09 July 2025
Bloomberg Investigates (2025) ¦ How a Trading Academy Ruined Thousands of Young People’s Lives
From promise to pressure: the lure of instant wealth
IM Mastery Academy sold a simple, intoxicating message: invest in yourself, free yourself from the corporate ladder, and you can build real wealth by trading online. Charismatic leaders projected a billionaire mindset, showcased luxury homes, private jets and high-end fashion, and spoke in earnest about changing lives. For many young recruits who had never had financial security, that message was magnetic. They were promised a path out of low-paid jobs, broken dreams and limited opportunities. They were taught to “act as if” — to adopt the mannerisms, clothes and social media posts of success — so that others would believe in the lifestyle and be convinced to join. Events in Las Vegas, Rotterdam and elsewhere became near-religious gatherings, offering an intoxicating blend of motivation, spectacle and peer validation.
The social machine: branding, influencers and events
The company scaled through social media and a network-marketing model that turned participants into marketers. Young people posted staged wins, rented expensive cars to appear successful, and amplified the image of a thriving community. Top promoters and regional leaders became celebrities within the organisation, hosting lavish retreats and VIP gatherings that reinforced status hierarchies. The emotional pull of belonging and the spectacle of wealth obscured important questions about who was actually profiting. Recruiting was framed as a noble act — the way to “give someone an opportunity” — and leaders encouraged members to cut off skeptical friends and family and surround themselves only with the company’s believers.
Trading, signals and the reality of losses
Despite polished lessons and trading “signals” that guided buy-or-sell choices, the markets these recruits entered were volatile, complex and often beyond the capabilities of novice traders. Signals presented in-app created a sense of momentum and group confidence, but real trades swung wildly. Many members reported early wins only to see profits evaporate as positions reversed; accounts were sometimes wiped out when traders stayed in losing positions out of fear of missing bigger gains. The documentary makes clear that proper trading requires years of skill, sophisticated algorithms and institutional infrastructure — advantages individual retail traders rarely have. The company repeatedly emphasised it provided education, not investment advice, yet its leaders publicly claimed extraordinary trading success, blurring the line between teaching and promising profits.
Recruit or fail: MLM incentives and recruitment pressure
IM Mastery Academy’s revenue model relied heavily on subscriptions and a multi-level commission structure that rewarded recruitment more than trading performance. New recruits paid upfront fees; sponsors could waive those fees by bringing in additional members, creating strong pressure to enlist friends, family and social-media contacts. Income disclosures later admitted that the vast majority of participants earned less in a year than they paid for access, while a microscopic percentage at the very top reported large incomes. The documentary highlights how commissions, rank incentives and status events turned members into recruiters whose financial survival depended on constant expansion of their downlines. That dynamic produced not only financial losses for many, but also ethical dilemmas and internal tensions as leaders sought faster growth.
Isolation, manipulation and the human cost
The film documents the psychological toll on those who became deeply involved: broken relationships, shame, mounting debt and feelings of having been manipulated. Former members describe a culture that framed any failure as personal inadequacy — you had not projected wealth hard enough, you had not worked hard enough to recruit — rather than a structural problem with the business model. Some people reported being isolated from family and community, pressured to replace long-standing social ties with fellow members. Others described panic, insomnia and episodes of severe mental distress after losses or when they could not meet recruitment targets. The story is not only about money lost; it is about trust exploited and lives rearranged around the pursuit of an often-elusive dream.
Regulators, arrests and mounting complaints
As complaints multiplied around the world, regulators and law-enforcement agencies started to take action. Financial authorities issued warnings that the company was not registered to provide investment advice in many jurisdictions, and European police made arrests connected to alleged fraud, misleading advertising and pyramidal business operations. Freedom of Information searches and complaint records revealed thousands of grievances lodged with U.S. regulators and consumer agencies in a single year. Internal attempts to rein in misleading income claims clashed with growth imperatives; legal advisers warned that extravagant lifestyle claims and unverified promises risked attracting regulatory scrutiny. The documentary shows how a business that began as an education platform evolved into a global enterprise whose incentives, marketing and structures inflicted real harm on vulnerable people.
Conclusion: ambition, vulnerability and accountability
How a Trading Academy Ruined Thousands of Young People’s Lives is a cautionary tale about the intersection of charisma, social media and financial desire. It reveals how legitimate hopes for upward mobility and entrepreneurial agency can be co-opted by systems that prioritise recruitment and growth over honest education and consumer protection. The film calls for clearer regulation, better oversight of education platforms that touch financial markets, and greater public awareness about the risks of combining unregulated trading with multi-level compensation. Above all, it highlights the human cost when ambition meets exploitative structures: shattered savings, damaged mental health and communities left to pick up the pieces.