Innova Review: Dubai-based securities fraud pyramid scheme

Innova prelaunched on the website domains “8innova.com” and “innovabackoffice.com”.

Today both website domains are disabled without explanation.

As far as I can tell, Innova now operates from the website domain “innacademy.net”. This domain was privately registered on September 18th, 2024.

On its new website, Innova fails to provide ownership or executive information.

Further research reveals an official Innova marketing presentation citing the following executives and insider promoters:

• Ivan Martinez – co-founder
• Juan Fernando Franco Elcure, aka Juan Franco – co-founder
• Juan Carlos Barrios – CVO
• Juan Valderrama – Product Development and Master Trader
• Jenn and Angel Carmona – Vice President for North America
• Asdrubal Sanabria and Carolina Cruz – Vice President for LATAM
• Javier Garcia Herreros – Master Distributor
• Camila Morena – Master Distributor

Ivan Martinez and Fernando Franco are former promoters of Be Club, a pyramid scheme that migrated to securities fraud last year.

Martinez and Franco promoted Be Club through “Sky Team”, targeting Central and South American consumers:

Uruguay issued a Be Club and Sky Team pyramid fraud warning in April 2023. Multiple Be Club fraud warnings have been issued in other countries (Canada, Colombia and Norway).

As per the cited Innova executive marketing slide above, the company claims its headquarters are in Dubai.

Due to the proliferation of scams and failure to enforce securities fraud regulation, BehindMLM ranks Dubai as the MLM crime capital of the world.

BehindMLM’s guidelines for Dubai are:

1. If someone lives in Dubai and approaches you about an MLM opportunity, they’re trying to scam you.
2. If an MLM company is based out of or represents it has ties to Dubai, it’s a scam.

If you want to know specifically how this applies to Innova, read on for a full review.

Innova’s Products

Innova has no retailable products or services.

Affiliates are only able to market Innova affiliate membership itself.

Innova affiliate membership provides access to:

• Inn-Academy – forex, stocks, crypto, e-commerce education platform
• Inn-TV – “real-time learning” and “interactive session with industry experts”
• Inn-Trade – trade alerts
• Inn-Telligence – passive returns through “automated trading”
• Inn-Travel – discount travel platform

Innova’s Compensation Plan

Innova’s compensation plan pays on recruitment of affiliates.

Innova Affiliate Ranks

There are eleven affiliate ranks within Innova’s compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

1. Inn 200 – generate 750 BV on both sides of your binary team
2. Inn 500 – generate 1500 BV and recruit and maintain one affiliate on both sides of your binary team
3. Nova – generate 5000 BV and recruit two affiliates on both sides of your binary team
4. Nova 5K generate 15,000 BV and maintain two personally recruited retail customers on both sides of your binary team
5. Nova 10K – generate 35,000 BV and recruit three affiliates on both sides of your binary team
6. Nova Diamond – generate 75,000 BV and maintain three personally recruited affiliates on both sides of your binary team
7. Nova 50K – generate 180,000 BV and maintain three personally recruited affiliates on both sides of your binary team
8. Nova 100K – generate 360,000 BV and recruit four affiliates on both sides of your binary team
9. Nova 150K – generate 600,000 BV and maintain four personally recruited affiliates on both sides of your binary team
10. Nova 250K – generate 1,000,000 BV and recruit five affiliates on both sides of your binary team
11. Nova 500K – generate 3,500,000 BV and maintain five personally recruited affiliates on both sides of your binary team

BV stands for “Business Volume”. BV is generated by personal and downline subscription sales:

• sell an Inntro membership = 150 BV
• sell an Innsight membership = 300 BV
• sell an Innpulse membership = 650 BV
• sell an Innfinity membership = 1100 BV
• sell a Pioneer membership – 1500 BV

Presumably BV is also generated on monthly membership payments however these amounts aren’t disclosed.

Rank qualification is calculated every four weeks. Note that excess volume on any side of the binary team does carry over, subject to the following limits:

• Inn 200 – max 1000 BV per binary team side
• Inn 500 – max 2000 BV per binary team side
• Nova – max 4000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 5K – max 5000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 10K – max 10,000 BV per binary team side
• Nova Diamond – max 15,000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 50K – max 35,000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 100K – max 75,000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 150K – max 150,000 BV per binary team side
• Nova 250K and Nova 500K – max 250,000 BV per binary team side

Recruitment Commissions

Innova pays commissions on recruitment of affiliates:

• sell an Inntro membership and receive $30
• sell an Innsight membership and receive $60
• sell an Innpulse membership and receive $130
• sell an Innfinity membership and receive $220
• sell a Pioneer membership and receive $300

Residual Commissions

Innova pays residual commissions based on rank:

• Inn 200 ranked affiliates earn $200 every four weeks
• Inn 500 ranked affiliates earn $500 every four weeks
• Nova ranked affiliates earn $1500 every four weeks
• Nova 5K ranked affiliates earn $5000 every four weeks
• Nova 10K ranked affiliates earn $10,000 every four weeks
• Nova Diamond ranked affiliates earn $20,000 every four weeks
• Nova 50K ranked affiliates earn $50,000 every four weeks
• Nova 100K ranked affiliates earn $100,000 every four weeks
• Nova 150K ranked affiliates earn $150,000 every four weeks
• Nova 250K ranked affiliates earn $250,000 every four weeks
• Nova 500K ranked affiliates earn $500,000 every four weeks

Matching Bonus

Innova pays a Matching Bonus via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Innova caps the Matching Bonus at seven unilevel team levels.

The Matching Bonus is paid on residual commissions earned across these seven levels based on rank:

• Inn 500 ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1 (personally recruited affiliates)
• Nova ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1 and 5% on level 2
• Nova 5K ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1, 5% on level 2 and 3% on level 3
• Nova 10K ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1, 5% on level 2 and 3% on levels 3 and 4
• Nova Diamond ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1, 5% on level 2, 3% on levels 3 and 4 and 2% on level 5
• Nova 50K ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1, 5% on level 2, 3% on levels 3 and 4, 2% on level 5 and 1% on level 6
• Nova 100K and higher ranked affiliates earn a 10% Matching Bonus on level 1, 5% on level 2, 3% on levels 3 and 4, 2% on level 5 and 1% on levels 6 and 7

Rank Achievement Bonus

Innova rewards affiliates who qualify at Nova 5K and higher with the following one-time Rank Achievement Bonuses:

• qualify at Nova 5K and receive an iPad Air
• qualify at Nova 10K and receive an Apple Watch Ultra
• qualify at Nova Diamond and receive a “diamond gold ring”
• qualify at Nova 50K and receive a Louis Vuitton gift card
• qualify at Nova 100K and receive a Rolex Submariner
• qualify at Nova 150K and receive a “1 week Dubai Tour for 2 people”
• qualify at Nova 250K and receive a Rolex Yacht-Master II
• qualify at Nova 500K and receive a “BMW blue”

Note that to qualify for the Rank Achievement Bonus, ranks must be qualified for for two consecutive four-week periods.

Joining Innova

Innova affiliate membership starts at $249:

• Inntro – $249 and then $127 a month
• Innsight – $499 and then $107 a month after three months
• Innpulse – $1099 and then $97 a month after six months
• Innfinity – $1799 and then $97 a month after nine months
• Pioneer – not disclosed

Innova Conclusion

Innova as an MLM company can be summed up as follows:

1. Ivan Martinez and Juan Franco made a bunch of money defrauding consumers through Be.
2. following a regulatory fraud warning in their native Colombia, at some point Martinez and Franco fled to Dubai.
3. hiding in Dubai is expensive, and so now we have what is effectively a Be Club clone with Innova.

In addition to association with Dubai, primary fraud concerns with Innova are its MLM compensation plan and Inn-Telligence offering.

There are no retail customers in Innova, everyone is an affiliate. I originally thought the memberships might be retail only with affiliate option pseudo-compliance, but compensation “pay to play” is baked into the membership themselves:

Pay to play is a strong indicator of a pyramid scheme. Not having retail customers is absolute confirmation.

With respect to Innova committing securities fraud, here’s the Inn-Telligence pitch:

An MLM company offering automated passive returns, however it is set up, constitutes a securities offering as per the Howey Test.

Innova fails to provide evidence it has registered with financial regulators in any jurisdiction, thus constituting securities fraud.

Specific to the US, home of the SEC and CFTC, we have Innova’s US Vice Presidents Jenn and Angel Carmona.

Jenn and Angel Carmona are based out Florida and, like Innova and its co-founders, are not registered with the SEC.

Depending on what is being traded, commodities fraud is also a concern – neither Innova, its executives and the Carmonas are registered with the CFTC either.

Last month the Carmonas, along with Theron Elkre, Ana Kim, Sunny Kim, Javier Garcia Jerrerops and Ali Ahmed, were promoting Innova in Montreal, Canada.

Neither Innova or any of its executives are registered to offer securities with any Canadian financial regulator.

Registration with financial regulators is not only a legal requirement, it requires Innova to periodically file audited financial reports.

This is especially important as in its marketing Innova claims its “algorithm strategies” of unknown origin is “backed by over four years of proven track records”.

Marketing claims like this are not a substitute for legally required audited financial reports filed with regulators.

In light of Innova’s pyramid business model and verifiable securities and/or commodities fraud, the rest of the attached membership services are irrelevant.

Innova citing “trading on the certified broker of your choice” suggests the company has adopted the “lulz can’t touch our money!” securities/commodities fraud model.

The “lulz can’t touch our money model”allows affiliates to invest funds in their own exchange account. This is done on the promise of passive returns, derived through Innova’s purported “AI algorithm” trading bot of unknown origin.

Under this model, investors are duped into believing that because funds are traded in their own broker/exchange accounts, they can’t be stolen.

This is false. Typically “lulz can’t touch our money!” schemes exit-scam through blowing the bot up or rigged trades.

Pending Innova trading losses are in addition to funds lost through its pyramid scheme. This alone will affect the majority of Innova affiliates when said pyramid inevitably collapses.

behindmlm.com

Thomas Brown