MLMs and Murder
Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

MLM True Crime: Three Murders From the World of MLMs

Einstein Shrugged
10 min readApr 24, 2022

Talk of MLMs is everywhere right now. It’s cropping up on podcasts, documentaries, in the news, and on prime time storylines. The stories are sensational, sometimes confounding. Typically the victims suffer devastating financial loss and walk away a bit wiser, a bit angry, but ready to start over.

Then there are people who don’t. People who are wrapped up in MLMs and find their lives spiraling out of control until someone ends up dead. True crime cases with an MLM component have captured the public’s attention, since it adds a weird component to an already strange story.

While many of those stories don’t have anything to do with the MLM specifically, you can often find the motive in the messaging MLMs rely on. Although there are dozens of mainstream MLMs and the industry rakes in nearly $190 billion a year, the messaging is strangely the same no matter where you go.

  • Sell the LIFE — Time Freedom, Project Success, Image is EVERYTHING.
  • Only Failures Fail — The only people who fail are the ones who don’t work the system.
  • How Much Do You Want It? — You have to spend money to make money.

These are the themes that come up repeatedly whether you’re listening to a Beachbody coach, a Monat rep, a Scentsy consultant, or anyone shilling for…

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Einstein Shrugged

Writer. Bibliophile. Optimistic Pragmatist. Co-Author of Killer Word Games on Amazon / Lulu