By Brandon Julien Celaya Torres

Bhip Global is a company that extends along five continents and has been indicated to operate through a pyramidal scheme.The recruiters hook people 17 years and old.

In Europe, the company has a Denmark subsidiary called B: Hip Europe.Bettina Stepwieser, head of the Austrian Consumer Protection Department, warned in 2017 that the scheme under which this company works is pyramidal and illegal for that country.

Aristegui News managed to document the way B: Hip operates in Mexico.

Own infographic conducted with information from OpenCorportates and Social Networks of BHIP.

It all starts with a friend request and a message on Facebook."Hello how are you?I am working on a project online, and we are looking for people who want to earn money using Facebook as a tool.Are you interested? "

Jack Santos (JS) and Rodrigo (R) were recruited by Bhip at different times.Jack before the pandemic caused by COVID-19 and Rodrigo during confinement.

JS: They sent me the typical message: "Thank you for adding, can I ask you a question?".Then they told me that they work from social networks and I thought they were dedicated to advertising or that they needed a community manager.I said yes and sent me a location a few blocks from the Chapultepec Metro.

The office that Jack was presented is located in AV.Chapultepec #540, Mexico City.However, this domicile is only one of many that Bhip uses to quote the next recruits.

JS: I thought I was going to a job interview, but rather it looked like an club.What they do is empower you saying that they are a company for kids who work with the kid.But instead of doing a job interview or telling you what the company does, they make an exhibition on the advantages of working with them and they tell you that you can become a millionaire.After this conference they tell you that there will be another with a cost of 150 pesos.As I did not have the money, they gave me a card in which they made me sign that I would pay them that amount and I could go to this second event.

Due to the pandemic, BHIP now gives its seminars through the Zoom videoconferences platform:

A: During the first conference in Zoom they did not let you see the other participants, or turn on the camera or microphone.All the time that lasted, they basically told us what mentality we should have.They wanted to change our mentality.They told us things like "being an employee is being mediocre", "everything costs work, nothing is easy", "starts from below", "living well and without debts".Everything was a seminar to change our mentality.In the end they told me to contact me with the one that recruited me and made a deposit of 150 pesos to be able to attend a second seminar

JS: This second seminar was in another location, near Plaza Universidad.Here you already release the soup and they tell you that you must invest a thousand five hundred dollars.They sell it to you as an investment.You give the money, they give you products, you sell them and then put more people who sell more products and thus earn money.I even have a video in which they teach you the pyramid.

The second seminar is called Business Internet Training..After this event, Jack did not return to the company.Instead, he dedicated himself to documenting this and spreading various videos on YouTube in which he denounces the pyramidal scheme.Rodrigo did not run the same fate.

A: In this second seminar they told me about the company and the products they sell, but not how they sold them.The products introduced me.One was Blue Energy, an energizing drink;Oni Gia;Purple Caps and Pink.

The products mentioned by Rodrigo are marketed worldwide by Bhip Global.In December 2018, the Colombian Government Food and Government Directorate issued an alert for Blue Energy and cataloged it as a “fraudulent product”, prohibiting its commercialization.

A: In Europe they had other products.Sometimes they were the same, but they only changed the taste.

A: Then I had a third seminar, now free, where they already explained to me about how to generate money.First they put us ideas to change our mentality and they told us that to generate money we had to know how companies generate it.Finally, they talked about the "prospecting system" that are the social networks profiles they asked to do.They still did not explain how I was going to start working with them, but they already asked me to make different social media accounts.For example, if I have two names I make an account with a name and surname.Then I get another with my other name and my second last name.They asked you to play with your name or put a nickname.They taught me to what colors to use in each profile.They taught me what vibes I had to convey my profile.I had to put striking and colorful photos.I had to vary the type of photos: some me alone, others with my family and others with my friends to see that I am a social person.They even told me: "First you will publish a meme, then a motivating phrase, then a photo of yours".The joke of everything was that people began to notice my profile, so at the time I invited someone to work with me, that person gets into the profile and sees that they are going super father.We even had messages of messages to copy and paste depending on the answers that a potential recruited would give us.In total they asked me to create 10 profiles.

During the recruitment process, BHIP operators use their social networks as evidence of how the company has allowed them to change their lives.They presume images of high -end vehicles, faces and trips to different countries and parts of Mexico.

During the initial seminar, social networks are used to show how recruiters changed their life thanks to BHIP.The speakers received out -of -box instructions during talk.Source: screen capture

A: After this third seminar they made us meet in smaller groups.We were about thirty people, telling those who recruited you.They left me different tasks, one of them was to fill a list with the name of all the people I know: family, friends, acquaintances, schoolmates, basically all the people I have met throughout my life.In my case I scored 217 people.Initially they didn't tell me what the list was.

A: Then there was a last meeting with fewer people.Until that moment they explained how we were going to work with them.It was a pyramid with two sides: one left and one right.On the left side I was going to put five people and in the right to another five people.Depending on how much these people sell would be my gain.For example, if the left side sells fifteen thousand, then when the right side sold another fifteen thousand pesos, that came together and I received a part there.So those people to earn money should do the same.Each one had to have their two groups and practically there the pyramid was doing.

Until after several seminars, Bhip reveals the pyramid scheme under which they operate.Source: screen capture

According to the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services (Condusef), Financial Pyramids and Ponzi schemes are scams.As described by this commission, “the pyramid scheme is a mechanism that promotes that each participating person invites a group of at least two known to invest in a given business and each of them in turn involves two other people and thus successively.This usually loses impulse and ends in a great fraud in which high yields are promised to the participants and, in the end, only the promoters above the pyramid, that is, those who start the business, are the only ones that doThey receive the resources of the people who participated later ”.

Click, call, enroll & advance es el nombre que b:hip le da a su método de trabajo y reclutamiento.The range of each person inside BHIP is determined by the amount of income that he achieves per month and in a projected time from entry.The highest ranges are compensated with trips in Mexico and abroad sponsored by the company.These trips are what recruiters rise to their social networks as a sample of the wealth and profits obtained thanks to the pyramidal scheme.

The range of each person inside BHIP is determined by the amount of income that it achieves per month.Own realization based on Rodrigo's testimony.

A: Seeing these amounts of money, I did believe it, I was very excited.It made me very easy how they earned money.I thought about my family.I thought I would win more than my whole family together and could stop working.

A: When they finished talking about the pyramid, they told me about the work plan.It was there that all my illusions fell.They told me that I needed to join 35 thousand pesos in a week to start working with them buying the products they sold and from there when selling them win a part and paying off my debts.

A: The debt was going to leave the list of people he had made.It is assumed that the names I scored were the people I could borrow the 35 thousand pesos.They told me "from your list of people, write down how much money you can get there".Writing where I was going to get the money and who was another task that I had to give them.They also gave me other options such as paying a credit card or asking for loans from a bank.They even told me to sell things from my house.

A: I asked my parents for money, but they didn't accept.Then I started seeing the way to get 35 thousand pesos in my way.As my sister had experience in the sale of clothing, I started selling it too.The recruiters sent me messages and called me daily asking me how I was going with the task of getting the money.In a call I would sincere with the recruiter and told him that I couldn't ask for money and that I was going to sell clothes.I told him that the money would have it in two months maximum.They were friendly, but they continued to insist on asking people or bank money.They even told me that Bhip was for people who already wanted to make a change in their life and that if I was really interested in working with them, I would have the money fast.I told him that it is not that he is not interested, only that he could not.

A: They kept calling me because the weekend was approaching when I had to give them the 35 thousand pesos.I felt pressed in the sense that I was sent by money by the money daily.I ignored them, but then they marked me.I ended up blocking all recruiters.Block them was a relief.When I did, I thought: “Neither at school presses me like this.Yes, it's just starting, I don't want to imagine when I am more inside ”.

A: For the same thing that I was never very informed about what a pyramid was, I fell easy.And even that my family stopped me.But how many people would have to come together money.And I imagine that they gave them the products, but let's see how they sell them.How many people will not have lost all their money for products that in the end they no longer sell?In my case I stopped on time, but how many people must be borrowed right now.I remember that they were recruiting a girl of about 14 or 15 years who was very motivated to enter.I don't know what it will be about her now.

The partners

In Mexico, Bhip has three different records: Bhip distributor of Mexico, Bhip importer of Mexico and Bhip Mexico services;all constituted as a limited liability company of variable capital (S of RL of CV).The three companies were constituted on Monday, November 5, 2007 in Querétaro and are partners to the American Jay Jay Raine and the Mexican Berenice Montserrat Alonso Camacho.

Both Jay Raine and Alonso Camacho are partners of another company called Sir Son, S.A.of c.V.According to the company constitutive, its fiscal domicile is in Hermenegildo Galeana, San Ángel Inn neighborhood, Álvaro Obregón delegation in Mexico City.The people who inhabit this address commented that the company has never existed there.They affirmed that the site is divided into two: a residence and an office of accountants, but that no one has knowledge of Sir, s, s s.A.of c.V.

On the Bhip Global México website, the Bachelor's Office of Marketing for the ITESM “Martha Carillo” appears as Operations Director in Mexico.The real name of this person is Martha Beatriz Carrillo Herrera and serves since 2007 as a representative of the Bhip Importer of Mexico.In Mexico City, it is a person identified as Omar Stark who supervises the recruitment process both virtual and physical.In this first modality they get to together people from all over Latin America.

Terry Lacore founded with his wife, Jennifer Lacore, the company BHIP Global Inc.On September 11, 2007 in Texas, United States.The Grace Firm is the legal agent of the company and is directed by Jenifer Grace, who at the same time co -dire with Jennifer Lacore the company Lacore Site Services LLC

These three companies are registered at home 901 Sam Rayburn Hwy Melissa, Texas.In this same direction another 60 companies directly related to Terry Lacore, Jennifer Lacore and Jennifer Grace are registered.Of these 63 companies, Terry Lacore directs 44

The mentioned people were sought via emails, phone calls and messages to their social networks to interview them and know their version of the facts, but there was no affirmative response.

This is how the Bhip Founder's Network is seen.Source: Wiki Corporations

Psychology behind fraud

Accessed for this report, David Ruiz, doctor in experimental analysis of behavior by UNAM, outlined the psychological aspects that pyramidal fraud uses to recruit potential victims.

According to David Ruiz “one of the most important biases of behavior has to do with the delay of the consequences.Organisms prefer immediate consequences, with respect to consequences that are delayed over time ”.The scammers when promising lives of luxuries and trips, obtained in relatively short periods of time, appeal to this delay bias.

The above is consistent with the study published by the University of Exeter entitled “The Psychology of Scams.Causing and making trial errors ".

According to the study, the fraud emphasizes the sense of urgency in their victims to make them believe that they are a unique opportunity and with gigantic and immediate rewards.

Another of the resources used by the scammers, according to the study, is what is called "induction of behavioral commitment", which means asking the potential victims to take small steps to attract them little by little and thus make them feel committed to continue with everythingThe fraudulent process.An example of the above is the Bip Seminars model.First, one must fill a form with personal data to serve the initial seminar.Then, the victim pays an amount of 150 to 200 pesos to attend the second seminar.Subsequently, along other seminars and working groups (or workgroups as Bhip calls them) the victim must perform various tasks such as filling sheets with acquaintances names, creating social networks profiles to promote the company and its products, investup to 35 thousand pesos in the products offered by the company and finally recruit more people.

According to the book "The psychology of fraud, persuasion and scam techniques", written by Dr. Martina Dove, pyramidal fraud belongs to the scams known as "boiler room", as they use high pressure tactics, fraudulent investments and theFacade of a legitimate company to attract victims.According to this same text, this type of fraud uses small testimonials, as the fraudsters describe how the work benefited them.

When Bhip recruiters detect that a recruit begins to doubt the company, the most common answer they give is to call "mediocre" who he doubts, and then invite him to "risk" and "completely change his life".If this does not work, insults begin.According to Rodrigo, he received insults and aggressive messages.For the expert in behavior analysis, David Ruiz, when a person is undecided among various options, is because these have the same value.According to Ruiz, the vexatious discourse used by recruiters seeks.