On August 1st the SEC filed civil fraud charges against Forsage co-founder Vladimir “Lado” Okhotnikov.
The regulator alleges Forsage is a $300 million dollar Ponzi scheme.
That same day Okhotnikov doubled down and held a webinar titled, “Burning Question to Meta Force Founder”.
You’d be wrong if you thought addressing the SEC’s lawsuit was a “burning question”.
The latest Meta Force webinar was hosted by serial scammer Vitaliy Dubinin.
Dubinin identified himself as the “International Leader of MetaForce”.
Dubinin, believed to be an Israeli national, is a serial promoter of Ponzi schemes.
Dubinin recently relocated to Dubai. Through a combination of turning a blind eye to MLM related securities fraud, limited extradition treaties and non-cooperation with foreign law enforcement, Dubai provides a safe-haven for scammers.
Dubinin was joined by Beccy Cai, who he cited as “a huge Chinese leader”.
Cai, like Dubinin, joined the first iteration of Forsage in 2020. Through “leopard Alliance”, Cai boasted of having a Forsage downline of 200,000 investors.
For reference, MetaForce is the sixth Forsage reboot.
Cai claims to be originally from China but at some point moved to Canada.
Cai’s Chinese origins form the basis of her herding Chinese investors into Ponzi schemes.
Dubinin claims the MetaForce “organized this special call to share the vision of MetaForce … (and) address the questions of the community.”
These questions primarily relate to withdrawal problems, missing payments and future plans for the Ponzi scheme.
Lado promises to fix problems with MetaForce’s launch. These include missing commission payments and delays with MetaForce’s planned NFT grift.
A lot of the problems come down to implementation of MetaForce’s internal shitcoins; SFC, “energy” and an unnamed yet to be released token.
After the MetaForce NFT grift is released, Okhotnikov plans to focus on launching a MetaForce metaverse marketing grift.
Lado states he hopes to visit China soon to hold MetaForce promotional events.
I want to do it because it is very important.
I did it before because… before Forsage I worked myself in different network companies, and I always worked offline because it is more powerful.
I want to go to China because I have some plans to work with China.
At one point in the webinar Cai urges Okhotnikov to communicate with MetaForce investors more often.
You need to show more often, otherwise the market is… y’know they get lost because so many (indecipherable) things. And they got misleaded [sic] by some false information all the time.
Whether Cai is referencing the the SEC enforcement action is unclear.
In the wake of the SEC’s lawsuit, it certainly appears Dubinin, Cai and Okhotnikov are focusing their recruitment efforts in non-English speaking countries.
No US Forsage leaders were present on the webinar. Nor was the US or SEC enforcement action mentioned.
For now it appears Okhotnikov and Forsage leaders like Dubinin and Cai, intend to pretend the SEC’s lawsuit doesn’t exist.
News of the SEC’s Forsage lawsuit was carried by mainstream media globally. Whether that included Chinese media is unclear.
SimilarWeb currently tracks Russia as the top source of traffic to MetaForce’s website. Yesterday the Central Bank of Russia issued a MetaForce pyramid scheme fraud warning.
Okhotnikov is a Russian national living in Tbilisi, Georgia. Thus far Georgian authorities have shown no interest in regulating MLM related securities fraud.
Whether Russian authorities take further action against Okhotnikov and Russian MetaForce promoters remains to be seen.