There have been rumors that The Traders Domain, a Ponzi scam that wasn’t MLM and failed in late 2022, and OmegaPro are connected.
The inference was that monies from OmegaPro investors were mixed with those of The Traders Domain, which was operating a Ponzi scheme of its own.
I’ve been unable to confirm anything, and I still can’t, at least not conclusively.
However, a recent regulatory case has identified a specific connection between OmegaPro and The Traders Domain.
Yas Castellum LLC, Yas Castellum Financial LLC, Saeg Capital General Management, as well as a number of other defendants, are the targets of a lawsuit brought by the CFTC.
- Yas Castellum LLC, a defunct shell corporation located in Colorado, was permanently disqualified from NFA membership in September 2022 for fraud. In October 2020, it registered with the NFA as a commodities pool operator.
- Yas Castellum Financial LLC, a fictitious business registered in Hawaii
- Saeg Capital General Management LP (SAEG GM), a front business registered with the NFA as a forex and swap firm and commodity pool operator, was founded in Delaware.
- Yas Financial and Yas Castellum are owned by Marcus Todd Brisco, a citizen of Hawaii.
- Texas native and convicted felon Tin Quoc Tran (also known as Tin Quoc Tran) is a co-owner of Saeg Capital General Management and has engaged in numerous fraudulent commodity trading schemes.
Sage Capital General Management co-owner and Utahn Francisco Story
The co-owner of The Traders Domain Ponzi scheme and Ontario, Canada resident Frederick Safranko (also known as Ted Safranko)
How exactly does a Ponzi scheme operate?
An investment fraud known as a Ponzi scheme draws investors with claims of great returns and no risk but fails to invest the money as stated. Instead, it pays off earlier investors with money from future investors while maybe keeping a portion of the profits. These schemes typically fail when recruiting investors becomes challenging or when multiple investors attempt to cash out. They depend on a steady flow of new buyers to operate. They are called after Charles Ponzi, who ran a similar scam using postal stamps in the 1920s.
Michael Shannon Sims, a native of Florida or Georgia, is the brother-in-law of Marcus Brisco, the CEO of Yas Castellum, and a co-owner of OmegaPro.
I wasn’t really certain that Michael Shannon Sims was Mike Sims from OmegaPro at first.
After some investigation, I was able to confirm that it is the same person:
Sims apparently had a menswear business before being involved in financial theft.
In any case, Michael Shannon Sims serves as the intermediary between The Traders Domain and OmegaPro.
Sims is also maybe a direct relationship between the defunct Meta Bounty Hunters and Meta Bounty Huntresses Ponzi scams run by Holton Buggs and Travis Bott.
Mike Sims is pictured in the center of the back row in the image above, which was taken on February 26, 2022.
Marcus Brisco is seated in the front row, second from the right, if I’m not mistaken. I may be mistaken about this, but you can contrast it with the snapshot of Brisco’s Twitter profile that is shown below (I think it’s an older picture).
Sims collaborated with Ted Safranko, the proprietor of The Traders Domain, on a number of fraudulent schemes, according to the CFTC lawsuit filed on January 31.
As the CFTC claims;
The three fraudulent schemes named by the CFTC offered profits through what were called “margined gold-U.S. dollar pair transactions” (XAUUSD) and allegedly profitable FX trading.
Advertised returns, which averaged 10.95% per month, were based on false past trading records.
Early in 2019, OmegaPro announced its introduction and promised a 200% ROI over 16 months, again allegedly generated from forex trading.
Of course, there was no trading going on in the aforementioned shady scams, unlike OmegaPro.
When it comes to the three listed fraudulent schemes, things become a little more tricky. Unfortunately, the CFTC does not identify the companies.
However, this is how the original one was structured;
The second scheme:
The third scheme was operated by Tin Tran;
Through the deceptive techniques, Tran received approximately $470,780, $1,585,261, and $144,043,883 into his pools, respectively.
A plan to conceal the fraudulent practices from regulators was hatched by Ted Safranko, SAEG Capital General Management LP, and Francisco Story.
The Commodities and Exchange Act has allegedly been violated by the defendant’s actions, according to the CFTC.
The CFTC filed its lawsuit under seal on January 31st against Brisco and the other defendants. The lawsuit was opened on February 14th after obtaining a Temporary Restraining Order against the defendants on February 3.
The TRO will be the subject of a “show cause” hearing on February 22nd.
I won’t report on the case as I usually would; suffice it to say that Brisco is screwed and I wouldn’t be surprised if criminal proceedings are pending.
According to what is currently known, Ted Safranko and Michael Shannon Sims are persons of interest in the case. That brings us a full round to OmegaPro.
One of the founding members of OmegaPro is Mike Sims. It is quite possible that Sims merged Omega Pro funds with his other fraudulent schemes behind all the nameless businesses and possibly outside the purview of the CFTC’s action.
These would largely be OmegaPro-related cryptocurrency transactions. I’m unable to give any specifics pending further regulatory inquiries.
The connection between Michael Shannon Sims and The Traders Domain is made by Safranko (right). Michael Shannon Sims is very certainly linked in some way with The Traders Domain if he was dealing with Safranko on these Tin Quoc Tran Ponzi schemes.
A number of other MLM Ponzi schemes that injected invested money into The Trader’s Domain support this.
The collapse timeframe is unique to OmegaPro. The unsuccessful PulseWorld XPL token exit scam that OmegaPro launched in early November 2022 was the first indication of financial issues inside the company.
After three weeks of complete non-payment of withdrawals, BehindMLM declared OmegaPro to be in financial collapse at the end of November.
Following that, there was gibberish about hackers and Broker Group, which I assume was orchestrated by Mike Sims and/or his associates.
Given everything, I don’t believe the simultaneous collapses of OmegaPro and The Traders Domain were an accident. It too closely resembles the pattern of MLM enterprises that fed into The Trader’s Domain before they all naturally failed.
Unknown is Sim’s present situation. Up until a few weeks ago, his Instagram profile was open to the public.
Sims turned his Instagram profile private last month after BehindMLM revealed he was still residing in Florida as of September 2022.
Sims’ accomplices on the OmegaPro team, Germans Andreas Szakacs, and Dilawar Singh
Sims turned his Instagram profile private last month after BehindMLM revealed he was still residing in Florida as of September 2022. Michael Shannon Sims’ accomplices on the OmegaPro team, Germans Andreas Szakacs, and Dilawar Singh.
Buggs is thought to have directly recruited iBuumerang affiliates into The Traders Domain through ellev8, in addition to his Meta Bounty Hunters and Meta Bounty Huntresses Ponzi scams. iBuumerang is an MLM business with a travel-themed discount that Buggs started in 2019. Buggs expanded forex trading and dubious investment schemes through ellev8 as COVID-19 hit. At the beginning of this post, I included a link to an extremely early mention of the connections between The Traders Domain and Sims. It’s crucial since discussions about OmegaPro’s connections to The Trader’s website mostly began following OmegaPro’s demise.
Michael Shannon Sims agrees to the Ponzi injunction against Yas Castellum
Mike Sims, also known as Michael Shannon Sims, has agreed to a preliminary injunction. The CFTC’s allegations of commodities fraud are the subject of the injunction. Regarding a number of Ponzi schemes perpetrated by Michael Shannon Sims (below), Todd Brisco (Sims’ brother-in-law), Tin Tran, Francisco Story, and Frederick Safranko (also known as Ted Safranko), the CFTC brought charges in January 2023.
Sims and his co-defendants are accused of defrauding consumers out of at least $145 million through their interrelated Yas Castellum Ponzi schemes. Sims played a part in the money-laundering aspect of the Yas Castellum Ponzi scheme crimes.
A Statutory Restraining Order (SRO) against the Yas Castellum defendants was granted to the CFTC on February 6. The Yas Castellum Ponzi schemes’ associated money, as well as connected assets and monies under the Defendants’ control, were effectively frozen by the SRO. The court further granted the CFTC access to the Defendants’ financial records on the grounds that the CFTC had established violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, was likely to win at trial, and there was “a reasonable likelihood that Defendants will transfer or dissipate assets or destroy records”.
Michael Shannon Sims has agreed to have the SRO, as it relates to him, changed into a preliminary injunction in accordance with a consent order from March 30. Michael Shannon Sims is prohibited from doing certain things until the provisions of the agreed-upon preliminary injunction are met.
- Committing additional violations of the Commodities Exchange Act.
- Trading on any entity that is registered, engaging in transactions involving commodity interests (including those made on Sims’ behalf).
- Managing or overseeing trading for or on behalf of any other person or entity.
- Raising money with the intention of buying or selling commodity interests.
- Registering with the CFTC (including requesting exemptions).
- Opening or accessing any safe.
Michael Shannon Sims are additionally mandated to:
- CFTC should have open access to all “paper documents, ESI, tape recordings, and computer discs” he has access to in order to preserve evidencePasswords for any encrypted data and/or devices that should be provided to the CFTC.
- A “detailed and complete” list of all of his electronic devices for the CFTC to use in order to image stored data.
- Provide the CFTC with “the names and last known addresses, phone numbers and email addresses” for each of his clients (backdated to April 2020).
- Provide the CFTC with “a full accounting of his financial records within and outside of the US.
- Provide the CFTC with the same personal information of anyone holding any funds, securities, commodities interests, assets “or other property” tied to Michael Shannon Sims.
Any third parties in charge of Michael Shannon Sims-related assets and/or funds have also been told to instruct said assets and/or funds to be frozen. To account for assets and funds purchased as of April 2020, this is backdated. Regarding Michael Shannon Sims’ assets and business interests connected to the Yas Castellum Ponzi schemes, the previously appointed Yas Castellum Temporary Receiver has been promoted to Receiver.
Michael Shannon Sims will “continue to cooperate fully with and assist” the temporary receiver appointed by Yas Castellum. This includes allowing the Receiver to look up details on Sim’s “business activities, business finances, and personal finances” on his behalf. Michael Shannon Sims is the first defendant in the Yas Castellum case to agree to a temporary restraining order. The case against the remaining defendants is still pending.
Holton Buggs, Travis Bott, and Eric Worre, three well-known MLM leaders, are also included in this plot.
OmegaPro is the most well-known Ponzi scheme among Michael Shannon Sims’ extensive fraud network. Late in 2018, Michael Shannon Sims and the scammers Andreas Szakacs (Sweden) and Dilawar Singh (Germany), who operate out of Dubai, co-founded OmegaPro.
OmegaPro promised an ROI of 200% over 16 months. OmegaPro’s collapse was predicted by BehindMLM in November 2022 as a result of withdrawal issues that continued until late 2022. Michael Shannon Sims agreed to a preliminary injunction, which the court approved on March 30th, the same day the agreement was submitted. I’m unable to definitively confirm anything, but Michael Shannon Sims’ agreement to a preliminary injunction may shed light on the situation.
OmegaPro fails, preventing withdrawals for three weeks
BehindMLM is predicting OmegaPro’s demise due to persistent website difficulties and the two-week suspension of withdrawals. Around November 7th, OmegaPro affiliates started to complain about getting locked out of their accounts.
Although this was fixed, affiliates could still not access the forex area of OmegaPro’s website, which is where the Ponzi scam is carried out. According to BehindMLM, the first several attempts to reach OmegaPro’s website’s forex section resulted in a “520 HTTP error”. This error code from CloudFlare indicates an issue with OmegaPro’s end. Today’s CloudFlare error has been replaced by alternating Korean and Italian server maintenance notices by OmegaPro.
The continuous login issues at OmegaPro, which were first noticed on or around November 20th, have developed into withdrawal concerns.
Requests for withdrawal that had been submitted as of November 15 were still pending. Those withdrawal requests still haven’t been paid out as November draws to a close. Right now, it appears that some OmegaPro associates can access their accounts. most people can’t. For most of November, nobody has been able to withdraw. On November 18th, OmegaPro made its first public statement on login and withdrawal issues.
On November 22nd, OmegaPro followed up by informing affiliate investors their account password would be reset.
In closed top leader OmegaPro groups, there have been unconfirmed accusations of hacking going around. Nothing formal has come to my attention.
What I can say is that a business doesn’t need to fix mysterious technological issues for the better part of a month. The prohibited access and withdrawal issues with OmegaPro are characteristic of a Ponzi scheme that is about to collapse. Additionally stoking the flames is Along with retroactively extending the maturity duration of current investment contracts from 16 to 24 months, OmegaPro just introduced PulseWorld XPL token exit-scam.
There is only one reason a Ponzi scheme stops paying out. OmegaPro doesn’t want to pay any more of what’s left of actual money out, and that has led to the current situation.
Instead of addressing log-in problems and disabled withdrawals, OmegaPro is busy promoting Eric Worre’s upcoming Virtual Go Pro conference.
Worre, a seasoned MLM professional with years of experience, is quickly emerging in Dubai as the face of MLM-related financial fraud thanks to his affiliation with companies like OmegaPro, GSPartners, and EvoRich, to mention a few.
Worre was hired by corporate as the Official Strategic Coach, and his responsibility is to teach OmegaPro affiliates how to find new victims. Investors from OmegaPro appear to be directed toward Worre’s “Go Pro” competitions as part of the hidden payment arrangement. Prices range from $497 to $4997 for tickets. For the event the previous year, Worre claims to have sold 65,000 tickets.
It remains to be seen if OmegaPro revives its busted Ponzi scam. It’s still possible, but once a Ponzi scheme fails, it’s game over. Reboots last less time than the initial run, and all but the most foolish investors profit.OmegaPro, a Ponzi scheme based in Dubai and conducted by scammers Mike Sims, Andreas Szakacs, and Dilawar Singh, was established in 2019. OmegaPro has been careful not to target the US and instead has focused on scamming investors in third-world countries. Of the 2 million visits SimilarWeb tracked to OmegaPro’s website in October 2022 (down from 2.6 million in September), 43% were from Colombia, 18% were from Argentina and 8% were from Mexico.
To date OmegaPro has received regulatory fraud warnings from France, Belgium, Congo Republic (multiple arrests), Spain (two fraud warnings), Mauritius, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua. Pending unlikely intervention by regulators in Dubai, or OmegaPro rebooting its collapsed Ponzi scheme, we’ll keep you posted.
Omega Pro Review: Ponzi scheme trading for 200% ROI in 16 months
On its website, Omega Pro makes no mention of the company’s owners or managers. On November 9, 2018, a private registration for the “omegapro. world” domain for the Omega Pro website was made. Prime Secretarial, a provider of virtual offices, has a UK corporate location that is listed on the Omega Pro website.
20th August 2020 update I looked into OmegaPro’s ownership once more after France added OmegaPro to their fraud blacklist. Two names were given to me via my research: Andreas Szakacs (right) and Dilawar Singh. OmegaPro’s co-owner is listed as Dilawar Singh. Singh, who is located in Germany, formerly served as an Omnia Tech Ambassador before joining OmegaPro.
Given that OmegaPro began operations immediately following OmniaTech’s demise, the Ponzi scam appears to be continuing there. From Dubai, Andreas Szakacs (right) conducts business. I was unable to verify any prior MLM involvement. This leads us to believe that OmegaPro is based in the Middle East and Europe. As of this update, the top three sources of traffic are Brazil (17%), Colombia (15%), and Nigeria (12%).
are used to compensate affiliates. Furthermore, Omega Pro makes no mention on its website of having a license to run a passive investment plan in any of the jurisdictions in which they do business. Omega Pro, at best, is engaging in securities fraud; while it occasionally engages in trading, for the most part, it merely recycles newly invested money. At worst, Omega Pro is a full-fledged Ponzi scheme and is engaging in securities fraud. Additionally, Omega Pro runs an internal virtual lottery that results in gaming infractions.
Simply said, a true investment opportunity that generated external ROI revenue wouldn’t have to fuss with reinvestment requirements or crap like virtual lotteries. The proprietors of Omega Pro are operating the business more like a Ponzi scheme by attempting to keep as much money in the system as they can. Like any Ponzi scheme, the rate of new investment will decline as affiliate recruitment does. As a result, Omega Pro will eventually fail from a lack of ROI income. The mandated 30% reinvestment requirement and 10% virtual lottery insanity of Omega Pro may delay the collapse, but withdrawals will always outpace fresh investment. Ponzi schemes are zero-sum games in mathematics. Everyone loses when the business owners and early investors embezzle the majority of the invested funds.
Michael Shannon Sims Needs to Be Exposed Online
Mike Sims presented himself as the financier of a number of MLM Ponzi schemes that were used to fund Traders Domain.
Sims and his brother-in-law Todd Brisco also managed the money laundering for Traders Domain through Yas Castellum.
Through Algo Capital, Michael Shannon Sims pretended to be the company’s director of international business in order to conduct this.
Traders Domain failed shortly after Algo Capital.
Returning to MLM, Sims is a partner in the creation of the OmegaPro MLM cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.
Late in 2022, about the time that Traders Domain went under, OmegaPro also failed.
Sims also seem to have been directly involved with Holton Buggs’ Meta Bounty Hunters and Meta Bounty Huntresses Ponzi schemes; otherwise, it would be a huge coincidence that he showed up at the Florida launch party for the fraud in 2022.
Sims, who I failed to mention by name in the caption, is visible in the middle back row of the above image, to the right of Travis Bott, who is denoted by the number “2”.
Sims and a number of defendants were sued by the CFTC in February 2023 in what looks to be a “tip of the iceberg” regulatory strike against the much larger Traders Domain Ponzi scheme.
Sims agreed to an asset freeze in March 2023 in connection with the CFTC’s $145 million complaint. Uncertain if that accurately depicts Michael Shannon Sims’ larger plunder of the Traders Domain.
Sims was contacted by Coffeezilla for comment. Sims simply asked, “Is this real?” when presented with evidence of his involvement in Traders Domain.
CFTC’s Commodity Pool Fraud Advisory
The Commodity Pool Fraud Advisory, which gives information about a type of fraud involving people and firms, frequently unregistered, offering investments in commodity pools, is one of the Fraud Advisories and Articles for customer protection that the CFTC has released.
Additionally, the CFTC strongly advises the general public to confirm a company’s registration with the Commission prior to making an investment. A customer should exercise caution when giving money to an unregistered entity. The registration status of a firm can be discovered using NFA BASIC.
Andreas, one of the founders is said to be German here but he is actually a Swedish person.. Other than that i could not find any details that was off. Great work!
Hello,
I hope this message finds you well, this is Camilo, one of the hundred thousand victims of OmegaPro in Colombia.
Do you have any update on this?
Hi Camilo, We have almost 3000 victims in our legal actions. http://www.omegaprocase.com
We were lied to and scammed. Our hard earned monies. I hope the authorities give justice to the victims