|
|
|
The adepts of the yellow God |
|
|
|
22.06.2009 |
Belief in financial success is a religion, where Christ is replaced with moneyDuring the crisis the number of victims of financial frauds increases in geometric series. Those Ukrainians who became unemployed or suffer from poverty are trying themselves with the help of belief. And there are not only religious, but also financial cults. Pyramids, business-trainings and false credit unions, where scams cheat people, use the same very methods as totalitarian cults (see TYZHDEN №45, 2008). Moreover, financial and Christian cults sometimes have the same adepts and leaders. One can clearly see this from the scandal with “King’s Capital” financial pyramid which has very tight connections with Nigerian preacher Sunday Adelaja’s “Lord’s Embassy” church (see TYZHDEN №9, 2009). Here God is replaced with money and the founders of these sects are eager to play the role of messiahs. As the result of it the adept are likely to lose their and self all their belongings while all they seem to gain is disappointment. Without any arms “organizations with multi-level marketing have all the signs of a totalitarian cult. They are closed structures that have their hierarchy, their laws, their own secret members. Their cult might expect some vague happiness or gaining unrealistic profits”, - Yan Shchekaturov, the leader of Dnepropetrovsk “Dialogue” center for the help to the victims of destructive cults, tells. During the recent several months he received more than a dozen complaints from people, who had been cheated by scammers. “There were unusual cases in my practice. For instance, there was a woman who worked in the state prosecutor’s office for 25 years, yet, she became a victim of a financial pyramid. Another victim was also a former police officer. Than he became a head of security service of one of the banks and went broke after he had taken too many credits at bank to pay for some trainings. It is a usual thing that the relatives of the victims ask us to help victims release themselves from financial trap. Many people come after they had already appealed many state organs but got neither help nor attention to their problems. One can feel that they don’t event want to get their money back. What they want is to be heard”, – Shchekaturov tells. Maria G., theresident of Dnepropetrovsk, became a victim of “Nika” financial pyramid (see “financial cults”). The retired woman went to the “cultists’” meeting because her friend recommended her do this. “People who met us behaved very friendly. There were about a hundred people in the hall, - the victim tells. There were some people in military uniform, there was even a general. Then we were invited to the assembly hall. There were 300 people there. People, sitting next to me hinted that that day was the last term to give money and if one didn’t do it he wouldn’t get any profit. A man was making a long speech from the stage and he drew some schemes which were supposed to bring us money. Sometimes the lecturer was replaced with the singer who sang songs, which were very much like anthems. All the audience was singing with him. I thought it was just like the congress of the deputies in the USSR, where people used to cheer up and support the speaker. During the break we were given free tea, coffee, juice, sandwiches with black and red caviar and cakes. There were many respectable people in expensive outfits”. The show was rather long. After it the lecturer asked those, who was able to invest 2,5 thousand $ raise their hands. First, Maria didn’t feel like giving any money, but she accepted the proposal after all. She was brought home where she gave the money to the members of the fund. They invited the lady to eat out in the restaurant. It was only in the morning when she realized that it had been the most expensive meal in her life. When she came to the office of the firm, and asked to give her money back she was shown the document where it was told that she had invested voluntarily and it was done for charity. No one returned her the money. She passed a written appeal to the Administration for Combating the Organized Crime, but there was no response to it. Yan Shachekaturov remembers that there was a case when the man was brought to the sect by his own daughter. First, he was trying to persuade her that it was a flimflam lottery, but by the end of the day he was ready to mortgage his house in order to invest money into the profitable business. Psychologists are sure that the organizers of various financial cults use all the ways of manipulating the adepts’ minds. They even feel free to use hypnosis.One should know that there is some difference between fraudulent financial pyramids and the multi-level companies which exist for a long period of time quite officially. Yet, multi-level trading companies also use psychological manipulation. The participants of the business take part in the seminars where they are told that the number of sold goods doesn’t only give them money. It lets people gain some status, or move to some higher grade in the company’s hierarchy. Such a system works in such companies as Amway (an abbreviation from American Way), Avon, Vision, Mary Kay, Oriflame. As all of them sell cosmetics, mostly women are involved in such a business. Due to their methods of work, financial cults may be divided into two groups. The first one gains money for organizing the seminars. They persuade adepts to continue their studies if they want to succeed. The second one uses trainings only as a possibility to influence people so that they gave them their money (GST, “charity funds”). The companies which persuade people that their services and goods are very important use seminars to keep this belief in people strong (Intway, InMarket) . The portrait of the victim The popular psychological cults and cultic trainings remind the charismatic churches even if we look at their names “lifespring”, “the master”, “100 percent”, “Aurora”, “My World”, “Open World”, “the Step into the Future”, “the Source of Life”, “the Source of Light”. Instead of pastors they have financial gurus, whose authority is irrefutable. “Manipulating the person’s consciousness both in financial and in religious cults might have negative impact for the person’s mind, especially if the person has had some deviations”, - Vera Tymchenko, the psychologist of “the Dialogue” center says. “When they understand the real state of things, one might feel depressed or confused. One can easily see on the example of the “King’s Capital investors”. I, personally, never had any cases when people needed the psychiatrist’s aid, but it is very likely that the physical or emotional state of them would worsen due to the influence of stress”. Psychologist describes the average cultist. People under 30 or over 50 are the most vulnerable to suggestion. Very often these people already have some financial problems. They mostly tend to be very emotional. It is considered that women are more vulnerable, yet, most of victims of financial cults are men. Vitaly Khlibovsky, the head of the state Committee for combating the social misusages shows the social shearing of the participants of financial pyramids. 70% of them are active people with one or more higher educations, 15% are retired, 10% are students and only 5% are people with school education, workers and peasants. “There are very little of them because they know since childhood that you need to work hard to earn money”, – Hibovsky explains. His organization takes part in campaign for returning money to Robert Flatcher’s and “King’s Capital’s” victims. It was a real surprise for him that the surnames in the lists of the victims of both cases were often the same. Once people have found the idea of fast earnings tempting, they are unable to stop. They invest tremendous sums of money, take credits from banks and mortgage their flats and belongings. An obsession of enrichment makes them very much like obsessive gamblers who believe that they can win playing gambling machines. The firmness of faith Vitaly Khibovsky mentions that even after someone proved these people that they had been cheated, they still trust their Teacher. “Once I brought Robert Flatcher’s disciples to him (in order to sort out their relationship – Ed.), who complained me that he wouldn’t give money back, - Khbovsky tells. – But after they had communicated with their “guru” they all told the American: “You’re a great man! You’re a great teacher!” and asked him for autograph. And after the scammer had been arrested most of people, who used to attend his trainings, united to stand up for releasing “the teacher”. They raise money for this. The trainers go on reading the lectures about “How to survive and become rich during the crisis” and cheat out money according to Flatcher’s scheme”. In order to unmask Robert Flatcher, Khibovsky visited his seminars and was really shocked as all people behaved like zombies there. Later on, after he had visited the psychologists, he found out that every single detail is very important in these actions (see “Practice of turning into zombies”). The group of adepts is very confidential, it’s hard to get there, it uses information only from inside it. They treat everything from outside the group hostile and consider it to be dangerous for them. Vitaly Khibovsky is sure: it was possible to take people away from such a group (these people created an “Anti-Flatcher” movement later on) only owing to his personal intervention. He came to the seminars and was sitting near his clients. A strange person would never persuade cultist – Khibovsky says surely. Gennady R. didn’t visit many trainings, but he managed to invest 17 thousand $ into the investment project. Of course, he never got his money back. “I was persuaded that Robert doesn’t accept every another Tom, Dick and Harry into his school. He accepts only those who are cut for learning, - Gennady tells, – some of them were driven out. They used to say “take your money and get away. You haven’t any talent to study”. But people used to come back. Once a young man came to pass the test for the fourth time and begged teachers to accept him, as he had bought a suit and a red tie which was very much like Flatcher’s. People didn’t only mortgage their flats. They even mortgaged their relatives to bring money”. Oxana G. is one of those people who mortgaged their flats. “I was following Robert all over Ukraine, I used to put down every word of his and considered him to be a great business-trainer. Now I understand that I was manipulated”, - the girl complains. She was so impressed with his stories about the wealth that she decided to take a credit from the bank to get the outset for her business. But as she was a financier, she decided to minimize the risks and invest money into some organizations. She invested 16 thousand $ into Flatcher’s GST, 35 thousand $ into the notorious “Lione Bank Ukraine” to get 72% percent per annum, and 19 thousand $ she invested into a Russian company which also turned out to be a pyramid. Those victims of financial cults, who had realized their mistakes, ask journalists to hide their identity. They are afraid that they will be considered to be dupes or be made fun of at work. They also think that it will be harmful for their business reputation and will scare away many partners. Yet, those who still are in the financial cult don’t worry. They find the teacher’s anger or other adepts’ disapproval much more frightening. | | | | | | InformationFinancial Cults King's Capital. It was shown as an Asset Management company which, involved the investors’ money and promised to give them 30–60% percents per annum. Its founder, Alexander Bandurchenko, was arrested in November. Now the investigation is carried out and he is accused of misappropriating about 150 millions $. There are about two thousand of victims. “Lione Bank Ukraine” Limited Liability Company. They mostly dealt with consulting people and assisting them in investing money into foreign companies. For instance, at the end of November 2008 a criminal proceeding was started. They were accused of wheeler-dealer finance. According to data, given by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 1,5 millions of investors were cheated. They lost about 8,5 millions $. “Intway Ukraine” Limited Liability Company. Proposes to take part in unit funds, trading on electronic stock exchange, in internet shops and in mortgage programs. The founders of this firm are registered in offshore zones. This scheme is also used by InMarket, TellMe, ClubFreedom, GetawayClub, Liberty&Success, uVme, Coopers Corp. “Global System of Trainings” (GST). This is an educational and investment program, which was founded in 2007 by Robert Flatcher. He is arrested and accused of misappropriating several dozens of millions dollars. “New Life”. It was founded by Natalia Dergaus. This is a multi-level training system, which starts with educational basic level and ends with practical ones. They all include investing money and distributing some goods and services. “Aurora” charity fund (Kirovograd). The state prosecutor’s office accused its leaders of misappropriating 756 thousand grivnyas. “Nika” charity fund. It acted in Dnepropetrovsk and Krivoy Rog. There are some rumors that it used to be connected with the criminal authorities. Lifespring. It’s a training system which proposes personal growth. It was founded in 1975 in the USA and it has been acting in the countries of the former USSR since 1989. Now there appeared other organizations that use their methods. They are “Insight Network” (it stopped working in 2000), “Step into the Future” (it has branch departments in Kiev and Odessa since 1999), “the Opened Forum”, “Transformation”, “Prologue”, etc. all they have their own adaptation techniques. Besides, there are dozens of autonomous “Lifespring” training centers. | |
• http://ut.net.ua/art/166/0/2520/
Vasyl VASYUTIN. — "Ukrainsky tyzhden", № 18, the 8th of May 2009 |
|
|
|
