart A. MacMillan — as TelexFree’s CEO or even as a TelexFree executive. Instead, MacMillan is described in terms that suggest he’s freelance management talent “[s]peaking on behalf of TelexFREE.”
MacMillan doesn’t even get a mention until the tail end of the sixth paragraph of this morning’s release. Instead, the company booted out of Rwanda and under investigation on at least three continents led with an underwhelming headline that highlighted MLM without calling it MLM. “TelexFREE Chooses Tradition of Direct Selling Phone Service.”
So, TelexFree, which says it is a professional communications company, buried whatever news it had and hasn’t made it clear that MacMillan has a title, let alone real decision-making authority. And even if he does have authority, how much of it extends to the overall TelexFree operation is unclear.
There’s a TelexFree LLC based in Nevada that has been denied registration as a telecommunications company in Washington state. Then there’s TelexFree Inc., which operates from Massachusetts. In Florida, there’s a TelexFree International Inc. that was registered on March 14. Also in Florida there’s a TelexFree Tax Service registered March 14, and a TelexFree Financial Inc. registered Dec. 26. Other companies in Florida also use the name TelexFree. So do at least three companies in California.
In Nevada, at least two companies that appear to have ties to TelexFree have been registered since November. These include Telex Mobile Holdings Inc. and TelexElectric LLLP.
Leading With ‘The Gipper’
The opening line of the news release release fondly harkens back to the “mid-1980s” and the phone-sector deregulation that occurred during “the Reagan Administration.”
It could be worse, we suppose. WCM777, an MLM firm kicked out of Massachusetts and California and under investigation on at least two continents for advertising preposterous returns, tried its hand at channeling both President Reagan (of California) and President Kennedy (of Massachusetts) with rhetorical references to a “City upon a Hill.”
President Reagan finished his second and final term as President in January 1989, more than 25 years ago. He died in 2004. Even his political opponents wept.
Now, TelexFree appears to be suggesting that the deregulation he favored during his years in the White House has put the firm on the success track and inspired it to sell Internet telephony to “Brazilian and Hispanic expatriate communities.”
One of the things that happened during the Reagan administration — and this is not a knock on the President, whom we admired — was that doors opened for phone companies to compete on long-distance pricing. Over time, consumer-pleasing downward pressure on prices and lower margins put some firms at death’s door. One of those firms was Excel Communications, an MLM company that formerly employed MacMillan.
A separate release issued today describes TelexFree as an enterprise that “booked 10,859,669 minutes of VOIP calls” last month. It’s a hollow claim, rather like a husband bragging to a wife on Saturday morning that he’d just trimmed 10.8 million blades of grass in the front yard — while conveniently forgetting to mention that a John Deere did all the heavy work.
What TelexFree conveniently is forgetting is that the issue with it is whether the people who used those 10.8 million minutes it “booked” last month would purchase the VOIP service if it were not attached to an “opportunity” affiliates describe as something that could retire government, corporate and consumer debt if the regulators would just leave it alone.
Moreover, the release does not mention that Sann Rodrigues, previously described as the firm’s top pitchman, was accused by the SEC before TelexFree even came into existence of being a pyramid-huckster who roped Brazilians into an affinity-fraud scheme involving a phone-related product.
“You say you haven’t heard of TelexFREE?” the second release queries. “Then you probably aren’t one of the more than 1 million Portuguese-speaking residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
It goes on to say that “[b]efore TelexFREE, Portuguese speakers calling home to Brazil or Portugal were paying high international rates or suffering the frustration of trying to teach elderly parents how to use Skype…after they taught them how to get online.
“In large part due to those frustrations and expenses, Brazilian and Hispanic expatriate communities are embracing the simplicity and economy of TelexFREE.”
Most curious of all in the second release was a TelexFree claim that it “wasn’t until about two years ago that we found a niche community that expressed such overwhelming need for our product.” That’s particularly strange, given that Rodrigues hails from Portuguese-speaking Brazil, as do Portuguese-speaking TelexFree executives Carlos Wanzeler and Carlos Costa.
Rodrigues and Wanzeler, at least, have been pitching phone products to Portuguese-speakers for years. Rival Skype is available in multiple languages, including Portuguese.
Like the first release, the second release doesn’t mention that promoters of TelexFree have claimed that $15,125 sent to the firm fetches back more than $57,000 in a year and that smaller sums of between $289 and $1,375 also virtually triple or quadruple in a year.
The first release, however, at least hints that MacMillan recognizes some in-house problems at TelexFree.
“I see my responsibility as establishing internal governance and an expansion of the products and services,” the release quotes him as saying. “Like so many entrepreneurial companies in the tech space, TelexFREE has been growing so fast, it hasn’t had much time for management. I’ve been brought in to spend that time and to provide that experience, including an end-to-end review of methodologies and controls.” (Emphasis in original.)
Whether MacMillan has the authority to ground the “private jet” to which executives and top reps apparently have access when flying to the Dominican Republic and Haiti was not addressed in the news release. Nor did the release say whether MacMillan planned to eliminate the appearances of limousines in various TelexFree promos or do away with sea-cruise pitchfests.
James Merrill remains TelexFree’s president, according to the second release.
From the second release (italics added):
When asked about the success of the company, President and co-founder Jim Merrill replies, “We have been in VOIP telecommunications for more than a decade; but it wasn’t until about two years ago that we found a niche community that expressed such overwhelming need for our product. Combined with a distribution method that takes our services to them economically, our growth has been exponential.”
It’s as though promising to pay $1,040 on $289, $5,200 on $1,375 and $57,200 on $15,125 — in a year, no less — had nothing to do with it.
Reagan would have thought it madness and advised House Speaker Tip O’Neill that someone was trying to soil that beautiful Massachusetts city upon the hill. And Kennedy would have called TelexFree’s business practices “a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest.”
From a Blog leading dubious cheers for the TelexFree MLM “program.”
UPDATED 12:07 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) You can’t blame legitimate MLMers if they’re feeling a little jittery. Herbalife, one of the industry’s stalwarts, is under investigation by the FTC, which has many duties, including enforcing laws against false advertising and pyramid schemes. Precisely why the FTC is investigating Herbalife is unknown. Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman says Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that plumbs and churns vulnerable population groups. (See Nov. 13, 2013, PP Blog editorial: “Herbalife And Polarization In The Latino Community.”)
A public company, Herbalife itself announced the probe on March 12, saying it had received a “Civil Investigative Demand” (CID) and will “cooperate fully” with the agency.
But even as Herbalife wore a confident face and shared the FTC news, others within the MLM realm were making the trade look ridiculous on a global scale. MLM already is known for train wrecks (see example) and spectacular PR gaffes (see example). The sorry circus taking place outside of Herbalife’s immediate sphere of influence (see below) couldn’t come at a worse time for the firm.
To Herbalife’s credit, there was no attempt to demonize the FTC or pretend the CID was unimportant. So, score an early point for the supplement-maker in the category of PR awareness.
The unfortunate reality for Herbalife, however, is that it is ensconced in an industry that serves up one outrageous scam after another. And because some quirky or downright bizarre MLM “programs” have shown an almost unbelievable ability to raise tremendous sums of money quickly, the issue is not simply about a PR deficit. It’s also about national and cross-border security.
That’s why Herbalife’s conduct while it is under investigation by the FTC matters to the entire trade.
Attempts by Stepfordian MLMers to paint law enforcement as the enemy and dismiss the importance of a CID sent by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to the Zeek Rewards MLM “program” in July 2012 made MLM look silly. Claims from Zeek’s Stepfordian wing that the receipt of a CID was “exciting” news made it look beyond clueless.
Whether the trade likes it or not, all of this Stepfordian behavior gets pinned on “MLM.” And MLM therefore looked particularly ridiculous when the SEC, a month after the North Carolina CID, described Zeek as a Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that had gathered hundreds of millions of dollars in less than two years and had ripped off hundreds of thousands of people by planting the seed it paid an interest rate of 1.5 percent a day and that earnings could be “compounded.”
So, if you’re a legitimate MLMer and need a comforting thought, here’s one for you: Unlike Zeek, Herbalife isn’t trying to sell the “exciting” angle to its legions of members during a government probe. And here’s a tip for legitimate MLMers and individuals considering signing up for an MLM: When someone tells you a government investigation is exciting news, get the hell off the list or stop reading the Blog. Recognize that you’re being splashed with sugary vomit and programmed by an MLM Stepfordian.
The PP Blog’s analysis of Zeek is that it was a criminal enterprise from the start that was designed in part to reel in participants dissatisfied with traditional MLM companies such as Herbalife that sell the dream but have low distributor success rates and high burn rates. Refugees from Herbalife and other traditional MLMs were perfect marks for Zeek’s MLM, a collection of predatory vultures unlike the MLM world had ever seen.
We’re bringing this up because MLM so often ventures into Stepfordland. So, odd as it sounds, Herbalife did itself (and the industry) a favor by avoiding the word “exciting” when describing a CID. For perfectly understandable reasons, it allowed only that it “welcomes the inquiry given the tremendous amount of misinformation in the marketplace” and that it is “confident that Herbalife is in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Even though Herbalife did not fumble the ball when announcing the probe, the company still needs to work on its messaging. Last year, when the firm was confronting Ackman’s pyramid allegations and companion assertions that it was plumbing and churning Latinos/Hispanics to sustain growth, Herbalife described former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona — a new appointee to its board — as “[b]orn to a poor Hispanic family in New York City.”
In highlighting Carmona’s circumstances as a newborn delivered into poverty in the Big Apple more than 60 years ago, Herbalife perhaps was projecting some stress. Whether it also was projecting an accidental hint of a Stepfordland within Herbalife remains on open question.
Given the disturbing plumbing-and-churning assertions against the firm, Herbalife would have done better by simply announcing Carmona’s appointment and including only his academic/business/public-service credentials in the announcement. It doesn’t matter that other enterprises with which he is involved have used the same line about hailing from a “poor Hispanic family” to describe him. They’re not being accused of pillaging vulnerable populations.
In short, Herbalife cannot afford to be seen as a Stepfordland company. Nothing can erode marketplace confidence faster.
Poor or even insidious messaging has harmed MLM for years. It is an industry that, unfortunately, is known for serial disingenuousness, absurd misrepresentations, gross distortions, impossible constructions and outright lies.
How Other Industry Messages Could Hurt Herbalife
On March 11, a day before Herbalife announced the FTC probe, members of the TelexFree MLM were taking to the web and planting the seed that President Obama had TelexFree’s back. The assertions are either a gross misunderstanding of the JOBS Act and the concept of raising startup capital through crowdfunding or a typical MLM lie to provide extra cover for the scheme. (See Google Translation from Portuguese to English here. See original here.)
For starters, TelexFree, which appears to have gathered $1 billion or more in less than two years, wants the public to believe it is not selling securities, despite affiliate claims the “program” delivers “passive” income. Moreover, it is not raising capital under the JOBS Act, which is a work-in-progress. In October 2013, the SEC formally proposed that a “company would be able to raise a maximum aggregate amount of $1 million through crowdfunding offerings in a 12-month period.”
The sum of $1 million is less than the sum TelexFree pitchman and former SEC defendant Sann Rodrigues says he’s earned from TelexFree since Feb. 18, 2012.
Rodrigues started pitching TelexFree before the JOBS Act even became law and before the SEC even promulgated rules. So, strike the JOBS Act claim.
Beyond that, TelexFree is under investigation by the Securities Division in its home state of Massachusetts. There’s also at least one probe in Africa, specifically in Rwanda, where a genocide occurred in the 1990s. Meanwhile, in South America, Brazilian prosecutors have called TelexFree a pyramid scheme. Police in Europe have issued warnings about TelexFree, amid concerns that the “opportunity” is targeting the Madeiran community.
At a minimum, TelexFree is at least as clueless as Zeek, home of the “exciting” CID. As noted above, TelexFree pitchman Sann Rodrigues is a former defendant in an SEC pyramid-scheme and affinity-fraud case. If that weren’t enough, TelexFree executives and reps apparently have access to a “private jet” that recently made a flight between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
If there’s a surefire way to destroy the public’s confidence in the emerging JOBS Act, it’s for a bunch of MLMers to go around planting the seed that the President of the United States has authorized TelexFree as a crowdfunding company — and to water that seed by talking about “private jets” that can be flown by the TelexFree MLM into Haiti to line up struggling Haitians to sell credit repair and financial advice to struggling Americans.
Yes, we know: It’s altogether too much to believe. But the bitter reality for MLM — and therefore for Herbalife — is that it’s actually happening.
TelexFree says it’s in the communications business, and is expanding from VOIP into cell phones and, highly curiously, credit repair and financial advice. This is an MLM quagmire if ever there was one, especially since American MLMers say sums from $289 to $15,125 sent to TelexFree virtually triple or quadruple in a year.
If MLMers ever wonder why the trade has so many critics, they need look no further than TelexFree or Zeek before it.
With Zeek smoldering in the ashes of Ponzi/pyramid history and TelexFree serving up a current symphony of the bizarre, the MLM trade now also is confronting yet-another epic PR disaster — namely, a “program” known as WCM777 that, like TelexFree, is under investigation in multiple countries.
Like TelexFree and Zeek, WCM777 also promoted preposterous returns.
But that might be just the beginning of WCM777’s problems. Among other things, WCM777 has claimed it is “Launching The Way TV to transform nations & Joseph Global institute to train a group of Josephs to bless the world.”
But the “Joseph Global Institute” and a companion enterprise that trades on the name of Harvard appear to be shams. And The Way TV launched long ago through an entity known as Media for Christ, which became the center of an international firestorm over a production known as “Innocence of Muslims.”
Particularly disconcerting now are reports that tens of millions of dollars may have gone missing from the WCM777 coffers. In 2013, the SEC alleged that a “program” known as Profitable Sunrise may have gathered tens of millions of dollars before disappearing.
Don’t kid yourself: There is no doubt that the circumstances surrounding some MLM “programs” are affecting economic security and contributing to concerns about national security.
MLM Minefields
As noted above, precisely why the FTC is investigating Herbalife is unclear. The Zeek case initiated by the SEC, however, could supply a clue or even a specific reason for the U.S. government to be concerned about Herbalife. A look at the list of alleged “winners” by the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case suggests that Zeek became popular in immigrant communities, which may signal MLM affinity fraud on top of Ponzi and pyramid fraud.
It also may signal immigrant-on-immigrant crime under the MLM umbrella.
This information is preliminary, meaning a more thorough analysis is needed. But it at least suggests that some MLMers are proceeding from fraud scheme to fraud scheme and either laying waste to immigrant communities in the United States or setting the stage for immigrant populations to become immersed in litigation and MLM scams.
The surname name of “Johnson,” for instance, is one of longstanding in America. So, it can be expected that a major fraud scheme with 1 million or so members such as Zeek would pull in a number of people with that last name. There are about 45 people with that name on the Zeek list.
At the same time, there are about 60 people on the list with the Asian name of “Li.” So, “Li” has significantly more appearances than “Johnson.”
And what about “Smith,” another traditional American name? Well, there are about 52 “Smiths” on the list. Contrast that with the names “Nguyen” (about 146) and “Chen” (about 137).
There also are many Latino/Hispanic names on the Zeek list. Mind you, this is the list of alleged Zeek winners, not losers. The list of losers — perhaps as many as 800,000 — is not publicly available. (Because it is believed that many Zeek members had multiple user IDs, the number of user IDs may exceed the actual number of losers. But even if the 800,000 figure only incorporates user IDs, it remains troubling. The early data on the winners’ names suggest that immigrants could have been targeted as marks by other immigrants and also by long-established American MLMers.)
Latino groups have voiced concerns about Herbalife targeting vulnerable populations. With Zeek data suggesting such targeting occurred within Zeek, the MLM trade have may to confront some tough questions: Is a mature American MLM market being shored up by a disproportionate share of recent or relatively recent immigrants? And are American MLM companies prospecting in new lands creating losing propositions for the native inhabitants of those lands?
TelexFree certainly has targeted Portuguese and Spanish speaking populations — in the United States, Brazil and elsewhere. So has WCM777, which also has targeted Asians and Asian-Americans.
People are free to criticize Bill Ackman’s assertions that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that is targeting vulnerable populations. But if MLMers who criticize Ackman expect to be taken seriously, they’d better be able to explain what appears to have happened at Zeek and what appears to be occurring now with both TelexFree and WCM777.
U.S. MLMers of any stripe — from longstanding citizens and naturalized ones to individuals hoping one day to proudly call themselves Americans — need to say no loudly to “programs” such as Zeek, TelexFree and WCM777.
And at a minimum, Herbalife needs to stop selling a message of “get rich quick” or turning a blind eye to it and stop trying to explain away its burn rate as the byproduct of affiliates who didn’t work hard enough to realize the dream.
Herbalife cannot be blamed for Zeek, but the burn rate may explain how Zeek and similar schemes rise to cherry-pick traditional MLMers and their recruits who have made little or no money with companies such as Herbalife.
No matter what the FTC has on its mind, any assertion by Herbalife that its current program is exemplary will be the strongest evidence of all that it, too, resides in MLM La-La Land. That would be a tragedy, given that Herbalife is viewed in the MLM community as a beacon of freedom.
TelexFree affiliates have a role in easing suffering in Haiti, Steve Labriola suggested in Spain. Source: Video on ConventionTelexFree.com.
UPDATED 12:23 P.M. ET (MARCH 4, U.S.A.) A 10-hour video of the TelexFree confab in Spain Saturday and Sunday has emerged, apparently a recording of a once-live feed.
After being billed as headliners, neither Brazil-based TelexFree executive Carlos Costa nor American MLM lawyer Gerald Nehra appeared on the stage to accept awards.
U.S.-based TelexFree marketing executive Steve Labriola walked onto the stage to accept Nehra’s award.
“This is for Jerry,” he said. “I was asked to come up and receive this for Jerry.”
Labriola did not say who asked him to accept the award on Nehra’s behalf.
Nehra does “most of our corporate law,” Labriola said. “He’s a great man. And he also works long hours, like all of you out there, and I [will] be honored to give this to him.”
Whether Nehra was in Spain was not immediately clear. He’d been billed by a website styled ConventionTelexFree.com as a “Special Guest” at the Madrid event.
Labriola then accepted an award for himself.
“Somebody said to me once — ‘Network marketing: it’s a get-rich-quick scheme,’” Labriola recalled in accepting the award. “But let me tell you, if you talk to any of the leaders or anybody that is working their business, there is no get-rich-quick. There is long hours.”
The claim was at odds with various claims online that TelexFree produces “passive” income. Labriola hinted that the firm was attempting to address inappropriate marketing. Whether he’ll clash horns with American MLMer Faith Sloan, with whom he’s been pictured, wasn’t immediately known.
Among Sloan’s claims in 2013 was that TelexFree produced “100% Passive Income.”
TelexFree says it’s in the VOIP business and is expanding into cell phones.
Labriola and other TelexFree “leaders” recently ventured to Haiti, Labriola said, suggesting it could be a warm market for TelexFree, which purportedly is changing people’s lives.
“We drove through some areas that could see . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.
“There’s places in this world that need help,” Labriola continued. “It’s up to all of you to keep working your business. Keep your products and services out there. Make sure that you’re helping people where they need help. And every person that you reach out and touch and help save their life and help move them forward will help your life get a little bit better.”
Haiti is perhaps the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Its neighbor — the Dominican Republic — may be emerging as a TelexFree stronghold.
“Don’t worry about the Bloggers online and the things that they’re saying, because we will keep doing the right things in moving forward,” Labriola said.
The PP Blog reported Friday — on the eve of the TelexFree confab in Spain — that the firm was under investigation in the United States. It’s also under investigation in Africa and South America. Brazilian investigators say TelexFree is a pyramid scheme.
Carlos Wanzeler, another TelexFree executive at the Madrid event, appears to have accepted awards on behalf of himself and fellow TelexFree executive Carlos Costa, perhaps the firm’s most well-known executive.
Whether Costa was in Spain was not immediately clear. Like Nehra, he’d been billed as a star attraction.
Among the other TelexFree honorees was Sann Rodrigues, a former defendant in a pyramid-scheme and affinity-fraud case filed by the SEC in 2006. Rodrigues was accused of targeting the Brazilian community in an affinity-fraud scheme that involved telephone cards.
TelexFree President James Merrill also appeared at the confab and received an award.
“Carlos Wanzeler was up here talking about Carlos Costa . . . two of the greatest leaders that I’ve met in my life,” Merrill said. “They’re very strong. They’re courageous, and they’re fighting for you. And I want you all to know that they didn’t join my team, I joined their team. OK. They’re great leaders.”
Merrill predicted that the excellent lawyering and marketing-consulting TelexFree has received will make TelexFree one of the great MLM companies of all time. Helping drive growth, he said, would be the former president of Excel Communications.
Excel, according to its Wikipedia entry, once used an MLM compensation structure, but suffered when margins on long-distance phone service dropped precipitously. A bankruptcy filing followed.
Excel sought to be released from its contracts with its independent representatives. This allowed it to continue to receive revenue from its large base of installed customers without paying eternal commissions to the franchisees. Excel continued to operate but ceased to be a multi-level marketing company. Although the change created much cash enabling it to pay creditors, it was seen as shortsighted by the franchisee association because it removed the primary source of sales and customer loyalty.
In February 2014, the PP Blog reported that TelexFree had planned a purported “international convention” in Spain in early March.
