Two of the internet's most notorious scam marketplaces vanished in August 2017, but one of them just came back from the dead—pointing straight to another fraud operation.

Brothers Edward and Brian Krassenstein shut down MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold on August 22nd, the day after the Department of Justice filed a forfeiture complaint against them. For over a decade, these forums had been the preferred advertising platform for operators running high-yield investment programs—a fancy term for Ponzi schemes. The brothers' business model was simple: they collected advertising fees from scammers, taking a cut of the fraud.

The DOJ's complaint spelled it out bluntly. Both sites functioned as "discussion forums in which HYIP operators advertise and promote their fraud schemes to potential victims." Many of the schemes promoted there had an MLM structure layered on top.

Edward Krassenstein said they pulled the plug because "we no longer wanted to be a part of them as it's not worth the possibility of getting sued and having to defend ourselves yet again." The sites were also bleeding money to operate.

Both forums stayed dark—until recently. Someone began redirecting the MoneyMakerGroup domain to HYIP.com, another scam promotion platform that operates nearly identically to what the Krassenstein brothers were running. The same ads for fraudulent investment schemes. The same predatory mechanics. Same victims getting targeted.

The domain records show the redirection happened around September 10th. But the MoneyMakerGroup registration is private, so we can't see who's behind it now. An October discussion thread on BitcoinTalk hints the domain may have been sold. We know the Krassenstein brothers still owned it in October 2017. We reached out to Ed Krassenstein four days ago asking about the redirect. He hasn't responded.

HYIP.com itself offers no public information about who runs it. The domain was last updated January 4th, 2018. A name appears in the registration records: Alex Smirnoff, listed as operating out of a virtual address in Seychelles. A LinkedIn profile under that name shows what appears to be a fabricated photo and lists Smirnoff as CEO.

Whether the Krassenstein brothers sold their domain to someone running HYIP.com, or whether someone else grabbed it after it changed hands, remains unclear. What's certain is the machinery keeps turning. The forums are gone, the faces may be different, but the fraud factory never really stopped.

🤖 Quick Answer

What happened to MoneyMakerGroup and TalkGold forums in August 2017?
Brothers Edward and Brian Krassenstein shut down both forums on August 22, 2017, following a Department of Justice forfeiture complaint. These platforms had operated for over a decade as primary advertising venues for high-yield investment programs operators, functioning as Ponzi scheme marketplaces where the brothers profited from scammer advertising fees.

How did the MoneyMakerGroup business model operate?
The forum collected advertising fees from HYIP operators and scammers promoting fraudulent investment schemes to potential victims. The Krassenstein brothers extracted a percentage cut from each fraudulent transaction advertised on their platforms, generating revenue from illegal activity.

What is the connection between MoneyMakerGroup's closure and recent fraudulent activity?
Following the August 2017 shutdown, the MoneyMaker

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