The Bhutanese Leading the way.
So far, The Bhutanese has investigated how Sandeep Rai Chamling of PandoraBiz and ‘SRC Mentorship Plans’ has not kept his promise to train mentees in trading, promoted online crypto gambling sites under the guise of earning Bitcoins, and also collected referral commissions without his mentees knowing.
A large part of this was made possible because he managed to convince and attract many victims through his ‘trading videos’ which are short clips of him trading online with claims that he is earning USD 300 to 400 a day or even USD 600 in a few minutes.
However, an analysis of these videos shows that not everything is in place or is right.
Reality of Trading vs Sandeep
The Bhutanese got in touch with an actual Bhutanese trader who goes by the online name of ‘Beru’ to better understand these videos.
Recounting his own experience, Beru said that trading is not easy as he has been doing it since high school, and he kept losing money for the first three years to the point his parents thought he was gambling.
He said it was only last year, that he finally broke even and ended with profit. He said he now trades responsibly, averaging 3–12 percent monthly returns with a 70 percent win rate.
Beru said, “It took years of discipline, failure, and learning real trading psychology.”
What ticked Beru off was Sandeep’s actions that made trading look like a scam.
He said, “Over all, from what I have observed as a trader, SRC Mentorship appears to be less about real trading education and more about marketing, hype, and recruitment.”
He said it mixes gambling-style strategies, unrealistic profit claims, and referral commissions all while calling it “mentorship.”
“The way it’s presented makes trading look easy and risk-free, which is dangerous. Real trading is about skill, patience, and managing loss, not guessing or using huge leverage,” Beru said.
As this paper has also pointed out before, he said the whole system works more like a referral-based business loop than a genuine learning platform, where new members ‘fees and activity’ help promote the next batch of mentees.
Instead of teaching discipline, it sells the dream of fast money.
“To me, SRC Mentorship isn’t about guiding people, it’s about selling hope, and that’s what makes it misleading for those who truly want to learn trading the right way.”
He said trading itself is not gambling, but using gambling platforms and fake performance to attract students is.
He said, “It disrespects honest traders, manipulates trust, and misleads people into false hope.”
He said Bhutan deserves a transparent and ethical path to digital finance, and pointed out, “We can build that but only when such practices stop.”
Earn Without Investment: A False Promise
In multiple videos, Sandeep promotes “earn without investment” while using Bet Hi-Low gambling sites, not legitimate trading platforms. This isn’t education but infact it’s gambling disguised as trading.
Beru said real traders always risk their own capital. Also, him using plus 100× leverage in many of his actual trading video is basically betting.
Leverage in trading means borrowing money from your broker to control a larger position than what you actually have in your account.
For example, if you have USD 100 and use 100× leverage, you’re controlling USD 10,000 worth of trade value. This means every 1 percent move in the market becomes 100 percent gain or loss for you. So, if the trade goes up 1 percent, you double your money but if it goes down 1 percent, your entire balance is gone.
In short, leverage magnifies both profit and loss and so it is extremely risky. While high leverage can sometimes make sense in currency as it usually moves very slowly, which means less risk but gold and crypto are completely different as they move fast and unpredictably, sometimes 1 to 3 percent in just a few minutes.
When someone uses 100× leverage on gold or bitcoin, that means even a 0.5 percent drop can wipe out the entire account.
So, while leverage is a normal tool in forex, using it in gold or crypto is basically gambling and not strategy.
From his trading videos, he often uses more than 100× leverage to do trades. This level of leverage is extremely dangerous as even professional traders rarely use more than 5× to 10×.
For example, on a 19th September 2025 TikTok video, he entered a gold trade with 1 lot using 100× leverage, meaning that his account had about USD 1,000 but he was controlling roughly USD 100,000 worth of gold. A small USD 1 move in gold could cause hundreds of dollars in gain or loss.
Beru said that is not education or strategy, but pure high-risk gambling, because one small fluctuation could wipe out the account and when beginners copy that without understanding risk, they almost always lose everything.
This matters because by showing high-leverage wins, without showing losses, it gives viewers a false sense of success. People believe it is easy to make fast money, not realizing that even a tiny price change can erase their entire account in seconds.
In reality, most regulated brokers and educators discourage using leverage above 10×, especially for new traders.
Edited Trades and Missing Entries
Almost every video starts after he has already opened a trade. Viewers never see the entry point which is the most important part of trading.
Beru said that in one of his videos, his entry and take-profit (TP) marks does not align correctly with the chart’s short position projection.
In one example, only the stop loss (SL) matched meaning the projection was drawn later for show. This is strange because any experienced trader would notice that immediately. In another one of his videos, Sandeep uses the short position projection tool (the one traders use to mark entry, take-profit, and stop-loss), but the funny thing is he could not even align his entry and take-profit levels properly.
His stop-loss (SL) was lined up, but the entry and TP were completely off. This usually happens when someone adds the projection after the trade is done, just to make it look like they planned it before.
For experienced traders, this is an obvious giveaway. Real traders use projections before entering a trade to calculate risk and reward. Doing it afterwards, and still not aligning it correctly, just shows he doesn’t really understand the tool or process.
Beru said the above are all a red flag that the trade might have been staged or edited for marketing purposes. In real trading, one always shows the entry before the trade starts because that is what proves your timing and skill.
He said when someone only shows profit after entering, and especially, if the projection (entry/TP/SL) doesn’t align it suggests, they might be faking the trade setup to make it look successful.
He said it does show deceptive intent, because viewers are misled into thinking it is real live trading, and this combined with his other claims, like earn without investment and collecting mentorship fees, it becomes part of a pattern of misleading conduct that could support a fraud or deception case under Bhutan’s consumer protection laws.
The “6-Minute Profit” That Took 12
Beru said claims to make big profits in 5–6 minutes, but comparing his video time with actual chart data shows the price move took over 12 minutes. Either he miscalculated or edited the video. Real traders rely on verified timestamps, not storytelling.
For a normal viewer, 5 minutes and 12 minutes may not sound very different, but in trading, that is a big deal because it changes the whole risk and returns setup of a trade
Unrealistic Daily Profits
Sandeep regularly shows spreadsheets claiming 250 USDT profit per day toward a USD 10,000 target in 30 days, showing only deposit in his OKX wallet as “proof.”
However, deposits don’t equal profit. Beru said consistent identical daily gains are statistically impossible. It is performance marketing and not real trade tracking.
Referral Links, Hidden Commissions and Mentorship fees
Sandeep tells mentees they must use his referral link to open accounts, saying it won’t work otherwise, which is false.
These links instead earn him broker commissions every time mentees deposit or trade. One of his videos dated 28th November 2024 clearly shows affiliate USDT commissions. Many victims had no idea he was earning from their trades.
From the videos and transaction patterns, it seems likely that mentorship payments were used for personal trading, which were later shown as “profit” demonstrations. He also never shared verifiable broker statements, only edited clips.
Candle-Option Trading = Gambling
Beru said instead of teaching market analysis, Sandeep teaches candle-option trading, which is guessing whether the next candle goes up or down. They even did a learn and earn tournament on that.
He said, “This method is pure gambling, yet his app advertisements never mention it.”
His PandoraBiz platform even claims mentees receive signals, which under Bhutan’s Financial Services Act, counts as financial advice which is something that requires RMA approval.
Legal and Ethical Concerns
Using an e-commerce license (PandoraBiz) to operate financial mentorship and trading activities is already outside its approved business scope.
Promising profits or trading on behalf of others without a license may fall under RMA and GMC violations.
If left unchecked, this damages Bhutan’s reputation in global fintech spaces.
How the System Seems to Work
PandoraBiz platform promotes SRC Mentorship and mentorship fees are collected from students.
Students are encouraged to use referral links generating commissions.
His trading videos are posted showing “profits” for marketing and new followers join, believing it is real success.
The cycle repeats which means it is a marketing loop, not mentorship.
Meanwhile, the South Thimphu Police has detained Sandeep and regulators are closing in too (see separate story here).
