The eMagnetix pyramid scheme emptied the wallets of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who believed in the dream of easy money. The “dream job” has become a nightmare for many. Detektor team infiltrated the scheme during the investigation, carried out in cooperation with Raskrinkavanje, and now reveals how its organizer registered fictitious companies in European countries, one of which is already being investigated for fraud.
The day before the end of August 2023 was the beginning of a nightmare for Vesko Stojkovic from Sarajevo. The Telegram group through which he worked for the company eMagnetix was deleted. He and more than 1,000 members of the group lost all contact with the company while they waited for the money earned to reach their bank accounts.
Vesko was in disbelief. Fifteen days earlier, he invested 1,500 BAM in an online platform for clicking ads. The promised earnings of 75 BAM a day for only ten minutes of work was a chance not to be missed.
In the dream he was living, the job consisted of clicking ads for global online sales stores like eBay, AliExpress, Zalando and others. EMagnetix claimed to help large companies optimize their product sales data.
To work on the platform, a deposit of 150 to 6,500 BAM was required. The company claimed that those who paid the money would be guaranteed a regular job and secure income for the next year. A bigger deposit promised a bigger profit.
Clicking on the ad was just a cover for a pyramid scam. Members were promised higher earnings and various rewards if they introduced others to this business. Many agreed to it and built teams, some of which had hundreds of members.
During the duration of this scheme, a Detektor journalist infiltrated eMagnetix and secretly collected evidence of this fraud. The research took the journalists from the court registry in Brcko to the home address of the organizer Peter Tamas Kasza in Budapest. This Hungarian registered businesses in Slovakia as well as in Austria, where the police are investigating his company for fraud worth a million euros.
The dream of easy money
The rise of the eMagnetix pyramid began in May 2023. Social media ads sharing the link to the clicking app link attracted the first members.
The job was simple. Anyone with a smartphone and internet could work. Just a few minutes of clicking on ads in the application guaranteed safe earnings. The company offered a two-day trial, during which members would earn ten BAM and transfer them to their bank account.
For further work, the members had to invest their own money. The labor deposit was a guarantee that he would perform the work regularly. The amount of the deposit determined how many ads the worker would “click” in one day and how much he would earn from each click. A higher deposit meant more work and more earnings. For a payment of 150 BAM, the guaranteed daily salary was six BAM, and for 500 – 24 BAM. The company promised that the deposit would be returned in a few months.
eMagnetix conducted its business in BiH through two companies registered in Brcko – Magnetix Software Tech and Najko. The owner of both companies is Hungarian citizen Peter Tamas Kasza. Magnetix Software Tech company, to whose account members paid deposits, was founded by Kasza in May 2023. He bought another company – Najko – from a Chinese man who has been selling suitcases at the Arizona Market for years. Members were paid their earnings from this company’s account.
eMagnetix’s app and website were shut down on September 1st. Thus, the last traces of the company that offered the “dream job” disappeared, Detektor reports.
Photo: BIRN
E.Dz.
