Bye Puth, Hello Enveer

New Pyramid scheme similar to Puth gaining popularity

While the government may have shut down the Puth scheme there is another very similar one growing in popularity among Bhutanese.

While Puth required a minimum of USD 50 to join the Enveer group requires USD 100 to join.

Like Puth, the money is converted into the Cryptocurrency USDT (Tether) which is supposed to be equivalent to the dollar and the Binance crypto app is used.

Also like Puth a certain number of tasks have to be done in terms of releasing goods online for which the overall commission is higher than Puth. A source said that while it took a month to recover the investment in Puth doing only tasks, it takes 20 days in Enveer.

You can only join Enveer on invitation like in Puth and there is also a similar commission system for recruiting new members.

The difference with Puth is that the withdrawal fees is much higher at 18% compared to 5% for Puth.

The other difference is that in Enveer there is a competition among groups to either gain more new members or their existing members recharging for higher amounts.

If a group gets higher numbers or higher recharge amounts then there is an additional weekly bonus of 15%, 20% and even 50%.

The group names are Sampa Dendup, Green Tara, Rigsum, ZamLha, Drukpa32, Namsey, KhenchoSum and Immortal. This is just within one WhatsApp group.

The competition gets so heated that new members are even recharging for USD 1,000, USD 2,000 and even higher. At higher levels, it can even each USD 15,000.

In Puth there was an option of using the banking channel but in Enveer only Binance can be used.

A difference between Puth and Enveer is that while the former operated using Telegram, Enveer is run on WhatsApp group. One such group called Enveer Bhutan already has 806 members.

The scheme has various levels to which one can upgrade to either by getting more members or by recharging more.

To upgrade to LV 3 one needs to invite 10 active tier 1 members་for which one can earn over USD 100 per member.

For LV4 one should invite 20 active Tier 1 members and can earn USD 200 per member.

For LV5 one has to invite 30 members and earn over USD 300 per member and for LV6 one has to invite 50 members and earn USD 500 per member.

Alternatively, if a new user recharges USD 1000, they will be placed at LV3 without having to meet the invitation limit above.

A new user recharging USD 3000, will be placed at LV4 without having to meet invitation limit

Similarly, a new user recharging USD 8000, will be placed at LV5 and a new user recharging USD 15,000, will be placed at LV6 without having to meet invitation limit.

The higher rank means one can earn more money with tasks and also get higher commission for recruitments.

The paper took a look at a WhatsApp group chat images sent to the paper by a source.

One of the main active foreign numbers is a Mary with an area code that tracks back to Las Vegas or the larger Clark County around it in USA.

It is important to keep in mind that the Puth scam was also run from USA, Colorado.

There are Bhutanese from both Bhutan and Australia in the group.

An active possible admin in the group is a Gembo Tshering from Australia. He is announcing that to celebrate making a change to the platform he has decided to release an even more awesome bonus event.

All users get a 10% bonus for every recharge from May 13 to May 19 2024 and that those inviting a new member to charge will get another 10% bonus.

This may sound generous but people are essentially handing over 100 percent of their money to get back 10% or 20% as ‘bonus.’

In the same chat group Gembo Tshering talks of helping two users in Bhutan set up Binance.

There is some complaint on the speed of the Enveer site as members complain it takes around 30 minutes for a single order.

Here Gembo replies saying, “After modifying the order matching system, all orders in the platform’s database maybe matched to different levels of users, and perhaps the matching time will be longer than before, which is a situation we had anticipated at the beginning. Before it took you 10 or 15 minutes to fulfill 20 orders, now maybe it takes you 20-25 minutes.”

The active role of Gembo and his confidence and details in the replies is a major clue that indicates that perhaps some Bhutanese in Australia maybe be collaborating with international scammers in creating or popularizing Enveer and they may have been  involved in Puth too.

Another clue here on the Australia connection is that in the Enveer chat group an account named Lop Teedee asks how much Ngultrum has to be paid for a USD 1,000 charge.

An account named Druk gee Norbu with a local Bhutanese number says it is 1000 into 95 which is Nu 95,000.

This is much above the official USD rate of Nu 84.65 of the BoB Bank. This means money is being deposited in local Bhutanese accounts and that money is being used in all probability in Australia and other places with Bhutanese to buy foreign currency at higher rates than what RMA and Bhutanese banks offer.

Then those abroad use the foreign currency to buy USDT and send it to those who recharge but with the final withdrawal power of the USDT being with the scammers like in Puth.

Even in Puth the main way people got USDT was via Australia until all of its was frozen and essentially stolen by the top scammers.

The active role of a Bhutanese in Australia named Gembo adds to this modus operandi.

In fact, there is some suspicion that those behind Puth may also be behind Enveer given the similarities between the two schemes.

Enveer if it spreads more can do more damage than Puth as the competition among the groups and the generous bonuses is leading to very high amounts of money being pumped in.

The paper contacted the Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (CCAA) and an official there said they are keeping a watch on Enveer though nobody has complained yet.

The CCAA official said it has been unable to access the chat groups where this is happening.