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Eliminalia was also hired to represent famous OneCoin resellers, a fraudulent cryptocurrency operation that defrauded investors out of billions of dollars. Aron, Christian Steinkeller, and Stephan Steinkeller, three brothers, are suspected of earning millions of euros from the plan and are currently being prosecuted in Italy. In 2021, a business made a payment of 38,000 euros to Eliminalia. An inquiry for comments was not answered by the Steinkeller brothers.
We look at 34 different data points when analyzing and rating online money-earning opportunities. Once the research on these data points is submitted, expert contributors reach out to the company’s customers and associates to get more insight into their operation. Finally, all the collected information is presented in the form of this expert review.
All the data is extracted from publicly available information and the sources are given in the transparency section at the bottom of every report.
These reports are made possible by the collective efforts of contributors like you. If you would like to become a contributor then contact us here.
Eliminalia: A Laundromat with a Bad Reputation for Criminals
‘Blackhat practices’ used by a reputation management firm in Spain aid bad actors everywhere in erasing their past.
- Eliminalia, a reputation manager from Spain, works in the expanding disinformation-for-hire sector, which aids corrupt officials and criminals in concealing their shady pasts.
- More than 1,400 clients, including hundreds suspected or found guilty of anything from drug trafficking to fraud, have utilized the organization to “clean up” their reputations.
- Eliminalia employs a variety of shady strategies, such as harassing journalists and spreading false information, to quash criticism of its customers.
- The corporation abused “right to be forgotten” legislation intended to shield consumers from harmful content online by using fabricated copyright infringement warnings.
Two of them are recognized narcotics dealers. One is accused of using money laundering techniques to support a prostitution ring. Another provided the Syrian government with American equipment. Three additional people have been charged with participating in a cryptocurrency fraud that cost investors billions of dollars.
These are just a few of the more than 1,400 customers who have used Eliminalia, a reputation management business that claims to “erase your past,” including many who have been found guilty or suspected of crimes.
What are the dangers of “fake PR” for those in the financial industry, and why is moral behavior important for establishing trust in the industry?
By using “fake PR,” a dishonest tactic that might harm their credibility and accomplishments, financial professionals run the risk of losing the public’s trust. Their reputation could be harmed and regulatory issues could result from even one incidence of deception. As a result, establishing confidence with clients and potential clients in finance requires ethical behavior and care.
Eliminalia, a company based in Barcelona, has been cleaning up its reputation for ten years.
The business has grown to become a prominent participant in the global disinformation-for-hire market from a wood-paneled coworking space it occupies with two dozen other tenants on the famed Portal de l’Ngel retail district.
Diego “Didac” Giménez Sánchez, a 30-year-old Spanish businessman who is said to be residing in Georgia, is the official brains behind Eliminalia. Sánchez asserts ownership over a vast network of businesses, which includes a Ukrainian surrogacy agency that is being investigated for baby trafficking.
However, it appears that he established this network with Jose Maria Hill Prados, who was found guilty of assaulting him sexually when he was a juvenile. Despite the fact that Hill Prados’ name is missing from Eliminalia’s records, Spanish investigators believe he may also be in charge of reputation management.
Reporters were able to outline Eliminalia’s broad network of digital influence thanks to thousands of leaked documents that were obtained by the French non-profit Forbidden Stories and shared with OCCRP and numerous partners. The records provide previously unseen insight into the wide range of deceptive strategies the corporation employs to quash criticism of its clients, building on earlier findings.
The documents demonstrate that Eliminalia, which changed its name to iData Protection S.L. in late December, intimidated journalists with copyright and privacy regulations, tricked search engines into concealing information, and produced bogus news. The corporation has even launched new commercial endeavors in other nations with its own criminal customers.
According to experts, Eliminalia is part of a burgeoning industry of disinformation that aids negative actors, such as criminals and kleptocrats, in concealing their murky pasts.
“This whole mechanism, this commission of money and reputation laundering, this everyday kleptocracy, depends today on transnational professional intermediaries,” said Tena Prelec, an Oxford University research scholar who specializes in transnational kleptocracy.
“You have a whole series of professional service industries, such as public relations agents, lobbyists, lawyers… who basically help in this repurposing of shady people, businesses, and governments as respected businesspeople and philanthropic cosmopolitans on a global scale.”
The legal counsel for Eliminalia refuses to answer inquiries for this project, claiming that many of them involved client business secrets. They charged bias against journalists.
“The vast majority of the questions’ orientation and content shows a partial and dishonorable approach,” they said.
The Eliminalia Leak: What Is It?
A reputation management company’s leak of nearly 50,000 documents was shared with dozens of media partners as well as the French organization Forbidden Stories. As part of the Story Killers project, more than 100 reporters collaborated to explore the disinformation-for-hire business.
The information includes information about Eliminalia’s customers in 50 different nations, such as their names, the contracts they signed, and other legal documents.
This is the first opportunity for journalists to have a close-up look at one of the most significant “black hat” reputation management firms in the world.
Services for Criminals
Sánchez, who describes himself as a self-made businessman, started his first reputation management firm in Spain when he was just 20 years old. He established a number of additional enterprises over the ensuing years before relocating his headquarters to Ukraine, where he employed writers to compose reviews and false legal notifications for journalists.
Among Sánchez’s various business endeavours was Subrogalia, a surrogacy agency that matched Spanish parents with Ukrainian women who potentially bear their offspring. Despite the fact that he is the company’s public face, papers discovered by OCCRP reveal that Hill Prados, who was jailed in Spain for abusing Sanchez sexually as a kid, actually owned the company’s Ukrainian firm.
They declined to give their names because they were not permitted to speak to the media, but two Spanish law enforcement officials in charge of cyberthreats informed OCCRP that they believed Hill Prados was the recipient of Eliminalia. But because they did not provide any information on their proof, OCCRP was unable to independently confirm the assertion.
Eliminalia is a component of a network of at least 54 organizations connected to Hill Prados and Sánchez during the previous ten years in nine different countries. Both of them declined to offer any comments on this story.
The front page of Eliminalia’s website.
Sánchez has previously stated that he founded Eliminalia to dispel rumours regarding his personal history as a Hill Prados victim.
In his self-published autobiography, The Secret of Success, he stated, “It tortured me so much to find mention of what had happened in my childhood on the Internet.” I started learning how to remove references, and after a few weeks, I was able to delete the majority of what had been written. So, after realizing there was a demand for it, I founded Eliminalia.
As part of a growing movement to improve “right to be forgotten” regulations, some of Eliminalia’s business comes from regular people looking to remove defamatory information posted about them online. However, reporters discovered that a large portion of the reputation manager’s clientele were criminals who used Eliminalia to bend the same laws to their advantage.\
Get Justice Suspicious
According to the internally leaked records, Eliminalia has served over 1,400 clients, including hundreds of people who have been charged with or found guilty of crimes ranging from drug trafficking and sexual assault to fraud and money laundering.
Eliminalia received €38K from Christian Steinkeller Bros to conceal the OneCoin fraud.
It has been revealed that Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller are Eliminalia’s clients.
Eliminalia is infamous for taking a dishonest method to “erase” the past of their clients.
Through a leak of documents that Forbidden Stories was able to get, Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller were revealed to be Eliminalia’s clients.
According to Forbidden Stories, they are
| a group of journalists to defend, pursue, and disseminate the work of other writers who are threatened, imprisoned, or killed. |
Diego “Didac” Sanchez, the company’s creator, is a Spaniard.
Fortunately, neither Christian Steinkeller nor Eliminalia resorted to incarceration or murder. Instead, they used coercion and intimidation to target media coverage of their illicit exploits.
In the legendary OneCoin Ponzi scheme, which was worth $4 billion, Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller were the top earners.
Through the “One Dream Team” branding, the brothers spread the word of the hoax.
News of the Steinkellers’ arrest in Italy on OneCoin-related accusations broke in 2021.
Eliminalia received a €38,00 payment from a fictitious company in the same year on the Steinkellers’ behalf.
According to Forbidden Stories, Eliminalia employs the following strategies:
-posing as representatives of the European Union;
-violating GDPR rules; and
–submitting false DMCA claims that are supported by falsified, old news articles
Forbidden Stories claims Eliminia successfully erased articles from “hundreds of journalists” between 2015 and 2021 based on the data they’ve examined.
| Eliminalia asserts that its services help clients with the “right to be forgotten” get rid of “unwanted and inaccurate information,” however nearly 50,000 internal company documents that were leaked to Forbidden Stories refute this assertion. The documents demonstrate how Eliminalia works with con artists, spyware firms, torturers, convicted felons, dishonest politicians, and others in the international underworld to conceal information of public interest. Some of Eliminalia’s clients have been identified in prior reports, including that by Rest of World, but this leak, which contains private emails, client names, contracts, and other legal documents, provides a more thorough picture of the company’s operations. |
Along with aiming for honest media portrayal of his clients,
| In addition, Sánchez and his business partner José Mara Hill Prados are the owners of at least 50 businesses worldwide, including a surrogacy operation that is being sued for child trafficking. |
The ineffective DMCA laws and the well-intended but idiotic European GDPR laws allow organizations like Eliminalia to operate as they do.
| Eliminalia and other businesses discovered that data protection regulations may be used as a weapon to delete content from the internet. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and GDPR are two rules that may be readily broken. |
OCCRP contacted the Steinkellers for comment as part of its coverage of the stolen Eliminalia documents. They said no.
Eliminalia was contacted by Forbidden Stories for a response. They also said no.
When Eliminalia discovered that their actions would soon be covered, it hastily changed its name to Idata Protection.
| The rebrand has been confirmed by company documents examined by Forbidden Stories, presumably as a result of press-generating inquiries by journalists and researchers. However, when two consortium members arrived at the office, a staff member informed them that “the company is called Idata Protection, but we belong to Eliminalia.” The employee said that Sánchez, the company’s creator, was no longer in Barcelona. |
If you’re wondering whether BehindMLM was the target of Aron, Stephan, Christian Steinkeller and Eliminalia, I definitely remember receiving some GDPR-related rubbish from them.
Scammers still use the trick sometimes in Europe, despite the fact that they’ve essentially dried up. If what I recall was sent by Eliminalia, it would have been standard enough for me to just respond to and delete as I only keep correspondence sent by lawyers.
Italian Authorities charge 14 OneCoin promoters
The Italian Guardia di Finanza has indicted 14 OneCoin Ponzi scam promoters. The indictments were submitted at Bolzano, which is a city in the South Tyrol region of Italy. Sadly, the names of those charged have not been made public. What is known is that the individuals who have been accused of
| Financial crimes, aggravated fraud, unlawful savings gathering, illegal pyramid selling of electronic money, and illegal distribution and marketing of electronic money are all crimes with a global component. |
Over 3700 OneCoin victims in South Tyrol, who collectively lost over 5 million euros, have been identified by Italian investigators.
We also know that the notorious Steinkeller brothers, who “helped” OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova, were the target of the Guardia di Finanza’s investigation.
OneCoin was abandoned by Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller soon after its demise at the beginning of 2017.
The brothers were in charge of the Onecoin “One DreamTeam” team of promoters, which brought in about $2.5 million per month at the time.
Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller made a comeback in late 2019 with Planet Impact, an MLM opportunity with an environmental emphasis.
While Planet Impact’s official Facebook page was shut down in April 2020, the company’s website is still active.
The Steinkellers, who were originally from South Tyron, fled to Dubai after leaving OneCoin. There is no extradition agreement between Italy and Dubai.
Dubai is presently the world’s epicenter of MLM fraud for this and other reasons. MLM scammers on the run from the law find refuge in the city.
We are aware that there are “9 from South Tyrol and 1 from Veneto” among the remaining suspects charged.
Ruja Ignatova might be the fourteenth defendant along with Aron, Stephan, and Christian Steinkeller, making a total of thirteen.
Ignatova vanished in the end of 2017. She is thought to either be dead or being kept safe in Russia or the United Arab Emirates.
Late in 2016, Italy started to crack down on OneCoin. The AGCM issued an injunction just before the new year, effectively outlawing the promotion of OneCoin in Italy.
OneCoin was branded a pyramid scheme and outright outlawed in Italy in February 2017.
The main Italian OneCoin group’s leaders, the Steinkeller brothers, gave up on the con three months later and left.
The AGCM penalized OneCoin 2.5 million euros in August 2017 for breaking the prohibition.
OneCoin was still promoted in Italy despite the fine. Promoters of OneCoin in Italy hosted a gathering in Verona in July 2019.
The Italia Independent Marketing Association Italia Facebook group, where the event was organized.
The Verona event was directed by Simon Le, Habib Zahid, and Italian OneCoin entrepreneur Luca Miatton, according to promotional materials.
Marco Agnelli, Nicola Giarcuni, Renato Zin, Luca Miatton, Patrizia Testagrossa, Alessio Mitta Miatoon, G Nithihayah Oliva, and Marco Barbagello are among the administrators of the Italia Independent Marketing Association Italia.
Following the event, several attendees were detained by Italian officials as they boarded flights out of the country.
Following the Steinkeller OneCoin era and Stefan Liback’s subsequent misuse of their downline, Luca Miatton assumed leadership of OneCoin in Italy.
Miatton (on the right) has a history of lying while promoting OneCoin.
Miatton was exposed as a liar in April 2020 regarding a purported cooperation between OneCoin and Soldo for prepaid MasterCards.
Miatton was once more exposed for lying regarding the collaboration between OneCoin and the Ukrainian government in May 2021.
In a video posted on July 31 to his personal Facebook page, Miatton can be seen pitching OneCoin at a hotel in northern Italy.
It is unknown if Miatton is one of the fourteen OneCoin promoters charged.
MetFi: A Ponzi scheme
Behind MLM claims that MetFi is a Ponzi scheme. Staffan Liback and Stephan Steinkeller, former Onecoin promoters, are promoting it. The latter is being investigated in Italy for financial offences along with his two brothers.
The Steinkeller brothers and the promoters who worked for them are accused by Italian authorities of stealing more than $10 million from Italian investors. These platforms frequently operate without permission from the appropriate authorities and are therefore illegal in all nations.
Get Your Money Back Suspicious
Ponzi scam promoters frequently utilize social media to recruit new members, and they make use of standard network marketing catchphrases like “be your own boss”, “millionaire lifestyle”, or inspirational statements from notable businesspeople. “DM for info” is written in the Instagram bios of the promoters. The story I saw on one of these idiots’ Instagram profiles that is currently recruiting people in Italy is the one I’ll show you below.
TRANSLATION:
14,725 members in 90 days
What do you think will happen in 1 year with the top players in the world?
You can still be among the first of this huge movement.
There is no information on the founders, the staff, or the roadmap on their website or in the WhitePaper, according to a search. We did learn that an affiliate program exists.
“The affiliate program for MetFi is arguably the most powerful, transparent, and fair affiliate scheme ever developed. Regardless of whether they choose to be active or passive participants, anyone can participate and make money.
I was able to find the compensation plan in Spanish by searching the internet. Typically, the Ponzi scheme compensation systems are overly imbalanced and unsustainable over the long run. Following that, 5 other income streams are listed: ANNUAL PERCENTAGE YIELD (APY), MATRIX BONUS, MATCHING BONUS, FAST START BONUS, and TOKEN STAKING BONUS.
The Whitepaper also contains the following rather cryptic sentence at the bottom of page 45: “MetFi is growing rapidly and while all efforts will be made to stop bad actors from gaining an official role some bad actors may slip through the cracks to deceive you and steal your assets so always be suspicious and always proceed with extreme caution.”
All of this is questionable. Don’t donate any money to these idiots. Report the person who has already recruited you to the proper authorities. All of the top promoters will vanish as usual following the pump and dump. Many people lose money, and when they log into their back office, they see the message “404 Not Found,” they realize it.
Always remember to avoid these scumbags and Instagram influencers who provide financial advice.
