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'That's Not All!' Kevin Trudeau, The World s Greatest Salesman, Makes One Last Pit
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Aaron Gell
Jan. 20, 2015, 10:25 AM
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Kevin Trudeau_02 Mike Nudelman/Business Insider
Kevin Trudeau, the undisputed infomercial king, is one of the most successful TV p
itchmen of all time. He's also a New York Times best-selling author and a motiva
tional speaker with legions of devoted fans.
In March 2013, he was sentenced to a decade behind bars, earning a new designati
on: inmate No. 18046036.
Following is the wild story behind his epic rise and fall.
* * *
If you've never been the recipient of a 3 a.m. visit,

consider yourself lucky.

Here s how it goes down: Typically, there will be two men, dark figures in your fr
ont doorway. They will be wearing sunglasses
odd, given the late hour
and black
or navy suits. They will decline to identify themselves, preferring instead to h
int broadly about the powerful, shadowy entities they represent. They will be po
lite and businesslike but with a faintly menacing edge in their voices that sugg
ests things could always get rough.
Such men are found, with slight variations, in the works of Franz Kafka and Geor
ge Orwell, Chris Carter and Alex Jones.
Kevin Trudeau says he got his 3 a.m. visit about a decade ago, and he will never
forget it. Shortly after he published his book "Natural Cures 'They' Don t Want Y
ou to Know About," the superstar TV pitchman, best-selling author, and motivatio
nal speaker was awoken from a deep slumber. Someone was in his bedroom.
He sat up in bed. Three men stood over him. They had a message from their bosses
: Cut it out. Leave it alone. Shut your mouth.
They ve been after me ever since,

Trudeau tells me ominously.

It s a Wednesday afternoon in September, and we re sitting in a small conference roo

m just off the expansive visiting area of FPC Montgomery, a minimum-security pri
son located on the well-tended grounds of Maxwell Air Force Base, in Montgomery,
Alabama, where Trudeau has resided since the spring of 2014.
That s when the pitchman was found to have violated a consent decree by misreprese
nting the contents of one of his books, "The Weight Loss Cure," in an infomercia
l, drawing a 10-year prison sentence to go along with a still unpaid $37.6 milli
on civil judgment. For the FTC, which has been trying for more than a decade to
prevent Trudeau
one of the most successful TV marketers in history from making w
hat it considers false health claims and otherwise duping the public, the stiff
sentence represents the government s long-sought triumph over an incorrigible frau
d artist, a career criminal who is, as Judge Ronald A. Guzman put it in May, dece

itful to the very core.

According to Michael Mora, an attorney with the FTC s enforcement division, which
is charged with going after the hard-core repeat offenders, recidivists, the ones
who just won t quit, Trudeau was at the top of our list.
Trudeau s prominence likely sealed his fate. As his longtime friend Ed Foreman put
s it, The higher up the flagpole the monkey goes, the better you can see his rear
end.
For Trudeau and his steadfast admirers, of whom a great many remain, his convict
ion is simply confirmation of what he s been warning us about for years: that they
shadowy conspiracy of powerful forces, including the government, the pharmaceut
ical industry, and purveyors of processed food, along with a murky international
cabal of power elites are determined to silence him at all costs.
To understand not only how one of the most successful salesmen in history wound
up sentenced to more time behind bars than some violent offenders but also why s
o many people still support him, Business Insider interviewed numerous friends,
associates, and fans of Trudeau s, and spoke to the legal authorities who pursued
him for so long. We also enjoyed a lengthy in-person sit-down with Trudeau himse
lf. What we found says as much about Americans own dreams of easy wealth and fant
asies of dark conspiracies as it does about the former Boy Scout and altar boy w
ho tapped into that hunger and worked it for everything he could.

Secrets And Lies

As just about everyone knows at least, those who ve spent any time in the past few
years restlessly flipping through cable channels Trudeau didn t shut his mouth af
ter getting his 3 am visit. Nor was he deterred by what he says was a subsequent
attempt on his life, when his car began shaking and he discovered the lug nuts
on one wheel had mysteriously been removed.
On the contrary, Trudeau kept right on spilling the beans. He published "More Na
tural 'Cures' Revealed," "Free Money 'They' Don t Want You To Know About," "The We
ight Loss Cure 'They' Don t Want You To Know About," "Debt Cures 'They' Don t Want Y
ou to Know About," and "Debt Cures II 'They' Really Don t Want You to Know About."
Trudeau believes he has sold as many as 50 million books worldwide
not an unrea
sonable estimate. His blockbuster, "Natural Cures," was a publishing phenomenon,
spending 25 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and the latest editio
n claims "Over 6 million copies sold."
Kevin_Trudeau_Updated_Edition Wikimedia
Along the way, he started an international pool tour, which imploded in 2008, co
sting Trudeau about $13 million, according to one insider. And he peddled a supp
osedly surefire system for winning at baccarat that the source says brought in w
ell over $1 million, but likely cost consumers far more in gambling losses.
In 2009, Trudeau pivoted again, becoming a self-help guru in the Tony Robbins mo
ld with a 14-CD set titled Your Wish Is Your Command, supposedly taped at a secret
location in the Swiss Alps. Billed as a comprehensive guide to success, it was
based on the principles Trudeau said he d learned during his tenure in a secret so
ciety called the Brotherhood, which supposedly included many of the world s richest
and most powerful people.
Soon, he started a brotherhood of his own, but one open to all an exclusive, priv
ate, membership-only club dubbed the Global Information Network, or GIN.
At once, a membership organization, designed to offer access to numerous motivat

ional speakers for a monthly subscription fee, and a multilevel marketing compan
y, GIN was set up with the assistance of a council made up of 30 billionaires and
other powerful figures, Trudeau claimed. Though the council remained anonymous,
the organization attracted more than 30,000 members at its peak and brought in m
illions of dollars a month. It has since been taken over by a court-appointed re
ceiver and sold to several of Trudeau s former associates for $200,000 plus a port
ion of membership fees, the proceeds going toward the $37.6 million civil judgme
nt against Trudeau. GIN still exists, though several sources told Business Insid
er that the company is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation.
The FBI did not acknowledge calls seeking comment.

Trudeau On Ice
Trudeau has it pretty good on the inside, all things considered. FPC Montgomery
is one of the jewels of the federal prison system. A home to white-collar convic
ts and other low-risk offenders, it s a minimum-security facility. Situated on a w
orking Air Force base, the prison has no guard towers, ribbons of razor wire, or
clanging steel doors. It s just a set of buildings within a gracious and impeccab
ly landscaped military compound that also includes a golf course, a shooting ran
ge, and several greenhouses.
MON_lrg
FPC Montgomery, where Trudeau is serving a 10-year sentence. Bureau of Prisons
Trudeau s room, he says, is more like a barracks or dorm than a cell. He sleeps in a
top bunk, since the lower bunks are generally reserved for the older guys.
Among his fellow inmates are the former Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.,
several mayors, and Jeffrey Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, whom Trudeau call
s a nice guy, adding, Like everyone here, he s just looking to do his time and go hom
e.
Movies are screened nightly, and there are TVs everywhere, including one flat-sc
reen housed in an outdoor gazebo. Although some of Trudeau s old infomercials stil
l air frequently and are often spotted by his fellow inmates a source of some ex
citement he mostly steers clear of TV, preferring to read, he says. (Empowerment
tomes are his preferred genre.)
Trudeau works in the prison kitchen, a sometimes frustrating experience for a gu
y who has done as much as anyone to bring the organic-food revolution to a mains
tream audience. They have a greenhouse and a bakery, and yet everything is canned
! he says incredulously. Why not let inmates make their own food and learn a valua
ble trade?
As for his own extremely valuable trade
motivational speaking
he says he s been fo
rbidden from doing education on any real scale. People ask my advice and I give i
t, but that s it, he says.
Sitting behind a Formica conference table, one leg crossed casually over the oth
er, Trudeau is wearing a custodial-green button down over a brown T-shirt, and s
lacks, all crisply ironed. His simple digital wristwatch is a comedown from the
luxury timepieces he once favored ( It s a Rolex! he jokes), but it does the job.
He s in good shape for 51, lean and well-tanned, with a touch of sunburn on his no
se and cheekbones, a walking advertisement for those natural cures he touts.
The only somewhat discordant note is his hair. Silvery and fluffy under a green
baseball cap, it flares out over his ears for a clownish, almost Wonkaesque effe

ct.
I said he looks like a 1960s hippie with that hair! says Mary Miller, a close frie
nd and the proprietor of ichingsystems.net, who visited Trudeau in prison not lo
ng ago.
I told him to cut it and get himself cleaned up and look like the leader he is,
ys Foreman who also made the trek to Montgomery.

sa

Trudeau says he just felt like trying something new. In the business I m in, you ha
ve to be presentable all the time, he says cheerfully. This is my first opportunit
y to try growing it out.
It looks pretty silly now, but a year down the road, Trudeau may come to resembl
e a classic guru, the sort you might encounter in a New Yorker cartoon set on a
Himalayan mountaintop
just in time for what he expects will be a triumphant rele
ase.
That is, if things go his way on appeal.
Repairing his reputation will take more than a new hairstyle, though. The legal
troubles have done irreparable damage to an extraordinary if long-checkered care
er. Convincing the pubic you hold the secrets of success even as you re doing hard
time is quite a feat, even for a salesman of Trudeau s impressive talent.
It s a frustrating situation, especially when he compares his public profile to th
at of Steve Jobs, for example, still a beloved figure despite his cutthroat meth
ods.
This amazing businessman and visionary? He was a complete asshole, Trudeau says. Bi
ll Gates? These guys may be brilliant, but they are fucking ruthless! Trudeau s eye
s, which at less tense moments tend to light up with enthusiasm, are bulging fro
m their sockets. Or take Joel Osteen, he goes on. Seems like a nice guy right? But
who knows what goes on behind the scenes? That s what matters.

The Almost Eagle Scout

Kevin Trudeau grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, a former mill town, the child of a
welder and a homemaker.
These days, he prefers not to speak too much about his childhood. Asked to relat
e his first memory, he offers an odd response: Which life? he asks with a broad sm
ile, hinting that he has been reincarnated a few times.
I suggest we start with one he s living now.
Everyone has a past, Trudeau says with a wave of his hand. Everyone has issues. But
why go into it? What good can it possibly do? It s the past. I believe in the fut
ure.
In his books and lectures, Trudeau has at times been more forthcoming about his
upbringing and how it shaped him. In "More Natural 'Cures' Revealed," for instan
ce, he writes, Maybe the fact that I was adopted as an infant, or maybe because I
was a fat kid, or maybe because I wore glasses and was four eyes, or maybe becaus
e we lived at the outskirts of town, all could have played a part in my personal
ity development.
51BwBESsLUL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_ Amazon
Trudeau was into magic as a kid, and doing tricks for nursing homes and birthday

parties seems to have provided one of his first tastes of public speaking. As j
ust about every adolescent who has mastered the disappearing-milk trick or cut-a
nd-restored rope can attest, magic can be a uniquely empowering hobby, particula
rly for an insecure adolescent: The ability to hoodwink peers and even adults ca
n be intoxicating. For Trudeau, magic may also have been an early initiation int
o the power of secret information.
He was, it seems, a highly accomplished youngster: At his local parish, he serve
d as an altar boy and, as young as age 9, an organist. An honor student, he play
ed baseball and football in high school, and was voted most likely to succeed. He
was a Boy Scout
though he never quite made it to Eagle and president of the Juni
or Clowns of America.
Meanwhile, Trudeau was embarking on a business career.
Fred Van Liew, a longtime Trudeau mentor, met the then 15-year-old Trudeau at an
Amway meeting outside Boston in the late 1970s and was immediately struck by th
e boy s drive. He got his parents to co-sign and latched on right away, recalls Van
Liew, now the CEO of eWater Emporium, which sells appetite control mugs, harmonic
e-crystals, and other devices. You don t get a lot of kids in Amway, but Kevin was
running with the big boys already.
As Van Liew remembers, Trudeau was less interested in building a big Amway busin
ess
by signing up new members and building his downline of commissions than in und
erstanding how the whole operation, one of the first MLMs, or multilevel marketi
ng companies, actually worked.
In those days, Trudeau was also conducting what Van Liew calls his various experi
ments. Having stumbled on the classified sections in the back of the National Enq
uirer and other supermarket tabloids, Trudeau had been astonished by the ads he
found there
offers of advice, healing, or fortune-telling from afar, in exchange
for money sent to a P.O. Box. He decided to run a few ads himself just to see wh
o would respond, Van Liew remembers. Then he d give answers and see how they respond
ed to the answers. bio photo fred van liew
Fred Van Liew, a longtime Trudeau friend and associate.Fred Van Liew
Though Trudeau had no special knowledge to impart to these desperate strangers,
Van Liew sees the youthful diversion not as a scam but as part of Trudeau s ongoin
g studies into the mysteries of human success. This was research, he says. He could
have gotten a grant if he d been doing it with a college. But he did it himself,
on a shoestring. He learned what motivates people and what they respond to.
It was also perfectly legal, Van Liew says, adding that when money began pouring
in, Trudeau called him to ask about donating it to a local preacher in Texas.
"My memory of those days is rather weak!" Trudeau responded by email when asked
about the ads. "Any stories you hear I am sure have been told and retold so many
times they have morphed and changed from the facts and reality to myths and leg
ends! LOL."
Trudeau s brushes with authority began early. In "More Natural Cures Revealed," he
tells the story of receiving IQ and aptitude tests in high school. He writes th
at he breezed through the three-hour IQ test in under an hour, but the aptitude
test designed to determine a possible career path
irritated him so much that he
bubbled in D for every multiple-choice answer and dashed from the building. I hop
ped in my 1967 Firebird convertible to enjoy my freedom from the classroom. Later
, he was called to a meeting with the school s guidance counselor, who told him, i
n earshot of his fellow students, You re a loser, and you re always going to be a los
er.

I tried to put on a cocky I could care less smile, Trudeau writes. I don t think I foo
ed anyone. I turned around and walked out of the room. I distinctly remember mum
bling to myself, You re going to eat those words, baby. You re going to eat those wor
ds.
A few years later, Trudeau continues, he arrived for dinner at the Baytower Room
, a pricey Boston restaurant. He had traded in his Firebird for a new Lincoln Co
ntinental and was wearing a $25,000 Rolex and an Armani suit. When I pulled up to
have my car valeted, you can imagine my surprise when one of the valets was my
old guidance counselor ... I had a great dinner that night!
It s a telling anecdote. According to numerous associates, much of Trudeau s ambitio
n seems to be driven by the need to overcome feelings of self-doubt. I think he w
ants to impress people so much that he overcompensates, says Kristine Dorow, who
dated Trudeau for years and was married to him briefly, in 2007. There s some deep
insecurity he is trying to cover over.
Insecurity drove everything, says Peter Wink, who worked with Trudeau for three ye
ars doing direct mail and marketing and has since cooperated with various govern
ment authorities who are investigating Trudeau s business practices. He was always
striving to show people that he was a success. But it was a big facade. Like I t
old the FBI, he s not the antichrist that some people think he is. He just has a c
omplex about striving for success so hard that he ends up pushing the line.
Trudeau admits as much in "More Natural Cures Revealed": "The only way I imagine
d I could overcome my low self-esteem, self-doubts and feelings of unworthiness,
" he writes, was to achieve huge financial success."
After learning he had aced the school s intelligence test, he decided to try for a
dmission to MENSA, a membership group for people with high IQs. On the first goaround, he panicked, fearing that he wouldn t score highly enough to be admitted. F
or some unknown reason, this horrified me and depressed me beyond comprehension,
he admits in the book. I could not face failure and rejection.
He signed up to take the test again, and this time, he writes, he aced it in a f
raction of the allotted time
by cheating. He then boasted about it to the admini
strator. If you can t figure out how I cheated, he told the man, that means that I m sm
arter than you and I deserve to be admitted.
MENSA apparently didn t agree.
After high school, Trudeau found work at an auto dealership, where, Van Liew say
s, he soon became the No. 1 salesman by eagerly chatting up the customers whom h
is colleagues stereotyped as window shoppers and cheapskates. The other guys woul
d say, This guy s a loser, but Kevin didn t do that. And he d sell them car.
He also became adept at pushing auto loans. He would tell people, Save your credit
with your bank in case you need it for something else,
Van Liew recalls. Was it th
e best advice? No. Was he doing it to get you the best deal? Hell no. He was in
it for profit and money! He knew most people are idiots. Still, like many friends
and associates we spoke to, while Van Liew is up front about Trudeau s ethical sh
ortcomings, he nonetheless praises him as a fundamentally good-hearted person: Wh
en Kevin found someone in genuine need or who was ready to move forward, he d help
.
url
Ed Foreman, a former US congressman, thinks of Trudeau as a protg. Ed Foreman
Foreman, who has also known Trudeau for decades and considers himself a mentor,
was an oilman and former US congressman when he met a young Kevin Trudeau, also
in the late 70s.

He remembers him as an
ella.

enthusiastic, attractive, heads-up wanting-to-learn-type f

At the time, Foreman, who ran a concrete and gravel company, had developed a tra
ining program for his employees that numerous corporations sought to emulate. Un
der contract to Ford, he began heading motivational sessions for dealerships aro
und the country. Trudeau heard him speak in Boston, and then traveled to Texas t
o attend a three-day "Success Life Course." The message was "happy, positive, co
nstructive thoughts bring about constructive productive results," Foreman says.
"Kevin took to that quite well."
Trudeau s various forays into self-help also brought him considerable success with
the opposite sex. He was not the most handsome guy in the world, Van Liew recalls
. He had a little pudge. He couldn t drive yet. But he sure had a way with women! T
hey glommed all over him. He once told me, I bought all the books on how to talk
to a woman. Everyone buys the books but they don't read 'em. I read 'em and I be
lieved them. I did what they said. And it worked.
He learned how to make every person in the room, male or female, feel special,
Liew adds.

Van

mardigras_87_L
Trudeau, right, attends Mardi Gras in New Orleans with friends in 1987. Greg Cat
on/Meditopia
Criminal Trouble
In the early 1990s, Trudeau
80,000 in fraudulent checks
icials. The following year,
ed for a number of accounts
re than $100,000.

s ambition got the better of him. In 1990, he passed $

and even claimed to be a doctor to hoodwink bank off
he pleaded guilty to credit-card fraud, having appli
using various Social Security numbers and charged mo

In the latter instance, while admitting to the fraud, Trudeau insists that he pa
id off the bills right on schedule. The problem, he says, was that a few late pa
yments on his own account had resulted in a bad credit rating, leaving him littl
e choice but to open cards under other names to get over a financial rough patch
.
I remember seeing him after that, Foreman says.
s. I took some actions I shouldn t have taken.

He said,

I got a little too ambitiou

These days, Trudeau does not deny he made a mistake, but he floats a more sinist
er explanation. At the time, he had been contemplating a career in politics. I th
ink a group of people had an interest in making sure I wasn t a viable candidate, h
e explains.
Not to say they forced him to commit fraud, exactly. But maybe they gave him a l
ittle push. There are different ways to influence someone, he says. There s the physi
cal realm, and there s the energetic realm. Not to say I didn t make the choice to u
se those Social Security numbers. I take full responsibility for that. But let s j
ust say the circumstances sort of nudged me in that direction.
As a Massachusetts judge contemplated a sentence in the case, Trudeau s mother off
ered another, more plausible theory for what motivated the lapse. In her view, K
evin s trouble all stemmed from his accidental discovery as an adolescent that he
had been adopted. In a heartfelt letter written in a neat longhand, Mary Trudeau
offered a catalog of her son s many achievements as a teenager and spoke of his e
rstwhile dream of attending Harvard Medical School.

Screen Shot 2014 12 25 at 5.09.37 PM

Trudeau's mother begged the court for leniency. The Smoking Gun
The Trudeaus had always planned to tell their adopted sons the truth when they t
urned 21, but a cousin accidentally let the news slip the summer before Kevin s se
nior year in high school, she said. (A court-appointed psychiatrist placed the r
evelation a few years earlier, when Trudeau was 12.)
Well, we started to see a big change in Kevin, Mary wrote, from honor student to no
work
He graduated but had a new attitude. I knew he was hurting inside, because
all his goals were gone.
Trudeau opted to skip college and start his own business, in
drive was still there, but his mother could sense something
ying to prove something, I believe, to himself, she wrote.
tarting to lose his identity. In her view, her son thought
was trying to become a somebody.

Chicago. His fierce

was wrong. He was tr
He seemed like he was s
he was a nobody, and he

Trudeau disagrees.
My mother feels that it was her fault I found out the way I did and that it had a
negative effect on me, he says. I really don t think it did. Asked how he felt when
he heard the news, he offers one word: neutral, he mutters placidly. Trudeau event
ually sought out and met his birth mother, an experience he also describes as neu
tral.
While secrecy was common for adoptive families in previous decades, experts in a
doption now advocate openness as away of avoiding precisely the scenario Mary Tr
udeau described to the court. It s a very disrupting experience, says David Brodzins
ky, Ph.D., author of "Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self" and the found
ing director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. It can lead to the comp
lete undermining of the foundation of who you are. It s a betrayal of trust by the
perhaps the two people you ve counted on all your life to be trustworthy.
The ultimate conspiracy, in other words. The deep secret
about.

they

don t want you to know

Brodzinsky emphasizes that he has never met Trudeau and would never presume to a
nalyze him. But despite the pitchman s demurrals, the psychotherapist thinks it s pl
ausible that questions about self-worth might lead him to overcompensate by seeking
wealth, becoming self-centered, and allowing himself to take shortcuts in the w
ay he promoted things, without consideration for the impact on others.
The experience may also have shaped a certain conspiracy-minded way of viewing t
he world and a deep-seated mistrust of authority figures.
Certainly his life was based upon a big lie, and he may well have generalized in
a way that our government is lying as well, Brodzinsky notes.
Trudeau drew a two-year sentence for the credit-card fraud. But according to his
friend Fred Van Liew, he made out pretty well behind bars. Using his free time
to investigate his roots, he discovered that his birth mother was Jewish. Religi
on seems to have been somewhat beside the point, however. He looked up the law an
d found that if you re Jewish they have to provide kosher food, Van Liew recalls wi
th a chuckle. Nobody was doing it, and the staff didn t have time. So they said, You
do it, and put him in charge of ordering! Naturally, Trudeau ordered the best, in
cluding lobster (which is definitely not kosher). That s how stupid the people were
! Van Liew says. Before long, all kinds of inmates were becoming Jewish.
Trudeau denies the tale now. "I think he is thinking about the movie 'Goodfellas

,' and getting

confirms he is
o order kosher
itual beliefs,
between myself

the story mixed up as people do," he writes in an email. Trudeau

Jewish by birth, adding, "I do keep kosher while in prison, and d
food from the commissary for my own consumption." As for his spir
however, he declines to discuss them. "These are private matters
and God," he explains.

The Brotherhood
Bowlerbowling.JPG
Trudeau says he was approached in an average bowling alley by a shadowy group he
calls The Brotherhood. Wikimedia
Trudeau says his involvement with an organization he calls the Brotherhood began
earlier, when he was in his 20s, although he believes the group s agents were wat
ching him for years before making their initial approach in an inconspicuous loc
ation: a local bowling alley.
Looking back, he explains in "More Natural Cures Revealed," he can see why they
targeted him. I fit a certain profile,
he writes. Being adopted, needing to prove mys
elf, obsessive desire to make money, no real family attachments, high IQ, willin
g to bend or even break the rules, all put me in a category of being an excellen
t candidate.
The deal was simple. They wanted to use my talents and abilities for their purpos
es of increasing their own billions and their own power, control, and influence
over the masses, Trudeau writes, and in exchange, I would receive health secrets,
access to the inner circles of the rich and powerful, and the ability to live a
life of luxury.
Members of the group, he writes, include politicians, captains of industry, news
journalists, celebrities, musicians, writers, scientists, law enforcement offici
als, movie stars, and more.
He didn t have to think about it for long:
Not accepting would mean a life of meritocracy, financial struggles, and unfulfil
lment. It was simply an offer I couldn t refuse.
Trudeau says that his time in the Brotherhood spanned 20 years, offering him a r
are look at how the wealthy and powerful manipulate the rest of us to serve thei
r own ends.
He claims to have visited factories where food is being genetically modified and
manufactured with the sole purpose of making people fatter and to have been tutor
ed in the use of secret brainwashing techniques developed by the CIA that are bei
ng used in the news media and in advertisements for certain products.
At one point, he was even granted access to Area 51, where working spacecraft and
dead alien bodies are housed. I ve seen these things with my own two eyes, he insist
s in the book.
In exchange, he performed certain tasks he declines to name, saying merely, I was
used in covert operations around the world ... I was virtually on call 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, all while making hundreds of millions of dollars.
Eventually, he writes, his conscience began to weigh on him. Having sworn a vow
of secrecy, he made the difficult decision to betray his erstwhile brothers and
blow the whistle.

"I have seen the light," he writes in "More Natural Cures Revealed." "I was on t
he dark side doing evil; now I have repented, changed my ways, and turned my lif
e around. I regret and am very sorry for all of the bad things I have done in my
life. Now I am going against the masters that I once served. I am telling peopl
e the truth about Big Pharma, the food industry, the oil industry, governments,
and the media."
If you believe his story, it s no real stretch to imagine that the Brotherhood has
now taken its revenge by helping to put Trudeau in prison. Which makes it all t
he more surprising that he continues to protect their identities.
Why not name names?
In due time,

I ask him.

he says with a smile.

A Master Salesman
Even as he remained on call for this secret society, Trudeau embarked on a remar
kable second career in business.
In prison, he d met a man named Jules Lieb, who was doing time for distribution of
cocaine. After their release, the two went into business together, starting a c
ompany called Trudeau Marketing Group and joining a multilevel nutrition supplem
ents company called Nutrition for Life. Employing the knowledge he d acquired at A
mway, Trudeau quickly became the company s most successful recruiter ever, doublin
g business in just a year, according to The New York Times. But his aggressive s
ales techniques, which involved making extravagant promises about the potential
income recruits could expect, drew the attention of law enforcement, and in 1996
, the Illinois attorney general filed a complaint accusing Trudeau and Lieb of o
perating an illegal pyramid scheme. As part of a settlement, Trudeau paid a tota
l of $185,000 to Illinois and seven other states.
Shortly thereafter Trudeau took his skills as a salesman he prefers the term comm
unicator
to television, where infomercials had begun to proliferate following Pre
sident Reagan s deregulation of the TV industry. Trudeau embraced the opportunity
and soon aligned himself with a variety of questionable products. There was his
own Mega Memory training program; the Sable Hair-Farming System (which he promis
ed would end hair loss in the human race ); Dr. Callahan s Addiction-Breaking System
(which he said could break the user of any addiction in 60 seconds virtually 100
percent of the time ); Howard Berg s Mega Reading speed-reading program, the Perfect
Lift Non-Surgical Face Lift, and Eden s Secret Nature s Purifying Product. There we
re magnetic toe rings and magnetic mattress pads, crocodile protein peptide, and
Biotape, an adhesive tape said to relieve pain by reestablishing broken electri
cal connections in the body.
$_35.JPG eBay
Trudeau was a master of the form. In all, he estimates he marketed more than 50
products and made more than 1,000 infomercials, of which maybe a third actually
made it through the testing stage and onto the air. I believe I have actually bee
n on TV more than anyone else in the world, including Tony Robbins, he says.
Thomas Haire, editor-in-chief of Response magazine, a trade journal covering the
direct-response industry, calls Trudeau a trailblazer. He was one of the earlies
t guys out there, Haire says. He comes off very well on TV, very believable, very
earnest. He pioneered various styles
the interview style, the talk-show format.
That s not to say Haire approves of Trudeau s methods. In fact, he is incredulous th
at Trudeau s infomercials are still airing despite his conviction. You re not going t
o see those ads unless they re working, Haire admits. But he says Trudeau s ongoing T

V appearances are damaging the industry. It s about the optics and the image of the
business, he says. You don t want the carnival barker, shyster-type of image out th
ere, the idea that our products don t do what we say they do. It just continues to
give an unnecessary black eye to the business.
In 1998, Trudeau s infomercials drew a lawsuit from the FTC. Trudeau paid a $500,0
00 settlement and vowed not to make any claims about the benefits of a product u
nless he could produce competent and reliable evidence.
But in the eyes of the FTC, the fraud continued. In 2003, the federal government
again sued Trudeau for deceptive marketing based on his pitch for Coral Calcium
Supreme, which Trudeau said had been proven effective for a variety of ailments
, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease. After the FTC asked t
he court to hold him in contempt for violating the 98 injunction, Trudeau agreed
to pay $2 million and stop selling products or services in infomercials altogeth
er.
We got an order against him in 1998, and that didn t stop him, says the FTC s Michael
Mora, who has been involved with the case since 2009. The one in 2003 goes about
as far as we can ever get, which is banning somebody from the whole medium of in
fomercials a flat prohibition on that form of advertising
and that still didn t st
op him.
One exception remained. Trudeau was still allowed to market books. The contents
of a book are protected by the First Amendment, no matter how ludicrous its clai
ms might seem. And Trudeau was allowed not only to publish books but to tout the
m in infomercials, as long as he didn t misrepresent their contents.
Well, he drove a truck through that exemption,

Mora says.

Up Close And Personal

Trudeau had always been popular with women, back to his days studying dating man
uals. He has been married at least three times (a number he declined to confirm)
. His current wife, Nataliya Babenko, who is now legally running several of his
former companies, was just 22 and studying film at New York University when they
tied the knot in 2008. (She is now back in her home country, Ukraine, Trudeau s
ays.)
kt kristine.JPG
Trudeau and Kristine Dorow, a Norwegian student he met in London. Courtesy of Kr
istine Dorow
According to one former girlfriend, however, the pattern of duplicity that has c
ome to define his business dealings was a characteristic of his personal life as
well.
A native of Norway, Dorow was a 20-year-old college student studying German at U
niversity College of London when she first met Trudeau in 2000. One afternoon, s
he was sitting in the restaurant of the Sanderson Hotel waiting for a friend. Tr
udeau walked by and gave her a look, then did it again and again.
Finally he came over to talk to me and swept me off my feet, she recalls. He was ve
ry charismatic, very charming and romantic. She emailed him a few months later an
d he invited her to California for a visit. She took him up on the offer without
even bothering to tell her parents about the trip.
The Ojai house was like nothing she d ever seen before. Oh my god, it was absolutel
y crazy, she says. I don t even know how to describe it. It was like a palace, with

gold everywhere and a giant chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Kevin and I hav
e completely different tastes. I m modern, and his is very red velvet hanging in dr
apes from the ceiling. But even though I hate to admit, I was really impressed by
the luxury.
Whatever he did was to the fullest, Dorow adds. Everything was very perfect, almost
to the point where it was a little bit scary. This pristine, almost to-good-to-b
e-true environment. Like there s a grand piano playing by itself.
Dorow recalls Trudeau talking about marriage almost immediately. "He said he was
totally in love. 'I can t believe this is happening to me. You're the only thing
I need now.' I was like, 'Wow, I'm so lucky.'"
Shortly after that visit, Dorow quit school and moved to California at Trudeau s s
uggestion. My friends thought I was crazy, she says. They thought I was going to ge
t killed.
Despite the excitement of their whirlwind courtship, Trudeau s travel schedule mea
nt that Dorow was often left on her own in one or the other of his massive homes
.
Their relationship was tempestuous. At one point, Dorow discovered he was alread
y married, to a Ukrainian native named Oleksandra Polozhentseva. Furious and eag
er to make him jealous, Dorow went on a date another man not just any guy, eithe
r, but the singer Lionel Richie, whom she d met on a flight. She told Trudeau abou
t it, and the gambit seemed to work. Kevin became very possessive.
Kevin promised to get a divorce, and he and Dorow tied the knot in November 2007
, having dated for six years. She says their prenup obligated her to reach a cer
tain level in Scientology, which Trudeau has dabbled in over the years.
Trudeau Dorow wedding
Dorow and Trudeau tie the knot in 2007. Courtesy Kristine Dorow
A few months after the wedding, however, they got in a fight, and Trudeau announ
ced he d be going on their honeymoon, a cruise, without her.
Trudeau declined to answer questions about his relationships, deeming them "too
personal and not relevant."
Eventually, Dorow says, she discovered airline tickets for Natalya Babenko, now
his wife, that indicated Trudeau had invited her to take the cruise in Kristine s
place. As betrayed as she felt, by this point, such indiscretions no longer surp
rised her. I guess it was fair, because he took me on [Oleksandra's] honeymoon to
Cabo San Lucas, she recalls. That was pretty weird, because there was a card on t
he bed with some chocolate that said, you know, Congratulations to Kevin and Alex
!
Trudeau and Dorow s marriage was annulled after four months. After I left
t really difficult, she says. He said he would make life hell for me. It
if he couldn t have me, he didn t want me to be happy. He took everything
me. I had not a dollar left in my bank account. He basically sat down and
lated every penny he had ever spent on plane tickets and this and that and
I swindled and defrauded him out of that money and he wants it back.

him he go
was like,
away from
calcu
said

Dorow wound up living alone in a rough section of Los Angeles, largely penniless
and too embarrassed to ask her parents for help. In the end, I really didn t know
what was true, she says. I didn t know if I could trust my own thoughts
everything I
had thought before was so wrong. It was a really tough time.

Now back on her feet and in a committed relationship, she admits to having tende
r feelings toward Trudeau. "It's love-hate," she says. In fact, they saw each ot
her not long ago and partly reconciled. I actually agree with a lot of the things
that he believes, she says. I love the natural cures. I don t agree with his method
of selling things. It s indoctrination. But do I think he deserves 10 years in ja
il for it? Hell no. I have a lot of personal issues against Kevin, but he was my
first love. I feel bad for him.

A Miracle Diet
Trudeau wrote and advertised "Natural Cures" without incident. He submitted info
mercials to the FTC for review, and they were deemed acceptable for broadcast.
It was his next book, "The Weight Loss Cure," that ran into trouble. Published i
n 2007, the book is based in part on Simeons' protocol, a technique developed by
a British doctor in the 1950s, which supposedly resets the hypothalamus, allowi
ng the patient to lose weight. Trudeau himself gave it a try at a clinic in Germ
any, and he swore by it.
Among other things, the cure
which includes an array of dos and don ts spread over f
our stages requires the subject to limit him or herself to 500 calories per day
for a period; walk for an hour a day; receive regular liver, parasite, heavy met
al, and colon cleanses, and take daily doses of coral calcium. He or she is also
advised to avoid air-conditioning and fluorescent lighting, microwaved food, ov
er-the-counter medications, prescription medications, fast food, and food from n
ational chains. Most important, the subject must receive regular injections of h
uman chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone found in the human placenta. hCG is
essential to Simeons' protocol, though in the US it can be taken only with a pr
escription.
Matt Dubiel began working with Trudeau in 2008 as the general manager of the KT
Radio Network. At the time, the 5-foot-7 audio engineer weighed 240 pounds. He s
ought Trudeau's advice, and his boss hooked him up with a doctor who could presc
ribe hCG. Dubiel did a modified version of the cure for 30 days, including the 5
00-calorie diet, the injections, and the cleanses.
Dude, it changed my life, he affirms. Even more important than losing 35 pounds wa
s the effect it had on his overall health.
dubiel
Matt Dubiel, before and after taking the "weight-loss cure." Matt Dubiel
I was getting to the point where I had heartburn every day, Dubiel recalls. Doctors
wanted me to be on blood thinners and statins and Prevacid. My medical doctors
never said, Get on a treadmill, cut carbs, get healthy. They always went to pharma
ceuticals first.
After a break of six to eight months, Dubiel repeated the diet and lost another
35 pounds. (It s worth noting that he no longer has a business relationship with T
rudeau, and says he would be reluctant to work with him again.)
Various studies have cast doubt on Simeons claims for hCG. But that wasn t the reas
on for Trudeau s subsequent troubles with the government.
The problem was that, in the eyes of the FTC, and later the US attorney s office,
the infomercials for "The Weight Loss Cure" flagrantly misrepresented the conten
ts of the book. For instance, according to court documents filed by the agency,
Trudeau claimed in an infomercial that the protocol can be completed at home and th
at you don t have to go to a clinic to do it. But the book instructs that all hCG in

jections must be administered under a physician s supervision and that trips to a

licensed colon therapist for colonics are required.
Moreover, the infomercials didn t mention hCG at all, at least not by name. They d
id, however, make note of a miracle, all-natural substance and claim that you can g
et it anywhere.
At one point, Trudeau even insisted that the protocol was not a diet, not an exer
cise program, not portion control, not calorie counting and said it involved no cr
azy portions, powder or pills. According to the FTC, such assertions were "outrig
ht" lies.
Much was also made of Trudeau s assertion in the infomercial that the cure was easy
. At one point, he even described it as the easiest [weight-loss] method known on
Planet Earth. He also claimed that subjects can eat everything they want, anytime
they want, adding, Last night I had pot roast, mashed potatoes, sour cream, tons o
f butter, and a hot fudge sundae!
Screen Shot 2015 01 01 at 3.20.00 PM
Trudeau addresses reporters outside the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. You
Tube
In another instance, he insisted that after the protocol one can consume anythin
g and not gain weight. So, what can you eat? he said. How about pizza, pasta, fettu
ccine Alfredo. Real stuff, not diet crap. I m talking real food.
Asked during our interview whether his language in the infomercials crossed the
line, Trudeau insists he did nothing wrong. I offered my opinion. That s protected
speech.
But even Dubiel, a firm believer in the diet, thinks Trudeau s statements were a c
onsiderable exaggeration. It s not easy, he says. The word choice is the problem. You
know what, nothing is easy. And at the same time, everything is easy.
Throughout the lengthy court proceedings, Trudeau aggressively defended himself
to his supporters in videos, in public appearances, and on social media. In cour
t, however, he was more reticent. Taking the stand in the civil trial in May 201
3, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 390 times. In
the subsequent criminal trial, he opted not to testify at all.
In the end, a jury took 45 minutes to convict Trudeau of criminal contempt for m
isrepresenting "The Weight Loss Cure" in his infomercials. The brief deliberatio
n was seen by the prosecution as evidence that the case was cut and dried. To Tr
udeau s supporters, however, it proved the fix was in.
Why didn t Trudeau, whom even Mora calls incredibly talented and a great communicator
, take the stand in his own defense? He d been planning on it, he says, and he beli
eves his testimony would have swayed the jury. But the night before, I had a visi
on, a really strong feeling that said not to testify, he tells me. It was a very p
owerful feeling. I believe everything happens for a reason, and maybe I had to d
raw this sentence in order to have a greater impact, to help let the world know
about the threat the government poses to personal freedom."
When he finally wins his freedom, Trudeau adds, It will be a huge story around th
e world. He draws a lesson from the life of Nelson Mandela. Trudeau has taken fla
k for comparing himself to various civil-rights figures in the past, and he is c
areful not to do so now. But he says he learned from Mandela's story that the roa
d isn t always straight, he says. Mandela was trying to destroy apartheid, and he di
d. But he had to go to prison for 27 years to do it.

The Mercy Of The Court

On March 12, 2014, Trudeau sat down at a typewriter and did something he rarely
does. He begged for mercy.
6a00d83455028f69e200e54f3227558833 640wi.img_assist_custom
Judge Robert Gettleman of the Northern District Court of Illinois. U.S. District
Court
Writing in the exceedingly polite, sheepish tone of a man who knows he s run out o
f rope, he addressed Judge Robert Gettleman, the federal judge for the Northern
District of Illinois, who had earlier found Trudeau guilty of civil contempt imp
osing a $37.6 million fine and then referring his case for criminal prosecution
and he poured out his heart.
I am desperate,

he wrote.

I have been humbled beyond imagination.

Taking 100% responsibility for his predicament, he added, I have seen where I must
change and be a better person. I have the deepest most sincere regret and remors
e. Publicly apologizing to Judge Gettleman, the FTC and the US attorney s office, h
e said that he was sorry from the bottom of my heart.
I see now that I have made many mistakes along the way, he continued. I have learne
d my lesson in more ways and at more levels than you can ever know ... This expe
rience has shaken me to my core.
Critically for Trudeau, at this point his fate was no longer in Judge Gettleman'
s hands
a fact for which the defense team bore responsibility. Although Gettlema
n had handled the FTC s civil case against Trudeau for years, had seemed remarkabl
y indulgent of Trudeau s stalling tactics, and had ruled that the case would be a
bench trial, which limited the sentence to six months, Trudeau s lawyers had accus
ed him of bias and demanded that a new judge be assigned to the criminal trial.
Though he pointedly rejected the accusation, Gettleman had used his power as a s
enior judge to reassign the case to a colleague, Judge Ronald Guzman.
The move backfired on Trudeau. Guzman promptly ruled that the case merited a jur
y trial, removing the sentencing limitation.
We mounted a very aggressive legal case, Trudeau says now. Was it too aggressive? I
don t know. Hindsight is 20-20. Maybe there were certain decisions that could hav
e been made differently. We thought, Six months! That s ridiculous! That s insane! Fo
r stating my opinion? So we decided to fight.
Had he not opted to challenge Gettleman, Trudeau would theoretically be a free m
an by now.
Guzman, it soon transpired, wasn t kidding around. And while the 10-year sentence
strikes many observers as overly harsh, others consider it an appropriate punish
ment given the long career of questionable dealings, a little like Scorsese winn
ing his first Oscar for "The Departed" after getting passed over for so many oth
er brilliant movies.
Kevin got a very vindictive and offended judge who decided to lay the wood to him
, says Ed Foreman, who attended the sentencing and was removed from the courtroom
after an impassioned outburst on Trudeau s behalf. "[Guzman] took a dislike to Ke
vin and thought, 'I'm going to show you, you smart-ass.'"
Trudeau s letter was a Hail Mary, an attempt to persuade Gettleman, by far the mor
e amenable of the two, to nudge his colleague. I am asking (praying) that you wou
ld consider interceding in some way with Judge Guzman on my behalf, he wrote.

The ploy didn t work.

TrudeauSketch_20130919170501_320_240.JPG
A courtroom sketch of Trudeau's sentencing by Judge Ronald Guzman. KSHB/YouTube
He has treated federal court orders as if they were mere suggestions ... or at mo
st impediments to be sidestepped, outmaneuvered, or just ignored, Judge Guzman sa
id, handing down the sentence.
It was too late, Foreman says. It s like as you re being spanked telling your daddy, I
orry I did that. I won t do it again. Sorry son, I m already spanking you. His apology
was not as convincing as it might have been. Trudeau was sentenced to 10 years, n
ot a bad deal considering that federal sentencing guidelines called for 20 to 25
in light of his previous felony convictions.
We think that sends a very strong message of deterrence to other would-be Trudeau
s, Mora says.
Now, having spent a few months doing hard time
or what passes for it in FPC Mont
gomery, one of the most comfortable minimum-security facilities in the federal p
rison system Trudeau sounds considerably less contrite.
Put yourself in my position, he tells me when I ask about the letter of apology.
ere was I? I was in MCC [the Metropolitan Correctional Center], in jail. I was f
acing a possible life sentence. Was I humbled? Sure. I had just realized the gov
ernment could actually put you in jail for exercising your First Amendment right
s, just because they object you something you said. That s pretty humbling!

Wh

Naturally, the FDA sees the matter differently. He convinced through deception up
wards of 800,000 people that he had this cure, a weight-loss plan in his book th
at made it easy, and you could do it without medical supervision, and without a
very restrictive diet, Mora says. None of that was true. That s pretty egregious.
Perhaps, but as Trudeau and his supporters are quick to point out, his legal tea
m provided numerous testimonials by consumers who said "The Weight Loss Cure" he
lped them. The government, by contrast, never produced a single witness who clai
med they d been wronged. As Mora notes, however, doing so simply wasn t necessary. Al
l we had to prove and did prove was that he violated the order, he explains. In FT
C cases, if you lie about something that s material to consumers in deciding wheth
er or not to purchase goods or services, the harm is presumed, because consumers
have parted with their money to purchase it based on lies.

Following The Money

Even with Trudeau in prison for criminal contempt, there was still the matter of
a $37.6 million civil judgment, which had yet to be paid. The money would go to
ward creating a fund to reimburse anyone who decided they d been cheated after pay
ing $30 for "The Weight Loss Cure" based on misrepresentations Trudeau made in h
is infomercials. The fine was imposed in 2010 and has yet to be paid despite Tru
deau s being held in contempt several times for his noncompliance.
In theory, even this considerable sum should have been affordable. As far back a
s the mid-1990s, Trudeau claimed in his promotional materials that he had a net
worth of more than $200 million. While it s impossible to say just how much money
Trudeau made over the years, Thomas Haire of Response magazine says that pitchme
n of his caliber can command as much as 20% of the revenue they generate in sale
s for a given product. Since Trudeau often promoted his own companies, the take
was likely even higher. His product sales over the years had to reach 10 figures,

Haire says.
ustry.

He s a guy who definitely could have made a billion dollars in this ind

Trudeau s associates scoff at the idea.

No way

not even close, says one.

And Trudeau maintains he s virtually penniless.

There is no money! he says, insisting that all he has left is a couple of suitcase
s full of clothes. Even gifts from his parents and from his wife, Nataliya Baben
ko, were sold off by the receiver.
At one point, he even told Judge Gettleman he d be willing to be waterboarded to p
rove he s come clean about his assets.
kt hime.JPG
Trudeau at his home in Ojai, California. Kristine Dorow
I never accumulated wealth, he insists. I was never interested in that. Did I live
a luxurious lifestyle? Sure. Did I enjoy flying in the Concorde and on private j
ets? Staying in $10,000-a-night penthouses? Living in multimillion-dollar homes?
Driving Rolls Royces and Ferraris? Sure. Do I like good restaurants? Absolutely
. But I eventually realized that those things don t make you happy.
He lived quite well, Foreman admits. Kevin is someone that knows how to generate mo
ney. He had a nice place in Ojai, he lived in a nice place in Chicago, and he tr
aveled first class. But you know, his life has been easy come easy go. He makes
millions and he spends millions.
A good bit of that money
$5 million
went to pay a specialist in asset protection
, Marc Lane, who court records show helped him set up more than two-dozen busine
ss entities in Belize, Nevis, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Mauritius, the Isle of Man
, Panama, the Cook Islands, and the Seychelles places where money can be squirre
led away beyond the reach of the US government.
One Trudeau company, Natural Cures Holding, which Mora says generated tens of mil
lions of dollars over the years, was sold to a former business associate based in
UK for just $100,000, a fraction of its value.
Other companies were transferred to Babenko, Trudeau s Ukraine-born wife, despite
a notable lack of business experience.
The government also cited emails from Trudeau to various associates indicating a
plan to hide his wealth: gin MUST get money out of the usa and into banks overse
as, he wrote in one email, referencing the Global Information Network, which was
bringing in millions of dollars per month
never keep more money in the usa than n
eeded every company NEEDS accounts OFF SHORE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meanwhile, there were questionable transactions at various casinos
apparent atte
mpts to launder money, captured by security cameras
and eyebrow-raising purchase
s of gold bars.
Screen Shot 2015 01 04 at 6.19.16 PM
Surveillance video captured Babenko and Trudeau performing questionable transact
ions at a casino. ABC/The Lookout
So far, Trudeau s efforts appear to have been successful. We don t know what we don t k
now, Mora admits. If you want to, and have a professional to help you, you can mov
e assets offshore in a way that can t be discovered.
Asked what he thought of the damning emails, Foreman laughs.

That s kind of like, To

morrow morning something s going to happen, so make sure I got enough money to get
cognac or cigars. I don t think it was any real conniving.
Trudeau friend Frederick Van Liew admits the pitchman may have intentionally att
empted to shield his assets from the government, and for good reason. Do I believ
e that with his intelligence that he d do anything different than any other politi
cian or wealthy person does? Van Liew asks hypothetically. They don t have the money
in their name. If it s not in your name and it s not under your control, is it your
asset? You get to enjoy the benefits but have neither ownership nor direct cont
rol. There are legal instruments to do that. These are the vehicles that the gov
ernment has set up, that the world elites have set up."
As Trudeau himself put it in an extraordinarily candid interview with ABC's The
Lookout, "I'm certainly not going to start a company in my own name. It'd be dum
b." Setting up a friend or family member in business, however, might be a smart
strategy. "There's nothing wrong with that, nothing illegal about it, and guess
what?" he told Bill Weir, "It's not my asset."
Let s not be hypocrites,

he adds.

It s what you do!

Billionaire Boys' Club

Screen Shot 2015 01 04 at 6.20.51 PM ABC/The Lookout
The government appointed receiver has had some limited success in getting the FT
C its $37 million.
Earlier this year, the receiver sold Trudeau s Ojai, California, residence, and it
s contents at auction. Among the items on offer were a signed print of Rush Limb
augh by artist LeRoy Neiman, a grand player piano, bronze candelabras and crysta
l chandeliers, several humidors, a formidable collection of Swarovski crystal fi
gurines, and a signed photograph of The Three Stooges.
Trudeau s well-appointed home in Chicago was also sold.
Another valuable asset in his portfolio was the Global Information Network (GIN)
, the multilevel marketing company he launched in 2009, even as he was actively
litigating the FTC s civil suit. The group was set up with the help, he claimed, o
f a council of 30 of the world s most powerful people, who had decided to bring th
e secrets of the Brotherhood to a mainstream audience. Among this advisory counc
il, the website boasted, were a former prime minister ... members of various roya
l families, a former president of a major country, generals, billionaires, tycoo
ns, industrialists, politicians, a current Supreme Court judge, major media mogu
ls, and several celebrities you would know by name.
In a video pitching the club, Trudeau claimed that the Council was
es from around the world.

all billionair

At its inception, GIN was a rather innovative business. For a monthly fee of $15
0, members would have regular access to a variety of motivational speakers aroun
d the country, along with cruises and other events. As with similar self-help or
ganizations, participants were aggressively pushed to increase their involvement
, paying thousands of dollars in fees as they moved from one level to the next.
The material itself was far from groundbreaking
much of it, in fact, was quite t
ransparently borrowed from authors like Rhonda Byrne and Napoleon Hill but many
people found it invaluable. Numerous GIN members Business Insider spoke with pra
ised the seminars and credited the organization with changing their lives for th
e better.

Denis La Rochelle, a financial consultant in Calgary, Alberta, says he spent abo

ut $20,000 over several years on GIN, and while he later began to doubt Trudeau s
honesty, he has no doubts about GIN s positive effects. It changed my kids lives, it
changed me, he says. A lot of people that were depressive or suicidal
it gave the
m hope. Because all of the sudden they learned about how the psyche operated. He
offers the example of Sohail Quereshi, a former aspiring jihadi with a computerscience degree from the University of Calgary, who credited Trudeau s CD series You
r Wish Is Your Command
which has since been uploaded to YouTube and a GIN seminar
with turning his life around.
Another fan, Neville Christensen, put many thousands into GIN, an investment he
still considers the best money I could ever spend to educate myself.

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