The Central Bank of Russia issued a fraud warning on May 16th, 2024, against a scheme calling itself Iran Mall. The website for this operation, iran-mall.vip, was registered privately on May 1st, 2024. No ownership or executive details are publicly available.
The Iran Mall scheme offers no retailable products or services. Affiliates can only promote membership in Iran Mall itself. Participants invest Tether (USDT) cryptocurrency with promises of daily returns. These advertised returns vary based on investment tiers, with VIP1 requiring 9 USDT for a claimed daily return of 3 USDT, and VIP10 demanding 22,639 USDT for a potential 11,319.5 USDT daily gain.
Referral commissions are paid down three levels of recruitment. The first level, for personally recruited affiliates, earns 12%. Level two recruits yield a 2% commission, and level three recruits provide a 1% commission. Affiliate membership is free, but full participation in the income opportunity requires a minimum 9 USDT investment.
This operation is a typical "click a button" app Ponzi scheme. It falsely uses the name and branding of Iran Mall, the world's largest shopping mall. The scheme requires investors to log in daily and "click a button" to simulate order fulfillment. This action supposedly qualifies them for undisclosed daily returns.
There is no external revenue generation for Iran Mall. The platform simply recycles new investments to pay earlier participants. Similar "click a button" app Ponzis that have collapsed include Car USDT, TVG, and JBL Mall. Iran Mall joins over one hundred such schemes documented, most of which last only weeks or months before disappearing.
These scams typically disable their websites and apps without notice, leading to inevitable losses for most investors. A single group of Chinese scammers is suspected to be behind this widespread wave of "click a button" app Ponzis.