On this thought-provoking Blog, Englishman, David Brear, guides us to the dark heart of a modern-day, totalitarian labyrinth and shines a piercing light on its manipulative rulers and manipulated inhabitants. First, he provides a spool of unbreakable thread so that we can all find our way safely home. Blog readers may contact David Brear via: axiombooks@wanadoo.fr
I am one of the few people in the world that for more than 30 years consistently examined and sought to expose the lie that is called “multi-level marketing” (MLM). I am not alone, but part of a tiny cadre of truth-tellers, nearly all of whom have been sued and slandered for publishing findings that validate what is actually plain and obvious.
With numbing repetition, year after year, I witnessed and heard the maddening stories of MLM abuse and tragic consequences — divorces, ruined relationships, interrupted education, bankruptcies, crippling debt, lost years in mental captivity, even suicides. My research of more MLMs, as they exploded in number, only further confirmed the grim truths:
All MLMs are essentially identical; all produce the same virtual 100% loss rates; the claim of “direct selling” is an absurd disguise; MLM products are theatrical props of an elaborate pyramid scheme as are the names, titles and terms of “business” that it employs. No one earns net profit from MLM “retailing” (direct selling); all MLMs use the same methods to defraud, delude and mentally enslave.The fraudulence is inherent. MLM cannot be “regulated.”
Along the way, I abandoned expectations about business, government, law and academia and got used to disappointment. I wrote and personally met with staff and members of Congress, with no response; witnessed FTC officials taking high-paying jobs with MLMs; saw university professors in court taking large fees to swear MLM is a “business opportunity.” I assisted countless journalists who went on to produce “both sides” narratives, citing false data, without fact-checking, provided to them by MLM, and identifying me as a “critic.” The premise that MLM is “legitimate direct selling” was journalistically accepted without knowledge or challenge. Some reporters told me their editors would never allow MLM’s “legitimacy” to be put in question as a story focus.
Foreseeing
Over these years, I had one more response to what I witnessed that was of much greater significance. I had a foreboding sense that MLM, the largest cult and organized financial fraud in American history, was laying a foundation for even larger and more destructive scams and financial delusion. That fearsome intuition proved to be prophetic.
Since 2008, MLM has spawned at least two other gigantic, delusional scams that are running rampant in America and, like MLM, spreading globally. Their negative social impact accelerates the erosion that MLM has inflicted for decades on societal foundations. In total dollars and numbers of followers they are already far larger than MLM. Their impact on the national economy is more ominous. MLM harms millions, especially those financially struggling, but its position in the larger economy is marginal. The newly spawned scams inflict heavy damage at lower ranks of income, but one also holds potential to bring the entire US economy down.
The two delusional scams are Crypto Currency, e.g., Bitcoin, and Prediction Markets, e.g., Polymarket. Like “multi-level marketing”, they are identified by names that hide their realities. MLM is not “multi-level.” The recruiting chain is “endless.” MLM is not “marketing”, just internal purchasing and financial recruiting. Crypto is not a functioning “currency” except to launder or hide financial transactions, especially across national borders. Its predominant role is that of an imaginary commodity with no backing, no inherent value and no practical usefulness to the general public beyond Ponzi trading. The value of its “tokens” and “coins”, like an MLM “distributorship,” depends on belief and future purchasing by more believers. Last-ones-in always lose and are always the vast majority.
Prediction Markets, where people can place wagers with advertised “odds” on virtually any aspect of daily or public life, sporting events, and national news, do not “predict” and are not “markets.” They are a corrupted and unregulated form of gambling that allows those to bet who already know the outcome. “Odds” are subject to untraceable, insider manipulation.
As MLM pretends to be “direct selling”, Prediction Markets pretend to be “futures investments” and “derivatives.” As MLM commercializes all personal relationships, Prediction Markets seek to “financialize” every aspect daily life, personal, political, leisure, and economic. Like MLM, Crypto and Prediction Markets promise financial rescue for those getting crushed in the current economy. Both falsely present manipulated money transfers, in the same way MLM does, as sustainable economics for the masses. Also like MLM, they are impossible to comprehend.
Pseudo-Economics, Federally Protected
Notably, like MLM, Crypto and Prediction Markets have gained federally-protected status based on their false identities, effectively immunizing them from lawsuits and law enforcement or even objective scrutiny. As MLM was granted status of “direct selling,” its pyramid structure, absence of retailing, and virtually total loss rates for participants—that is, what MLM is and what MLM does— are not examined. Consequences to victims are attributed to the “market” or lack of effort by the “losers.” Induced purchases by recruits are redefined as “retail sales.” Deceptively luring people to invest in an “endless chain”, where they inevitably “fail”, and deceptive promises about non-existent income and withheld information about costs are redefined as “trade practices” and placed under the protection of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Prediction Market gambling is granted immunity from state gambling laws by being placed under the federal jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which redefines the wagers as “derivatives.” Crypto remains in a regulatory limbo, sometimes defined as “commodities” and at other times “securities.” As rival regulatory agencies—SEC and CFTC—farcically debate Crypto’s “classification”, what Crypto actually is, how it functions, and its real-time risks and inevitable consequences are ignored or obscured.
In the last five years, the total “value” of Crypto rose to an astounding $4.2 trillion but more recently “plunged” to its current “valuation” of approximately $2.62 trillion. Why did it sink? Where did $1.5 trillion go? What was the earlier valuation of more than $4 trillion based upon? If purchasing slows or stops, what sustains Crypto’s “value”? How much of the “value” is based on leveraged purchases using borrowed funds? What are the risks to the banks that make Crypto loans? Those questions are not addressed.
To obtain their imaginary status as derivatives, commodities and securities — granting them effective immunity from oversight, law enforcement or common sense analysis — the Crypto and Prediction Markets were able to seamlessly plug into the channels of government corruption, media complicity and pseudo-economics built up over decades by MLM which normalized pyramid schemes and distorted the perceptions of tens of millions.
Same Old Profiteers and Endorsers
As MLM demonstrates, gaining immunity from regulation and law enforcement leads directly to government leaders brazenly profiteering while also suppressing regulation or law enforcement. The Trump administration is not the first or the only but clearly at the pinnacle of government complicity leading from MLM to Crypto and Prediction Markets. Donald Trump himself was the longest-term and highest-paid endorser of MLM, receiving millions for telling his followers that MLM is a reliable pathway to prosperity. He helped found a new MLM with his own name on it. It soon went bankrupt, leaving tens of thousands of believers in confusion and loss. Many of his cabinet members—Amway’s Betsy Devos at the top of the list—have been MLM profiteers, perpetrators and promoters. Now, Trump’s son and wife are running Crypto schemes and others in the Trump Administration are accused of making Prediction Market “investments” on the timing of events and outcomes they have unique, insider information about. Bill Clinton, who infamously received a “speaking fee” of $700,000 to address an Amway event, is now reportedly collecting similar-sized fees for selling his name and public trust at Crypto conferences.
Big Lies Lead to Bigger Lies
My haunting fear that MLM was a precursor to larger delusional frauds was based on an astonishing reality that I was witnessing. Despite MLM’s fully documented harm to millions, absence of profitable retailing, and obvious “endless chain” design, the truth of MLM remained forcefully denied or suppressed. The Big Lie—that MLM is a modern from of “direct selling” and an “extraordinary income opportunity”—prevailed, as it does today. Fraud is “business.” Pyramid schemes are “sales.” Loss is “opportunity.” George Orwell would have understood.
Claiming to be “perfectly legal” and promising “extraordinary opportunity” MLM penetrated almost every American household and spread to more than 100 countries, teaching and advocating the scam system of pyramid recruiting, all under the protection of the US government. On that perverse foundation many new forms of mass-based fraud and folly could develop, using their own false identities, obtaining corrupt government endorsement, and expanding the revolving-door traffic MLM had built up between regulators and mega-scammers.
How could this happen?
What Dare Not Be Said — Shades of Epstein
Eventually, I recognized that there was something else protecting MLM as much or more than MLM’s false identity, Big Lie, and corruption of government. As in the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile/spy/blackmail/financial scandal, the naked truth of the MLM cult/fraud, at a certain point, became too disrupting and incriminating to be admitted. The Epstein scandal has revealed the reality of massive law enforcement failure and broad institutional coverup in a way few could have believed before.
Exposure or even admission of the truth of MLM indicts powerful politicians of both political parties, famous business leaders, celebrities, church leaders, Wall Street gurus, and trusted government officials, all of whom are exposed to claims to restitution, accountability, or criminal prosecution. The mainstream media is indictable for its failure or refusal to investigate and report the tragic and documented experience of tens of millions of MLM victims.
Also like Epstein’s house of horror, MLM’s tentacles spread its ill-gotten money into state legislatures, universities and non-profits, gaining complicity from state AGs, academics and “consumer protection” groups.
SinisterSilence
Reflecting the sinister silence of victims and accomplices that protected Epstein for years (and still do), many “anti-MLM” figures, even after suffering debilitating losses and humiliation, do not say out loud the terrible truth of MLM fraud and cult. They go along with the FTC-endorsed disguise of “direct selling” and “business” identity. Publicly acknowledging that MLM is not business but an orchestrated scam operating in plain sight opens a door to realities of corruption, negligence, and coverup they seemingly prefer to deny, and to personal consequences, real and imagined, they dare not test.
Prior to Epstein, explanations of MLM’s widespread cover-up, affecting media, law enforcement, academia, Wall Street, and Congress, and with the power to silence and intimidate millions of victims were treated as a “conspiracy theory” or the ravings of those with a grudge or some nefarious motive. Now unspeakable wrongdoing in high places, institutional coverup, and fearsome walls of silence are being understood as all too real.
Unlikely Truth-Tellers
It took years of struggle and persistence, but now websites, podcasts, comedians, films, books (a few), and tragic testimonials of MLM victims are widely accessible. The coercive persuasion methods of MLM are examined and the label of “cult” is openly applied. An underground network of truth-telling developed even as the Big Lie continues to be presented as official “truth” by the FTC, mainstream media, and academia and while risk of lawsuits or government prosecution still looms.
Following the same path, truth-telling about Crypto and Prediction Markets is advancing, led by a small number of independent, non-institutional, and sometimes unlikely figures. Their courageous work is beginning to gain wide exposure.
Click on Image to See Film Trailer
On the Crypto front, the unlikely truth-teller is the famous actor, Ben McKenzie, who explains to interviewers that he took on Crypto because, in so many words, somebody needs to do it, and no one else has — an expression heard from many MLM whistle-blowers. In 2023 McKenzie authored a best-selling book on Crypto with investigative journalist, Jacob Silverman, entitled, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.
The review explains that cryptocurrency is meant to seem “heady and new”, yet also “just out of reach”, which is its “secret appeal” that “makes its true believers into something of a cult.”
Click on Image to View Documentary
Perhaps due to the obvious reality that it is plain old gambling, with well known consequences of addiction, loss, disruption and delusion, Prediction Markets are being debunked and decried by more truth-tellers. But it is has already secured government protection and, absurdly, the pseudo-economic identity as “investments” in “futures.” Even beyond a fake identity, Prediction Markets have sought to take old-fashioned betting into realms beyond random chance. Taking wagers on future events in which many people have ready access to information about the outcome and timing, scheme operators claim insider-trading is factored into the “odds” with AI algorithms!
Click on Image to View 32-Min John Oliver Show on Youtube Robert FitzPatrick copyright 2026
Common sense analysis of Prediction Markets and the harm it poses is now available on YouTube, such as a recent investigation of “prediction markets” by John Oliver or this 20-minute documentary from More Perfect Union.0
May 7th, 2026, a conference will kick off in the USA discussing the widely-misunderstood phenomenon known as,'Multi Level Marketing.' These annual events have lately become controlled by academic advisers to the US Federal Trade Commission.
"This conference brings together expertise from regulators, prosecutors, former MLM distributors, social media consumer advocates, researchers, educators, and journalists to discuss ways to improve consumer protection and reduce consumer harm within the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry."
Despite appearances, the explanation of these carefully stage-managed conferences, is both tragic and comic. For the US government continues to cover-up a scandal of unbelievable proportions.
Although, its agents and academic advisers cannot publicly face the embarrassing truth, the FTC has been broadcasting the Big'Multi-Level Marketing' Lie since 1979. Indeed, this conference itself is broadcasting the same ridiculous'commercial' fairy story as though it is true. For the 'MLM' phenomenon has never been, and never will be, an 'industry' in the traditional sense of that word. It is, however, an insidious fraud which has been allowed to spread around the world like a contagion, and operate on an industrial scale.
Currently, with notorious'MLM'promoter, Donald Trump, sat in the Oval Office, in charge of the US Dept. of Justice and the FTC, the chances of any American 'MLM' racketeers being held fully to account for their crimes, are zero. That said, 'MLM' racketeers have been effectively above the law in the USA since the creation of the Big'MLM'Lie, back in the 1950s.
In 2006, it was revealed that a UK regulatory agency (the
‘Company Investigation Branch’ of the ‘Dept. of Trade and Industry’) was pursuing
a major law enforcement action against ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ In brief, this privately
owned company (first registered in 1973), which was a subsidiary of a gigantic,
American-based, privately owned, multi-national corporation (first registered in
1959), stood accused of peddling an ‘inherently objectionable dream-selling
scheme’ in contravention of the ‘Fair Trading Act, 1973’ and the ‘Lotteries
and Amusements Act, 1976’. Subsequently, John Hutton, the Business Secretary (trade
minister) in the Labour government of Tony Blair, filed a ‘public interest
bankruptcy petition’ in the UK High Court, seeking the immediate compulsory
closure of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ Although the UK national media took only a
passing interest in the story, according to the regulators, this civil
prosecution was the result of ‘the largest ever investigation of a British
company.’ Indeed, several truckloads of documentary evidence had been
seized at ‘Amway UK’s’ head office in the Buckinghamshire city of Milton
Keynes by a team of specialist CIB agents led by Peter Bott. However, after
looking beyond a wall of mind-numbing mathematical and linguistic hocus-pocus, the
regulators had initially been faced with an enigma.
During the thirty + years of ‘Amway UK’s’ existence,
its accountants had never once declared an annual net trading profit. In
fact, in just the period 2000-2006, ‘Amway UK’ had chalked up accumulated
net trading losses of approximately 15 million £. Although this disastrous
company had always been haemorrhaging financially, it had been kept alive with cash
transfusions declared as ‘deriving from other Amway subsidiaries in Europe
and Asia.’ Yet for decades, ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ had been allowed to pose
as ‘Britain’s most successful direct selling company offering an entirely
legal, government approved, Multi-Level Marketing income/business opportunity.’
However, completely contrary to its nonspecific, jargon-laced ‘commercial’
cover-story, prior to 2006, there had never been the slightest official attempt
to determine what was the real function of this apparently pointless corporate
structure. For whilst ‘Amway UK’s’ own comic-book narrative had eventually
boasted of 10s of millions of £ of sales annually, via an expanding
salesforce approaching 100 thousand UK and Irish ‘distributors,’ the regulators
had now discovered that, in the adult world of quantifiable reality, ‘Amway
UK’ had lately been declaring annual sales of only around 10 million £,
whilst the average churn rate for participants in ‘Amway’s’ scheme had always
exceeded 50% per year. Consequently, it was possible to extrapolate from ‘Amway
UK’s’ own records, that somewhere approaching one million recruits had in
fact passed through its ‘distributor’ ranks 1972-2006. Indeed, all these
people had signed take-it-or-leave-it contracts which had also labelled them as
‘Independent Business Owners (IBOs).’ Furthermore, after the deduction
of their considerable start up and operating costs, not one of this expanding flock
of transient would-be entrepreneurs had managed to generate so much as a penny
of overallnet income lawfully by regularly retailing ‘Amway’-supplied
products, and/or services, to persons who were not fellow, so-called ‘IBOs.’
Thus, since by design, there had never been a significant and sustainable
source of revenue other than that deriving internally from the purchases of ‘Amway
UK’s’ own so-called ‘salesforce,’ the hidden overall net-loss
churn rate in the company’s so-called ‘MLM income/business opportunity,’
was effectively 100%. Yet apparently, virtually no one had been
complaining.
By 2006, with a bit of help, UK regulators had finally woken
up and deduced that the real function of ‘Amway’s’ mysterious, chronically
insolvent British subsidiary, had been to act as bait in a heavily disguised human
trap. Sadly, whilst the UK national media had completely failed to identify it,
and the authorities had done nothing to stop it, year upon year, this insidious
mechanism, comprising a labyrinth of legally ‘independent,’ but in fact interdependent,
privately owned companies, had been allowed to lure, and churn, an endless
chain of fresh UK and Irish recruits. However, although the overwhelming
majority of ‘Amway’s’ unwittinghuman quarry had remained for
less than a couple of years and wasted a relatively small amount of money, a
significant minority (around 5%) with access to independent funds, and/or
credit, had been able to remain in the trap for extended periods, gradually wasting
many thousands of £ and isolating themselves from anyone trying to reason with
them. For even though they had no chance of establishing a viable business, just
like chronic gambling addicts, chronic losers in ‘Amway’s’ rigged
game of ‘commercial’ make-believe were totally convinced thatthey
would ‘soon become winners,’ because they had ‘discovered a sure-fire way to
make all your dreams come true.’
Despite the somewhat obvious reality that 'Amway's' so-called 'MLM
income/business opportunity' had always been a cruel fake, in the
spring of 2008, it was reported in ‘The Times’ that 'Amway UK Ltd.' had
been ‘cleared at the High Court of dream selling, of operating an unlawful
lottery and of being an unlawful trading scheme.' This, however, did
not even come close to being an accurate summary of what was contained in the ambiguous,
and astonishingly naïve, ruling handed down by one High Court Judge, Mr.
Justice Norris, and which was subsequently upheld by two out of three Appeal
Court Judges. For although Judge Norris accepted that the prosecution evidence demonstrated
that the Government’s case against ‘Amway UK’ had been brought on valid
grounds, he then ruled that 'the public interest bankruptcy petition' should be
'declined,' and no other penalty imposed. Sadly, in his ruling, the judge failed
to spot the far reaching implications contained in truly astonishing ‘defence evidence’
provided by a certain Mr. Richard Berry, the senior corporate officer of
another, apparently ‘independent,’ privately owned company known as, the
‘UK Direct Selling Association,’ of which ‘Amway UK’ had been the
leading member and significant source of revenue. For Berry actually confessed
to the court, albeit in the form of a foolish boast, that 'Amway’
operated its ‘Multi-Level Marketing’ scheme ineighty other countries
around the world, and that,for two decades, the overwhelming majority
of ‘direct selling companies’ operating in the UK had also been running similar
‘MLM’ schemes.Yet although it was staring him in the face, the truth
that ‘Amway’s’ entire multi-national operation has always been a dissimulated
racket, and that ‘Amway’ is by no means unique, was evidently unthinkable
to Judge Norris. Consequently, his refusal to grant the public interest
bankruptcy petition, was made on the convoluted and highly improbable grounds that,
although ‘Amway UK’s’ scheme had remained unaltered for more than thirty
years, its latest company officers had given undertakings to the High Court
that the previously unlawful 'business model' had been voluntarily paused
and then ‘significantly revised in October 2007,’ and that certain
of the company's ‘network leaders’ contracts’ had been ‘terminated, because
they had broken Amway’s own rules.’ Thus, Judge Norris accepted the
demonstrable lie that it was just a few isolated British ‘Amway Diamond Distributors’
whose own ‘legally independent companies’ had been responsible for making
unobtainable ‘earnings claims’ and peddling the unlawful ‘dream selling scheme,’
and that these were ‘unauthorized activities’ that ‘Amway UK’s’ company
officers had been unaware of, but could now be trusted to have banned.
However, even Judge Norris felt obliged to place on
record his own doubts that ‘Amway’s’ latest, modified, version of its ‘commercial’
cover-story was true. Nonetheless, his lack of curiosity as to how much money
had been stolen during all these years of ‘unauthorized activities,’ and
who had ultimately directed and controlled ‘Amway’s’ labyrinth of legally
‘independent,’ but in fact interdependent, privately owned companies, and
received the lion’s share of the vast unlawful profits generated by this insidious
mechanism, has never been explained. For Judge Norris’ ruling did not call for Jerry
and Mandy Scriven and Pat and Greta Gregory (the leaders of the British subsection
of a giant, world-wide, so-called ‘Amway Network’ known as ‘International
Business Systems’), to be investigated and held to account for the abusive crimes
which, in his own ruling, he indirectly acknowledged, that they and others had been
committing. Yet for around twenty years, this pair of smiling married couples had
starred in ‘Amway UK’s’ bedazzling propaganda as, exemplary ‘Diamond Distributors
and Top Earners,’ but in 2006, they had suddenly been air-brushed out the company’s
comic-book narrative, after being sacked from their so-called ‘Independent Businesses’
and made scapegoats. Indeed, as far as I’m aware, not one excommunicated ‘Amway
UK’ scapegoat was ever interviewed by law enforcement agents, or tax
compliance officials, wanting to know where all the money they had stolen had
gone. Subsequently, knowing that they risked nothing from the authorities, the
Scrivens and the Gregorys now spent years on the Net screaming their innocence
and declaring that, far from being ‘unauthorized,’the activities for
which they had been kicked out of ‘Amway,’ had always been pursued with
the full knowledge, and enthusiastic participation, of 'Amway UK's'
company officers. Yet, mysteriously, neither the Scrivens nor Gregorys were
called as witnesses to perjury by the government prosecutors during the High
Court proceedings, whilst gagging clauses in their 'Amway distributor’
contracts prevented them from going to law. However, again for reasons that
were never explained, the regulators did not bother to tell Judge Norris, that they
already knew damn-well where all the stolen money had gone and even
approximately how much it totalled. They also knew that there was plenty of documentary
evidence, as well as other far more reliable witnesses, proving ‘Amway’s’
company officers’ perjury, but again these people were never called to testify.
The reason why I know this, is because I am one of the witnesses who, in 1997,
was even threatened with a lawsuit by ‘Amway UK’s’ legal representatives for
speaking out. I am also the person whose persistent well-informed complaint
finally triggered the civil investigation of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ in the
first place. However, I had called for a rigorous criminal inquiry into the wider
‘MLM’ phenomenon in the UK, hopefully leading to the re-establishment of
the rule of law, but the regulators had insisted that this would only take
place after the compulsory closure of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ using standard civil
bankruptcy procedures. Tellingly, they made sure never to put any of this
in writing.
In this way, not only was the defrauding of a substantial
number of unwitting UK and Irish people by the bosses of the ‘Amway’ racket
quietly brushed under the carpet, but also, following this isolated and
ill-fated civil prosecution, the bosses of various, mainly American controlled, ‘Amway’ copycat
‘MLM’ rackets were given the green light to keep their own corporate
Trojan Horses legally registered in Britain. For today, no UK or Irish law
enforcement agency (civil or criminal) is trying to stop them, but then, some
of the individuals to have proved the most susceptible to 'MLM' recruitment,
have been disgruntled police officers.
So, how can a pile of money be made from a financially
suicidal ‘business model’ that has been deliberately rigged to fail?
In 1967, an American satirical movie offered a memorable
answer to this conundrum. I am of course referring to ‘The Producers,’ written
and directed by Mel Brooks. Whilst this movie went over the heads of certain
humourless critics who described it as ‘controversial,’ in 1968 it won its
author an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Indeed by 1996, ‘The
Producers’ had long-since achieved a ‘cult’ status and was deemed to be of such
‘cultural, historic and aesthetic significance,’ that it was selected by the
Library of Congress to be preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
For Mel Brooks’ had presented the world with a classic comedy double act - Max
Bialystock, an outrageous caricature of a once successful, but now failing, New
York Jewish theatrical producer (evidently suffering from Narcissistic Personality
Disorder) played by Zero Mostel, and Leo Bloom, a deeply insecure Jewish
accountant (evidently suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder) played by Gene
Wilder. In the movie, this pair of physically and psychologically opposite
characters come together and perpetrate an absurd swindle - identified by the
accountant and peddled by the producer. By first building a bedazzling fantasy
of boundless futureprosperity, happiness and freedom in his
mind, Bialystock overwhelms an initially reluctant Bloom, and persuades him to
become his partner in crime. He then sets to work seducing a flock of wealthy,
but lonely and vulnerable, old ladies. One by one, Bialystock persuades them to
buy the staggering total of 25 000% of the ‘projected profits’ from, what
he assures them will be, ‘a sure-fire hit stage musical’ which he and
Bloom are producing on Broadway. However, he doesn’t tell them that the show has
been written by a deranged devotee of Adolf Hitler, Franz Liebkind, or that it will
venerate the ‘führer’ and the ‘Nazis.’ For the show,
‘Springtime for Hitler,’ has been carefully selected by its producers with
the hidden criminal motive of offending a sophisticated New York theatre audience
to such an extent, that it will be doomed to close after only one disastrous
performance. Just to make certain that it will immediately bomb, Bialystock and
Bloom recruit an aggressively kitsch transvestite, Roger DeBris, to direct the show,
and they find a drug-fuelled pacifist-hippie,Lorenzo Saint DuBois (LSD), to play Hitler. On opening
night, Bialystock even makes an enemy of the New York Times theatre critic, by
offering him a bribe.
The devious plan being that, seeing as ‘Springtime for
Hitler’ has cost Bialystock and Bloom only a mere fraction of their available
financing to stage, when inevitably it sinks without a trace, the Internal Revenue
Service will have no reason to investigate Bloom’s fraudulent declaration that ‘no
profit was made.’ Moreover, the old ladies who collectively have vastly
over-financed the show, will believe that they simply made a bad investment.
As ill-informed and isolated individuals, they too will have no reason to
suspect fraud. Thus, Bialystock and Bloom will be able quietly to keep
the large pile of excess finance. However, when despite all their sabotage efforts,
‘Springtime for Hitler’ turns out to be a smash hit predicted to ‘run
and run,’ the producers, along with the show’s author, wind up behind bars. Ultimately,
they are seen duplicating the same fraud on their fellow inmates and the prison
warden, with Bialystock and Liebkind directing rehearsals and Bloom
over-selling shares in their latest sure-fire hitproduction,‘Prisoners
of Love.’
Now most people would automatically assume that, in the
real world, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to perpetrate essentially the same absurd,
blame-the-victim swindle, albeit hidden behind a far more convoluted and confusing
‘sure fire business model,’ but again one deliberately rigged to fail. A
swindle not just based on the same, one-off, financially suicidal modus
operandi as described above, but now expanded and duplicated on an industrial scale
and baited to keep ensnaring a much wider range of unwitting victims. Indeed,
to the average person, the idea that numerous gangs of copycat charlatans have
been allowed to keep peddling the same rigged game of ‘commercial’ make-believe
as reality, steadily exploiting, isolating and silencing many millions of
losing investors around the world over a period spanning several decades, and thereby
get away with stealing a veritable mountain of money, would seem to be beyond
the bounds of possibility. However, it should be remembered that ‘the best way
of hiding something, isto place it in plain sight and make as big as
you possibly can.’
Thus, I managed to live more than three decades
without ever hearing the made-up technical-sounding phrase, 'Multi-Level
Marketing,’ or its catchy abbreviation, ‘MLM.’ Today, I wish this contagious
nonsense had never entered my life, but unfortunately, I had no choice in the
matter. Whilst reading the history of my own nightmare encounter with the
original 'MLM commercial' cult known as 'Amway' (corruption of 'The
American Way'), bear in mind that, when these disturbing events first started
to unfold, I had no idea of the extraordinary level of danger my family was in,
or of the true nature, extent and power of the phenomenon I was confronted
with. As yet, there was no plain language, comprehensive explanation of 'MLM
commercial' cultism readily available. That’s why I began the thankless
task of compiling one as long ago the late 1990s. However, at that time, I was
still trying to find the right words to identify it accurately. Even when I did
find the right words, I discovered that the ugly, but ultimately absurd, truth
about the 'MLM commercial' cult phenomenon was still unthinkable to most
people. The truth being that what has become commonly referred to as, 'the MLM
business model,’ has been nothing more than a classic example of the
notorious, reality-controlling, totalitarian propaganda tactic known as the
'Big Lie.' That is to say, ‘the spreading of a falsehood which is so
colossal and outrageous that the average person cannot even begin to conceive
that anyone would have the audacity to invent it.’ Indeed, when I first
began to challenge the Big 'MLM' Lie, I was faced with the daunting
situation where it had been repeated, largely unchallenged, so often and for so
many years, that a remarkable number of apparently sophisticated and rational
people had come to accept it as the truth. Thus,rendering them incapable
of admitting to their embarrassing mistake.
The situation is still daunting, but lately it has begun
to change in that, mainly due to the Internet, an increasing number of
courageous 'MLM commercial' cult survivors have found accurate information,
as well as mutual support, enabling them to come forward and describe their
essentially identical experiences. Also, whereas in the past many 'MLM' converts
were men, who naturally found it hard to admit to the world that they'd been
duped, lately the majority of persons being lured into, and exploited by, these
pernicious groups, have been women. Furthermore, in 2019, my American associate,
Robert FitzPatrick, published 'Ponzinomics.' In this book, Robert not only goes
a long way towards identifying the true nature of the 'MLM commercial' cult
phenomenon, but he also traces the origins and evolution of the Big 'MLM' Lie
and explains how a pair of its earliest creators managed to obtain the
highest-level of protection in the USA. As a result, politically appointed
senior Federal Trade Commission officials effectively raised the white flag of
surrender to predatory criminals, albeit dressed up as respectable businessmen,
when, starting in the 1970s and despite rising levels of complaint across the
USA, they set aside an established, common-sense legal precedent which had
automatically identified and banned all endless-chain (infinite level) recruitment
frauds, previously labelled as, 'pyramid selling schemes.' For, even though it
had been under investigation for years and was facing civil prosecution, these senior
FTC officials eventually latched onto a convenient pretext not to go ahead and shut-down
the corporate-front for the original 'MLM commercial' cult, upon which
all subsequent versions have been, and continue to be, modelled. This dubious
decision was evidently made, in part, because the bosses of 'Amway,' Messrs.
Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, with a Bible in one hand and the Stars and
Stripes in the other, had purchased association with their local congressman (fifth
Michigan district) with significant quantities of stolen money. The beneficiary
of these ill-gotten gains was none other than Gerald Rudolph Ford Jnr. - a
politician not exactly noted for his intellectual capacity, but nonetheless
someone of great influence. For those readers who are perhaps too young to remember
him, Gerald Ford was leader of the Republican party in the House of
Representatives 1965-1973, becoming US vice-president under Richard Nixon when,
in 1973, Spiro Agnew (who was under investigation for corruption), pled guilty to
a minor felony charge and was obliged to resign. Ford went on to become US
president 1974-1976 after Nixon himself was obliged to resign rather than face
certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Thus, Ford remains the only
person to have held both the office of US vice-president and US president,
without being elected to either. He is also the president who granted a pardon
to Nixon for the crimes he'd committed whilst in office.
However, the co-opting of Gerald Ford to play the role of
‘Amway’s’ useful idiot was only one step in DeVos and Van Andel’s
well-financed infiltration, and subversion, of the US legislative process and justice
system. Indeed, there can be absolutely no doubt that, culminating in 1979, the
chiefs of an important civil regulatory agency of the US federal government
played politics, and in so doing, completely failed in their appointed task of
protecting the American public. As a direct consequence, the FTC brought about
the birth of the essentially meaningless phrase, 'Multi-Level Marketing is
legal.' In this way, a ridiculous, but nonetheless insidious, endless-chain
(infinite level) recruitment fraud was effectively authorized in the USA by an
unaccountable little clique of self-serving bureaucrats. Furthermore, this
major American regulatory lapse permitted the profitable racket of 'MLM commercial'
cultism not only to be extensively reproduced in the USA, but also to be
exported around the world, now hidden behind the pretence that ‘the MLM
business model (as developed by the founders of the Amway Corporation)’ had
been ‘thoroughly examined and approved by the US government… So, anyone calling
it a fraud must be a deranged, hate-filled anti-capitalist or crazy conspiracy
theorist.' Not surprisingly, subsequent generations of politically
appointed senior FTC officials have all refused to admit publicly to their
predecessors' catastrophic failure and their own gross negligence - for which,
one day, a sitting American government might find itself liable. In this way, the
Big ‘MLM’ Lie was permitted to transform and expand into a well-oiled
machine for stealing and laundering money on a global scale - each year
bringing billions of dollars into the USA, and all right under the noses of complacent
officials who have continued to allow this plunder to be falsely declared, with
the paid-compliance of some of the world's largest accountancy firms, as 'retail
sales revenue.' However, plenty of senior FTC types, as well as
high-ranking US politicians, including a certain Donald John Trump, have all
had their snouts planted in this almost bottomless trough of foreign and
domestic loot, set before them by the bosses of a multiplication of 'Amway' copy-cat
'MLM' cultic rackets whose essentially identical camouflaged criminal
activities they have conveniently refused to identify. Indeed, the number of
senior FTC officials who have sold their souls and signed lucrative employment
contracts with 'MLM' front-companies, or law and accountancy firms, co-opted
to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil whilst playing along with the
Big 'MLM' Lie, is truly astonishing.
All this begs the not unreasonable question: other than
enabling a growing number of unoriginal gangs of devious con artists to get
away with thieving from the entire planet for the best part of half a century,
what exactly has been the point of having such a spineless, easily-corrupted
and, therefore useless government agency as the FTC?, when in 'Ponzinomics' one
independent American does far-more to protect his fellow citizens from the Big 'MLM'
Lie, than the entire one thousand five hundred+ FTC staff (including more
than five hundred attorneys and seventy economists, with an annual budget of hundreds
of millions of dollars) have ever done. In fact, Robert explains in great
detail why, completely contrary to the ambiguous official message broadcast by
the FTC for decades, it has not just been ‘a few bad apples,’ but all 'Amway'
copy-cat so-called 'MLM income opportunities' that have been centrally
controlled rigged-market swindles, hiding their inevitable, effectively 100%, overall
net-loss/churn rates of endless-chains of transient losing investors. For
the crack-pot pseudo-economic theory which has been falsely-labelled the
'MLM business model,' was maliciously designed to be flawed-financially, to
the point where it would be impossible for any so-called 'MLM' company
to derive the majority of its revenue lawfully from persons who are not
unwitting contractors of it, motivated by the false expectation of a future
reward. In even more accurate terms, 'MLM commercial' cults have all
comprised groups, and sub-groups, of susceptible individuals who have been
subjected to identifiable, co-ordinated devious techniques of social,
psychological and physical persuasion designed to shut down their critical and
evaluative faculties, and thereby convert them, without their fully informed
consent, to the self-perpetuating and self-gratifying, but ultimately self-destructive,
delusional belief that: endless recruitment + endless purchases by the
recruits = endless profits for the recruits. For this reason, Robert
FitzPatrick coined the word, 'Ponzinomics,' in an attempt to place an
appropriate label on the financially suicidal activity that, to their eternal
shame, generations of senior FTC officials, their advisers and political
masters, have permitted to be passed off and normalized around the world as, ‘a
viable and legal part of the direct selling industry.'
Thus,'Ponzinomics' can be briefly defined as the
dark art of peddling unwitting persons infinite shares of their own
finite money, because what the FTC has consistently refused to acknowledge
publicly, is the undeniable fact that any claim, or implication, that one
penny of extra net-income,let alone life-changing sums of
money, can be generated lawfully by participating in an 'MLM income opportunity,'
is dangerous comic-book nonsense designed to entice and deceive. Indeed, it
should be glaringly obvious that the Big ‘MLM’ Lie is far-too-good to be
true, whilst it's no secret that what used to be the traditional direct selling
industry (once known as ‘door-to-door peddling’), has long-since died out. Its
demise being due to many evolving social and economic factors; not least the
arrival of supermarkets, hard-discount stores and online shopping. Furthermore,
'MLM' products/services have been offered at fixed, often exorbitant,
prices, rendering them effectively unsaleable on the open market to persons
with fully functioning critical and evaluative faculties; whilst no so-called 'MLM'
company has ever set common-sense limits on the number of contractors being
recruited, or on the areas of population where these so-called 'distributors/direct
sellers' are supposed to find customers. Just imagine what would
happen if the bosses of McDonalds fixed the price of their company’s hamburgers
at twice that of their competitors and set no limits on the number of
franchises they sold, or any restrictions on the locations where all these demonstrably
unviable catering establishments were supposed to operate shoulder to shoulder?
Once the utter absurdity of the so-called 'MLM
business model' is fully understood, anyone with a modicum of common-sense,
and/or the most-rudimentary hands-on experience of commerce, ought to be
immediately able to deduce that no ‘Amway’ copy-cat company can ever
have been, or will ever be, found by the FTC (or any other civil, or criminal,
law enforcement agency for that matter) voluntarily disclosing the true results
of its economically incestuous activities and operating lawfully. Indeed, this
ongoing situation is beyond farcical, because when asked the most obvious of
questions, it goes without saying that American regulators and their academic
advisers, have never been able to come up with one solitary example of a
so-called 'MLM' company that would be able pass independent rigorous
inspection. Yet despite the lengthy list of common-sense reasons proving that
there can be no such thing as ‘a viable and legal MLM income opportunity,' FTC
officials, guided by a cabal of smug dunces with diplomas, came up with a truly
pointless and stupid ‘test.’ This boils down to them throwing
common-sense out of the window whilst laboriously trying, on rare occasions and
on a case-by-case basis, to determine that a so-called 'MLM' company, suspected
of being a pyramid scheme, has not been deriving the majority of its income
lawfully from authentic retail sales (based entirely on value and demand) to
members of the general public (persons who have not been contractors of the
so-called 'MLM' company motivated by the false expectation of a future
reward). Thus, since 1979, less than forty ‘Amway’ copycats have been investigated
and shut down by the FTC as dissimulated pyramid schemes, whilst hundreds more
have continued to appear, but without the slightest attempt to stop them.
Laughably, FTC officials have listed other ‘pyramid scheme red flags' for the
public to look out for, and the agency has even posted warnings that 'MLM
companies have caused, and are still causing, extensive damage to consumers,
because some MLM income opportunities are pyramid schemes in disguise.' At
the same time, American regulators, without the slightest concern for the
extensive damage they themselves have caused and are still causing, have
continued bleating the BigLie, by insisting that 'MLM is a viable
and legal branch of the direct selling industry.' Yet no one at the FTC has
ever seen a shred of quantifiable evidence proving that this ridiculous adultfairy story can be true. In fact, when asked in the most specific of terms,
if they have ever seen such evidence, like income-tax payment receipts, it has
been impossible to get any meaningful, let alone the only truthful, response to
this simple ‘yes/no’ question. Another highly revealing question that FTC types
have obviously shied away from answering, is: what would be your own reaction
if a vulnerable individual you care about suddenly underwent a radical
personality transformation, and declared that he/she had signed up for a
so-called 'MLM income opportunity?' Thus, in respect of their Orwellian refusal
to tell the truth publicly, and identify this text book example of a BigLie,
Robert FitzPatrick has compared the inflexible attitude of FTC officials, and
their advisers, to a body of humourless scientists who have been paid to investigate
the manifestly preposterous claim that 'pigs might fly,' but after
decades of examining an assortment of wingless swine, they still insist on
continuing their futile, but financially profitable, quest whilst
systematically refusing to consider even the suggestion that there can be no
such mythical creature.
At this point, I should perhaps declare that, although I
am an 'MLM commercial' cult survivor, I was never an adherent of one of
these pernicious groups. Unfortunately, I found myself shackled financially to
a person, my only brother, who at a time of vulnerability, had fallen completely
under the spell of the Big 'MLM' Lie. Again, when these disturbing events
started to unfold, I did not fully understand that my brother was perfect prey
to be lured and defrauded, then used as bedazzled-bait to lure and defraud
others; all for the benefit of a little gang of sanctimonious American
billionaire-charlatans posing as 'Compassionate Capitalists,' and whom
he had never met. Yet my brother was an ideal subject to be deceived, for the
simple reason that he was completely convinced that he was far too smart to
be deceived. Thus, once enslaved inside the ‘MLM’ trap, the most
powerful weapon in the hands of the criminals exploiting him, was my brother’s
own mind.However, initially I failed to grasp just how dangerously
deluded and devious 'MLM commercial' cult adherents can be. That said,
like many people whom they approach, I immediately realised that they are
living in a parallel reality, completely obsessed with trying to recruit you
into what is quite clearly a ludicrous pyramid scheme, but which they insist is
'part of the legal MLM direct selling industry and definitely not a pyramid
scheme.' What took me much longer to fathom, is that core-'MLM commercial'
cult adherents are also living by a parallel, and perverted, code of
morality. Their destructive behaviour is controlled by the self-righteous
guided-delusion that, by recruiting you, and even by lying to you, they are ultimately
helping both themselves and you to achieve future redemption in a secure Utopian
existence - a form of Capitalist Paradise on Earth- where no one
has a job, but everyone is his/her ‘own boss’ - a happy, healthy, prosperous
and free 'MLM business owner.'
Thus, it should always be remembered that chronic 'MLM'
adherents' belief can be quite genuine, but what they believe in, and have
bought into body and soul, is a colossal and bedazzling fake. The irony of all
this being, that the Big 'MLM' Lie has continued to thrive, because its most-fanatical
adherents have been tricked into wasting their own time and money spreading it
and hiding the truth about it, combined with law enforcement agents' and
legislators' chronic, and catastrophic, failure to identify it accurately. Although
they have no idea what they are really involved in, active 'MLM' adherents
are, in fact, proselytising-evangelists for a camouflaged, non-rational, ritual
belief system (call it a 'perverted religion' if you like) which has been
maliciously designed not only to spread like a contagion - enticing, deceiving,
robbing, exploiting and abusing susceptible individuals and their friends and
families - but also to load its victims with shame and guilt for their
inevitable failure to succeed, and thus, prevent them from facing reality and
complaining. Consequently, whilst they remain under the control of the Big 'MLM'
Lie, its most-dangerousadherents should be seen for what they
really are - the deluded deployable agents of a de facto syndicate comprising
the bosses of some the most widespread, socially, psychologically and
financially destructive organized cultic crime groups to have emerged in recent
history.
This week it was reported that a trio of 'Herbalife'adherents are currently facing serious criminal charges in Singagpore.
This case dates back to May 2021, when it was discovered that a 19 year old woman, Ms. Huang Baoying, had been starved and tortured to death over a two month period, in a tower block apartment in Singapore.
According the prosecution, in the hours before her death, Ms. Huang had been brutally beaten with a heavy wooden stick, forced to sit upright with her hands held above her head. She had also had salt rubbed into open wounds as well as being held under a running tap. Eventually she had been left on a matress where she had died on May 5th. 2021 from a combination of malnutrition, infection and severe trauma. At less than 30kgs, the victim had lost over 40% of her previous known body weight.
Initially charged with murder, on February 9th. 2026, the 66 year old owner of the apartment, Lim Peng Tiong, plead guilty to a reduced charge of 'culpable homicide' for causing the death of Ms. Huang Baoying. He admits to beating her approximately 240 times on the orders of a 46 year old woman, Chee May Wan, whom he described as, his 'Herbalife Multi-Level Marketing coach.' All these three persons have been described in Lim's indictment as, 'members of a Herbalife nutrition club.'
However, the prosecutors don't yet seem to fully-understand the'Amway'copycat blame-the-victim cultic racket that the kistch, 'direct selling'facade and misleading terms, 'Herbalife' and 'Multi-Level Marketing,' are actually hiding. Indeed, they have stated in court that 'Ms. Huang was tortured for no other reason than some twisted project supposedly to improve her behaviour.'
It seems that in order to persuade the unwitting members of this so-called coach's'MLM' flock to shut down their critical, and evaluative, faculties, and commit all their resources (mental, physical and financial) to recruiting other de facto slave recruiters, Chee May Wan had initially introduced a system of'fines.'However, it has also been revealed that she had abandoned her husband and was having an affair with Ms. Huang's 34 year old brother,Huang Bocan, who was also a'Herbalife'adherent. Chee's so-called 'disciplinary regime' then became progressively violent, until it became extreme mental and physical torture.
From Feb 16th. 2021, to May 4th. 2021, Ms. Huang was deprived of food, confined in a toilet for long periods and repeatedly beaten savagely, despite being weak and already severely injured.
Deputy public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh has requested that Lim should be jailed for 20 years for his role in this abuse. However, he stated that while Lim endorsed the abuse, participated in it, and provided the premises for it to take place undetected, he was not as guilty as Chee and Huang Bocan.
Lim’s lawyer, Ms Kate Loo, has asked that her client's prison sentence should be no more than of 11 years. She claims that her client was also subjected to the same 'punishment regime,' was given specific orders as to what punishment to inflict and was “brainwashed” by Chee and Huang Bocan.
The case will resume on March 2nd. 2026 with further submissions.
Both Chee and Huang Bocan are facing murder charges, and their cases have yet to be heard.
This trio of dangerously-deluded 'Herbalife' adherents were originally charged with voluntarily causing grievous harm to Ms. Huang with a wooden pole. The charges were modified to murder on June 29, 2021.
On Feb 9, DPP Jordy Kay, a member of the prosecution team, described to the court the punishment system which Chee allegedly came up with.
Chee owned a company selling Herbalife products, which she called a club, where clients pay a fee to join as members to get discounts on products.
These members could sell products to their own clients.
Ms Huang was about 16 to 17 years old when she and her brother joined the club in 2018.
The siblings had left home in July 2020 after falling out with their parents over their refusal to continue spending as much as $2,000 a month on the products sold by their children.
The siblings went to live with Lim, and Chee joined them a few weeks later following a dispute with her husband.
According to Lim, in October 2020, Chee introduced a system of fines to correct his bad habits, which she believed had affected sales.
After a month, Chee and Huang Bocan thought that the fines were not working, so they introduced a system where those who made mistakes had to perform exercises such as squats or hold a stress position with their legs bent and their backs against a wall.
Chee was the only one who was exempted from the fines and exercises. But she and Huang Bocan allegedly beat Lim and Ms Huang when they did not meet expectations.
A WhatsApp chat group was created in February 2021 to monitor Ms Huang and report on her mistakes.
In January 2021, Ms Huang was limited to one meal a day, purportedly to teach her about hunger and being grateful for her food.
From the next month, she was deprived of food as a form of punishment. From April 2021 onwards, she was deprived of food for days and would be allowed only to drink water.
Between January and February 2021, Ms Huang was forced out of the flat several times as punishment. One time, before chasing her out, her brother cut her hair to humiliate her.
On another occasion, a passer-by took pity on her and provided her with a blanket and a straw mat to sleep on. This allegedly prompted Chee to beat her for behaving like a beggar.
Ms Huang was beaten on other occasions, with the number of blows progressively increasing to a staggering 240 in a single incident.
One of the beatings resulted in a wound on her calf that did not heal properly.
In April 2021, the four attended a church service, where Ms Huang dozed off. After they returned to the flat, she was slapped about 130 times in total by Lim and allegedly her brother.
From February to May 2021, the victim was confined in a toilet under the guise of giving her a quiet place to reflect on her “mistakes”.
She slept and took her meals in the toilet, and was chained to the railing beside the toilet bowl.
On top of the beatings and food deprivation, she was also forced to do intense physical exercises including squats.
On the night of May 4, 2021, Chee allegedly wanted to punish her for lying about whether she had done her squats.
When Ms Huang remained quiet during the beating, Chee and Huang Bocan saw this as defiance.
The trio allegedly tried several ways to get a reaction out of her, including poking her with a stick and holding her head in a basin of iced water. They also tied her hands with rope, pulled her into a sitting position, and took turns to stand on her legs to get her to cry.
Salt was poured on the wound on her calf, and she was taken to the toilet and drenched under a tap.
Her brother then changed her out of her wet clothes and left her on the mattress.
Some time past midnight on May 5, the trio tried to wake her, but to no avail. They discussed whether they should take her to the hospital or call for an ambulance, and decided to lie to the authorities.
Huang Bocan allegedly deleted photographs and videos from his phone that showed the bruises on Ms Huang’s legs and audio recordings from his phones of the trio scolding her.
The trio also deleted the group chat they had used to report on her mistakes.
Huang Bocan called for an ambulance at about 6am and told the operator that his sister was unconscious.
Ms Huang was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, who reported the case to the police after they saw the bruises on her body.
Lim was arrested on May 11 and has been in custody since.
In 2006, a UK civil regulatory agency (the ‘Company
Investigation Branch’ of the ‘Dept. of Trade and Industry’) announced that it
was pursuing a major law enforcement action against ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ In
brief, this privately owned company (first registered in 1973), which was a subsidiary
of a gigantic, American-based, privately owned, multi-national corporation (first
registered in 1959), stood accused of peddling an ‘inherently objectionable
dream-selling scheme’ in contravention of the ‘Fair Trading Act, 1973’ and
the ‘Lotteries and Amusements Act, 1976’. A government Trade minister was about
to file a ‘public interest bankruptcy petition’ in the UK High Court, seeking
the immediate compulsory closure of ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ Previously, truckloads
of documentary evidence had been seized at the company’s HQ in the Buckinghamshire city of Milton Keynes. However, after looking beyond a wall of mind-numbing
mathematical and linguistic hocus-pocus, the regulators had initially been
faced with an enigma.
During the thirty-three years of ‘Amway UK’s’ existence,
its accountants had never once declared an annual net trading profit. In
fact, in just the period 2000-2006, ‘Amway UK’ had chalked up accumulated
net trading losses of approximately 15 million £. Although this disastrous
company had been bleeding to death financially, it had been kept alive with cash
transfusions declared as ‘deriving from other Amway subsidiaries in Europe
and Asia.’ Laughably, for three decades, ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ had been
allowed to pose as ‘Britain’s most successful direct selling company
offering an entirely legal, government approved, Multi-Level Marketing income/business
opportunity.’ Yet completely contrary to this nonspecific, jargon-laced ‘commercial’
cover-story, prior to 2006 there had never been the slightest official attempt
to find out what was the real function of this apparently pointless company. For
whilst ‘Amway UK’s’ own comic-book narrative eventually boasted of ‘conducting
more than 12 million £ of sales annually, via approximately eighty thousand UK
and Irish distributors,’ the regulators had now discovered that, in the
adult world of quantifiable reality, the average churn rate for participants in
‘Amway’s’ scheme, had always exceeded 50% per year. Thus, it was
possible to extrapolate from ‘Amway UK’s’ own seized records, that around
one million recruits had passed through its ‘distributor’ ranks
1972-2006. All these people had signed take-it-or-leave-it contracts which had labelled
them as ‘Independent Business Owners (IBOs).’ However, after the
deduction of their start up and operating costs, not one of this expanding flock
of transient would-be entrepreneurs had managed to generate so much as a penny
of overallnet income lawfully by regularly retailing ‘Amway’-supplied
products, and/or services, to persons who were not fellow ‘IBOs.’ Thus, since
by design, there had never been a significant and sustainable source of revenue
other than that deriving from the purchases of the endless chain of fresh recruits,
the hidden overall net-loss churn rate in ‘Amway’s’ so-called ‘MLM
income/business opportunity,’ was effectively 100%. By 2006, with just a bit
of guidance, the current crop of UK regulators had finally deduced that, so
long as this key information had remained concealed, the real function of ‘Amway
UK’ had been to act as bait in a devious human trap. For whilst they and
their predecessors had done nothing to stop it, year upon year, this sinister mechanism
had been luring and exploiting tens of thousands of unwitting UK and Irish citizens.
However, the overwhelming majority of ‘Amway’s’ human quarry had
remained for less than a couple of years and wasted a relatively small amount of
money, but a significant susceptible minority (approximately 5%) with access to
independent funds, and/or credit, had been able to remain in the trap for extended
periods; wasting many thousands of £, but believing that ‘they were duplicating
a proven, step-by-step, two to five year plan to achieve total financial freedom. Yet virtually
no one had been complaining.
So, how can a pile of money be made from a financially
suicidal ‘business model’ that has been deliberately rigged to fail?
In 1967, an American satirical movie offered a memorable
answer to this conundrum. I am of course referring to ‘The Producers,’ written
and directed by Mel Brooks. Whilst this movie went over the heads of certain
humourless critics who described it as ‘controversial,’ in 1968 it won its
author an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Indeed by 1996, ‘The
Producers’ had long-since achieved a ‘cult’ status and was deemed to be of such
‘cultural, historic and aesthetic significance,’ that it was selected by the
Library of Congress to be preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
For Mel Brooks’ had presented the world with a classic comedy double act - Max
Bialystock, an outrageous caricature of a once successful, but now failing, New
York Jewish theatrical producer (evidently suffering from Narcissistic Personality
Disorder) played by Zero Mostel, and Leo Bloom, a deeply insecure Jewish
accountant (evidently suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder) played by Gene
Wilder. In the movie, this pair of physically and psychologically opposite
characters come together and perpetrate an absurd swindle - identified by the
accountant and peddled by the producer. By first building a bedazzling fantasy
of boundless futureprosperity, happiness and freedom in his
mind, Bialystock overwhelms an initially reluctant Bloom, and persuades him to
become his partner in crime. He then sets to work seducing a flock of wealthy,
but lonely and vulnerable, old ladies. One by one, Bialystock persuades them to
buy the staggering total of 25 000% of the ‘projected profits’ from, what
he assures them will be, ‘a sure-fire hit stage musical’ which he and
Bloom are producing on Broadway. However, he doesn’t tell them that the show has
been written by a deranged devotee of Adolf Hitler, Franz Liebkind, or that it will
venerate the ‘führer’ and the ‘Nazis.’ For the show,
‘Springtime for Hitler,’ has been carefully selected by its producers with
the hidden criminal motive of offending a sophisticated New York theatre audience
to such an extent, that it will be doomed to close after only one disastrous
performance. Just to make certain that it will immediately bomb, Bialystock and
Bloom recruit an aggressively kitsch transvestite, Roger DeBris, to direct the show,
and they find a drug-fuelled pacifist-hippie,Lorenzo Saint DuBois (LSD), to play Hitler. On opening
night, Bialystock even makes an enemy of the New York Times theatre critic, by
offering him a bribe.
The devious plan being that, seeing as ‘Springtime for
Hitler’ has cost Bialystock and Bloom only a mere fraction of their available
financing to stage, when inevitably it sinks without a trace, the Internal Revenue
Service will have no reason to investigate Bloom’s fraudulent declaration that ‘no
profit was made.’ Moreover, the old ladies who collectively have vastly
over-financed the show, will believe that they simply made a bad investment.
As ill-informed and isolated individuals, they too will have no reason to
suspect fraud. Thus, Bialystock and Bloom will be able quietly to keep
the large pile of excess finance. However, when despite all their sabotage efforts,
‘Springtime for Hitler’ turns out to be a smash hit predicted to ‘run
and run,’ the producers, along with the show’s author, wind up behind bars. Ultimately,
they are seen duplicating the same fraud on their fellow inmates and the prison
warden, with Bialystock and Liebkind directing rehearsals and Bloom
over-selling shares in their latest sure-fire hitproduction,‘Prisoners
of Love.’
Now most people would automatically assume that, in the
real world, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to perpetrate essentially the same absurd,
blame-the-victim swindle, albeit hidden behind a far more convoluted and confusing
‘sure fire business model,’ but again one deliberately rigged to fail. A
swindle not just based on the same, one-off, financially suicidal modus
operandi as described above, but now expanded and duplicated on an industrial scale
and baited to keep ensnaring a much wider range of unwitting victims. Indeed,
to the average person, the idea that numerous gangs of copycat charlatans have
been allowed to keep peddling the same insidious game of ‘commercial’ make-believe
as reality, steadily exploiting, isolating and silencing many millions of
losing investors around the world over a period spanning several decades, and thereby
get away with stealing a veritable mountain of money, would seem to be beyond
the bounds of possibility. However, it should be remembered that the best way of
hiding something, is to place it in plain sight and make as big as you
possibly can.
Thus, I managed to live more than three decades
without ever hearing the made-up technical-sounding phrase, 'Multi-Level
Marketing,’ or its catchy abbreviation, ‘MLM.’ Today, I wish this contagious
nonsense had never entered my life, but unfortunately, I had no choice in the
matter. Whilst reading the history of my own nightmare encounter with the
original 'MLM commercial' cult known as 'Amway' (corruption of 'The
American Way'), bear in mind that, when these disturbing events first started
to unfold, I had no idea of the extraordinary level of danger my family was in,
or of the true nature, extent and power of the phenomenon I was confronted
with. As yet there was no plain language, comprehensive explanation of 'MLM
commercial' cultism readily available. That’s why I began the thankless
task of compiling one as long ago the late 1990s. However, at that time, I was
still trying to find the right words to identify it accurately. Even when I did
find the right words, I discovered that the ugly, but ultimately absurd, truth
about the 'MLM commercial' cult phenomenon was still unthinkable to most
people. The truth being that what has become commonly referred to as, 'the MLM
business model,’ has been nothing more than a classic example of the
notorious, reality-controlling, totalitarian propaganda tactic known as the
'Big Lie.' That is to say, ‘the spreading of a falsehood which is so
colossal and outrageous that the average person cannot even begin to conceive
that anyone would have the audacity to invent it.’ Indeed, when I first
began to challenge the Big 'MLM' Lie, I was faced with the daunting
situation where it had been repeated, largely unchallenged, so often and for so
many years, that a remarkable number of apparently sophisticated and rational
people had come to accept it as the truth. Thus,rendering them incapable
of admitting their foolish error.
The situation is still daunting, but lately it has begun
to change in that, mainly due to the Internet, an increasing number of
courageous 'MLM commercial' cult survivors have found accurate information,
as well as mutual support, enabling them to come forward and describe their
essentially identical experiences. Also, whereas in the past many 'MLM' converts
were men, who naturally found it hard to admit to the world that they'd been
duped, lately the majority of persons being lured into, and exploited by, these
pernicious groups, have been women. Furthermore, in 2019, my American associate,
Robert FitzPatrick, published 'Ponzinomics.' In this book, Robert not only goes
a long way towards identifying the true nature of the 'MLM commercial' cult
phenomenon, but he also traces the origins and evolution of the Big 'MLM' Lie
and explains how a pair of its earliest creators managed to obtain the
highest-level of protection in the USA. As a result, politically appointed
senior Federal Trade Commission officials effectively raised the white flag of
surrender to predatory criminals, albeit dressed up as respectable businessmen,
when, starting in the 1970s and despite significant levels of complaint, they
set aside an established, common-sense legal precedent which had automatically identified
and banned all endless-chain (infinite level) recruitment frauds, previously labelled
as, 'pyramid selling schemes.' For, even though it had been under investigation
for years and was facing civil prosecution, these senior FTC officials eventually
latched onto a convenient pretext not to go ahead and shut-down the
corporate-front for the original 'MLM commercial' cult, upon which all
subsequent versions have been, and continue to be, modelled. This dubious
decision was evidently made, in part, because the bosses of 'Amway,' Messrs.
Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, with a Bible in one hand and the Stars and
Stripes in the other, had purchased association with their local congressman (fifth
Michigan district) with significant quantities of stolen money. The beneficiary
of these ill-gotten gains was none other than Gerald Rudolph Ford Jnr. - a
politician not exactly noted for his intellectual capacity, but nonetheless
someone of great influence. For those readers who are perhaps too young to remember
him, Gerald Ford was leader of the Republican party in the House of
Representatives 1965-1973, becoming US vice-president under Richard Nixon when,
in 1973, Spiro Agnew (who was under investigation for corruption), pled guilty to
a minor felony charge and was obliged to resign. Ford went on to become US
president 1974-1976 after Nixon himself was obliged to resign rather than face
certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Thus, Ford remains the only person
to have held both the office of US vice-president and US president, without
being elected to either. He is also the president who granted a pardon to Nixon
for the crimes he'd committed whilst in office.
However, the co-opting of Gerald Ford to play the role of
‘Amway’s’ useful idiot was only one step in DeVos and Van Andel’s
well-financed infiltration, and subversion, of the US legislative process and justice
system. Indeed, there can be absolutely no doubt that, culminating in 1979, the
chiefs of an important civil regulatory agency of the US federal government
played politics, and in so doing, completely failed in their appointed task of
protecting the American public. As a direct consequence, the FTC brought about
the birth of the essentially meaningless phrase, 'Multi-Level Marketing is
legal.' In this way, a ridiculous, but nonetheless insidious, endless-chain
(infinite level) recruitment fraud was effectively authorized in the USA by an
unaccountable little clique of self-serving bureaucrats. Furthermore, this
major American regulatory lapse permitted the profitable racket of 'MLM commercial'
cultism not only to be extensively reproduced in the USA, but also to be
exported around the world, now hidden behind the pretence that ‘the MLM
business model (as developed by the founders of the Amway Corporation)’ had
been ‘thoroughly examined and approved by the US government… So, anyone calling
it a fraud must be a deranged, hate-filled anti-capitalist or crazy conspiracy
theorist.' Not surprisingly, subsequent generations of politically
appointed senior FTC officials have all refused to admit publicly to their
predecessors' catastrophic failure and their own gross negligence - for which,
one day, a sitting American government might find itself liable. In this way, the
Big ‘MLM’ Lie was permitted to transform and expand into a well-oiled
machine for stealing and laundering money on a global scale - each year
bringing billions of dollars into the USA, and all right under the noses of complacent
officials who have continued to allow this plunder to be falsely declared, with
the paid-compliance of some of the world's largest accountancy firms, as 'retail
sales revenue.' However, plenty of senior FTC types, as well as
high-ranking US politicians, including a certain Donald John Trump, have all
had their snouts planted in this almost bottomless trough of foreign and
domestic loot, set before them by the bosses of a multiplication of 'Amway' copy-cat
'MLM' cultic rackets whose essentially identical camouflaged criminal
activities they have conveniently refused to identify. Indeed, the number of
senior FTC officials who have sold their souls and signed lucrative employment
contracts with 'MLM' front-companies, or law and accountancy firms, co-opted
to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil whilst playing along with the
Big 'MLM' Lie, is truly astonishing.
All this begs the not unreasonable question: other than
enabling a growing number of unoriginal gangs of devious con artists to get
away with thieving from the entire planet for the best part of half a century,
what exactly has been the point of having such a spineless, easily-corrupted
and, therefore useless government agency as the FTC?, when in 'Ponzinomics' one
independent American does far-more to protect his fellow citizens from the Big 'MLM'
Lie, than the entire one thousand five hundred+ FTC staff (including more
than five hundred attorneys and seventy economists, with an annual budget of hundreds
of millions of dollars) have ever done. In fact, Robert explains in great
detail why, completely contrary to the ambiguous official message broadcast by
the FTC for decades, it has not just been ‘a few bad apples,’ but all 'Amway'
copy-cat so-called 'MLM income opportunities' that have been centrally
controlled rigged-market swindles, hiding their inevitable, effectively 100%, overall
net-loss/churn rates of endless-chains of transient unwitting investors. For
the crack-pot pseudo-economic theory which has been falsely-labelled the
'MLM business model,' was maliciously designed to be flawed-financially, to
the point where it would be impossible for any so-called 'MLM' company
to derive the majority of its revenue lawfully from persons who are not persons
motivated by the false expectation of a future reward. In even more
accurate terms, 'MLM commercial' cults have all comprised groups, and
sub-groups, of susceptible individuals who have been subjected to identifiable,
co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical
persuasion designed to shut down their critical and evaluative faculties, and thereby
convert them, without their fully informed consent, to the self-perpetuating
and self-gratifying, but ultimately self-destructive, delusional belief that: endless
recruitment + endless purchases by the recruits = endless profits for the
recruits. For this reason, Robert FitzPatrick coined the word,
'Ponzinomics,' in an attempt to place an appropriate label on the financially suicidal
activity that, to their eternal shame, generations of senior FTC officials,
their advisers and political masters, have permitted to be passed off and
normalized around the world as, ‘a viable and legal part of the direct
selling industry.'
Thus,'Ponzinomics' can be briefly defined as the
dark art of peddling unwitting persons infinite shares of their own
finite money, because what the FTC has consistently refused to acknowledge
publicly, is the undeniable fact that any claim, or implication, that one
penny of extra net-income,let alone life-changing sums of
money, can be generated lawfully by participating in an 'MLM income opportunity,'
is dangerous comic-book nonsense designed to entice and deceive. Indeed, it
should be glaringly obvious that the Big ‘MLM’ Lie is far-too-good to be
true, whilst it's no secret that what used to be the traditional direct selling
industry (once known as ‘door-to-door peddling’), has long-since died out. Its
demise being due to many evolving social and economic factors; not least the
arrival of supermarkets, hard-discount stores and online shopping. Furthermore,
'MLM' products/services have been offered at fixed, often exorbitant,
prices, rendering them effectively unsaleable on the open market to persons
with fully functioning critical and evaluative faculties; whilst no so-called 'MLM'
company has ever set common-sense limits on the number of contractors being
recruited, or on the areas of population where these so-called 'distributors/direct
sellers' are supposed to find customers. Just imagine what would
happen if the bosses of McDonalds fixed the price of their company’s hamburgers
at twice that of their competitors and set no limits on the number of
franchises they sold, or any restrictions on the locations where all these demonstrably
unviable catering establishments were supposed to operate shoulder to shoulder?
Once the utter absurdity of the so-called 'MLM
business model' is fully understood, anyone with a modicum of common-sense,
and/or the most-rudimentary hands-on experience of commerce, ought to be
immediately able to deduce that no ‘Amway’ copy-cat company can ever
have been, or will ever be, found by the FTC voluntarily disclosing the true
results of its economically incestuous activities and operating lawfully.
Indeed, this ongoing situation is beyond farcical, because when asked the most
obvious of questions, it goes without saying that American regulators and their
academic advisers, have never been able to come up with one solitary example of
a so-called 'MLM' company that would be able pass independent rigorous
inspection. Yet despite the lengthy list of common-sense reasons proving that
there can be no such thing as ‘a viable and legal MLM income opportunity,' FTC
officials, guided by a cabal of smug dunces with diplomas, came up with a truly
pointless and stupid ‘test.’ This boils down to them throwing
common-sense out of the window whilst laboriously trying, on rare occasions and
on a case-by-case basis, to determine that a so-called 'MLM' company, suspected
of being a pyramid scheme, has not been deriving the majority of its income
lawfully from authentic retail sales (based entirely on value and demand) to
members of the general public (persons who have not been contractors of the
so-called 'MLM' company motivated by the false expectation of a future
reward). Thus, since 1979, less than forty ‘Amway’ copycats have been investigated
and shut down by the FTC as dissimulated pyramid schemes, whilst hundreds more
have continued to appear, but without the slightest attempt to stop them.
Laughably, FTC officials have listed other ‘pyramid scheme red flags' for the
public to look out for, and the agency has even posted warnings that 'MLM
companies have caused, and are still causing, extensive damage to consumers,
because some MLM income opportunities are pyramid schemes in disguise.' At
the same time, American regulators, without the slightest concern for the
extensive damage they themselves have caused and are still causing, have
continued bleating the BigLie, by insisting that 'MLM is a viable
and legal branch of the direct selling industry.' Yet no one at the FTC has
ever seen a shred of quantifiable evidence proving that this ridiculous adultfairy story can be true. In fact, when asked in the most specific of terms,
if they have ever seen such evidence, like income-tax payment receipts, it has
been impossible to get any meaningful, let alone the only truthful, response to
this simple ‘yes/no’ question. Another highly revealing question that FTC types
have obviously shied away from answering, is: what would be your own reaction
if a vulnerable individual you care about suddenly underwent a radical
personality transformation, and declared that he/she had signed up for a
so-called 'MLM income opportunity?' Thus, in respect of their Orwellian refusal
to tell the truth publicly, and identify this text book example of a BigLie,
Robert FitzPatrick has compared the inflexible attitude of FTC officials, and
their advisers, to a body of humourless scientists who have been paid to investigate
the manifestly preposterous claim that 'pigs might fly,' but after
decades of examining an assortment of wingless swine, they still insist on
continuing their futile, but financially profitable, quest whilst
systematically refusing to consider even the suggestion that there can be no
such mythical creature.
At this point, I should perhaps declare that, although I
am an 'MLM commercial' cult survivor, I was never an adherent of one of
these pernicious groups. Unfortunately, I found myself shackled financially to
a person, my only brother, who at a time of vulnerability, had fallen completely
under the spell of the Big 'MLM' Lie. Again, when these disturbing events
started to unfold, I did not fully understand that my brother was perfect prey
to be lured and defrauded, then used as bedazzled-bait to lure and defraud
others; all for the benefit of a little gang of sanctimonious American
billionaire-charlatans posing as 'Compassionate Capitalists,' and whom
he had never met. Yet my brother was an ideal subject to be deceived, for the
simple reason that he was completely convinced that he was far too smart to
be deceived. Thus, once enslaved inside the ‘MLM’ trap, the most
powerful weapon in the hands of the criminals exploiting him, was my brother’s
own mind.However, initially I failed to grasp just how dangerously
deluded and devious 'MLM commercial' cult adherents can be. That said,
like many people whom they approach, I immediately realised that they are
living in a parallel reality, completely obsessed with trying to recruit you
into what is quite clearly a ludicrous pyramid scheme, but which they insist is
'part of the legal MLM direct selling industry and definitely not a pyramid
scheme.' What took me much longer to fathom, is that core-'MLM commercial'
cult adherents are also living by a parallel, and perverted, code of
morality. Their destructive behaviour is controlled by the self-righteous
guided-delusion that, by recruiting you, and even by lying to you, they are ultimately
helping both themselves and you to achieve future redemption in a secure Utopian
existence - a form of Capitalist Paradise on Earth- where no one
has a job, but everyone is his/her ‘own boss’ - a happy, healthy, prosperous
and free 'MLM business owner.'
Thus, it should always be remembered that chronic 'MLM'
adherents' belief can be quite genuine, but what they believe in, and have
bought into body and soul, is a colossal and bedazzling fake. The irony of all
this being, that the Big 'MLM' Lie has continued to thrive, because its most-fanatical
adherents have been tricked into wasting their own time and money spreading it
and hiding the truth about it, combined with law enforcement agents' and
legislators' chronic, and catastrophic, failure to identify it accurately. Although
they have no idea what they are really involved in, active 'MLM' adherents
are, in fact, proselytising-evangelists for a camouflaged, non-rational, ritual
belief system (call it a 'perverted religion' if you like) which has been
maliciously designed not only to spread like a contagion - enticing, deceiving,
robbing, exploiting and abusing susceptible individuals and their friends and
families - but also to load its victims with shame and guilt for their
inevitable failure to succeed, and thus, prevent them from facing reality and
complaining. Consequently, whilst they remain under the control of the Big 'MLM'
Lie, its most-dangerousadherents should be seen for what they
really are - the deluded deployable agents of a de facto syndicate comprising
the bosses of some the most widespread, socially, psychologically and
financially destructive organized cultic crime groups to have emerged in recent
history.
