With disgrace and prison looming, the 'Club Asteria' racketeers are now desperately trying to blame their victims

Shyam

A week ago, faced with the rapidly-approaching collapse of their US-based, 'Amway' copy-cat 'business opportunity' racket, the bosses of 'Club Asteria'  (Mark Kaplan, Hank Needham, Andrea Lucas) posted a foolish, but nonetheless grotesque, audio recording on the Net, in which they endeavour to obstruct justice by blaming their victims for lying, and/or losing faith, and/or whining, and/or complaining, and/or not working hard enough, etc. Laughably, these reality-inverting, closed-market swindlers now claim to be focusing on 'the sale of products and services.' 

http://www.club-asteria.us/audio/Meeting24June11.mp3

‘It’s our members who have lied, not us,’ is one of the last-resort, tell-tale scripted-lies told by ‘business opportunity’ racketeers when they face criminal investigation. Indeed, this familiar, twisted chapter of the twisted 'MLM' fairytale, is itself illustrative of an established pattern of ongoing, major racketeering activity; for, self-evidently, it has been maliciously designed to prevent, and/or divert, investigation of fraud and to isolate the beneficiaries of this fraud from liability. Interestingly, when the British government filed a public interest, civil bankruptcy petition against ‘Amway UK Ltd.’ in 2007, accusing ‘Amway’ of ‘dream selling’, the company’s officers escaped compulsory closure and a criminal investigation, by claiming that neither they, nor their company, had ever made exaggerated earnings claims: it was two rogue ‘Amway Diamond Distributors,' Pat Gregory and Jerry Scriven, who had told these dreadful lies.

The essentially-identical, reality-inverting, audio message recently posted on line by the bosses of the pernicious ‘business opportunity’ fraud known as ‘Club Asteria,’ should, therefore, be seen as being part of an established pattern of ongoing, major racketeering activity (as defined by RICO – the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act 1970 – and clarified by subsequent US Supreme Court judgements). Indeed, given the wider evidence, this stomach-churning document featuring the increasingly-unconvincing Mark Kaplan, is the equivalent of a signed confession.

David Brear (copyright 2011)