Boris Smitski fronts Affluence Network, a cryptocurrency multi-level marketing scheme that offers no public contact details. Smitski previously appeared as "head of sales on forex" for Golden Cash, an earlier Ponzi operation that collapsed after launching in late 2020. Both ventures are linked to Russian and Ukrainian operators.

Smitski claims fifteen years in finance, an assertion ScamTelegraph could not verify. He speaks with a European accent, distinct from typical Eastern European English. A photograph from 2014, however, places a man identified as Boris Smitski at Arma17, a Moscow nightclub, for a "space love" themed event. This contradicts his purported identity as an "American entrepreneur."

Golden Cash operated on a simple premise: investors put in $100 to $50,000 for a weekly return on investment. The scheme falsely claimed backing from jewelry stores in Turkey. Golden Cash's official Facebook page suggested Ukrainian origins for the company. Its Alexa traffic charts showed a rapid decline, indicating its collapse.

Affluence Network now reboots this model, incorporating cryptocurrency. The core structure remains the same, with the same individuals suspected of running the show and using the same actor as CEO. Smitski's corporate biography was rewritten for the new venture.

Affluence Network has no legitimate retail products or services. Affiliates market only the Affluence Network affiliate membership itself. Investors purchase AFN tokens and are promised annual returns ranging from 125% for investments of $100 to $1000, up to 160% for investments between $30,000 and $100,000. The company's website does not disclose the internal value of the AFN token.

The MLM component pays affiliates for recruiting new investors. The compensation plan includes fifteen affiliate ranks, each with specific personal investment and downline volume requirements. Ranks start at Manager, requiring a $100 investment, and extend to President, which demands a $150,000 investment and $100,000,000 in downline volume. Up to 30% of the required downline volume can originate from a single recruitment leg.

Direct referral commissions vary from 6% at the Manager rank to 37% at the President rank, calculated from funds invested by personally recruited affiliates. Residual commissions use a unilevel structure. A total of 37% of every investment made within a unilevel team is distributed. The recruiting affiliate receives their rank-specific percentage. Any remaining percentage, up to the 37% total, passes upline to the next qualified affiliate. For example, a Gold Ambassador earning 31% on a recruit passes the remaining 6% to an upline Platinum Ambassador or higher. A VIP Partner (35.5% rate) would take 4.5%, with the final 1.5% going to the first upline President. President-ranked affiliates receive the full 37% on direct recruitment or collect any remaining percentage from their downline.

Joining Affluence Network requires an initial investment ranging from $100 to $100,000 in AFN tokens. These tokens are created on the Binance Smart Chain, a platform that allows for the rapid and low-cost generation of tokens similar to Ethereum's ERC-20 standard. Such tokens often possess no intrinsic value beyond the speculative promises of their creators.

Returns are paid in AFN tokens. Actual cash payouts depend entirely on company-wide investment and liquidity. This model aligns with a Ponzi scheme, where early investors are paid with funds from later investors. When new recruitment slows, the scheme inevitably collapses.

History shows that operators of such schemes generally execute one of two exit strategies. They either shut down the operation abruptly, allowing them to disappear and potentially launch a new scheme under a different name. Or, they list the worthless AFN token on a dubious public exchange. Initial marketing hype can briefly inflate the token's value, allowing the scammers to cash out while the majority of investors are left with valueless digital assets.

Victims of such schemes often face significant financial losses, with recovery proving difficult due to the cross-border nature of the fraud and the anonymity provided by cryptocurrency transactions. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other global regulators frequently warn against unregistered cryptocurrency offerings that promise unrealistic returns, a hallmark of Ponzi schemes.