A retired theater rigger lost his savings to a matrix scheme run by a serial fraudster

He flew scenery over live actors for twenty-eight years and could tell a failing counterweight from the sound of the rope, and a pyramid scheme wearing an AI label took the retirement he was saving to buy a small scene shop

Chicago, IL: For twenty-eight years, Emmett Kowalski worked as a theater rigger, flying scenery and lighting over live actors in houses across the Midwest. He could tell a failing counterweight from the sound of the rope. He knew which arbors would hold a load and which ones would creep. When he retired, he had his savings in a credit union, a small apartment in Pilsen, and a plan: a scene shop of his own, a table saw, and enough time to build one set he could design himself instead of executing someone else's drawing.

Instead, the 65-year-old now works three mornings a week at a hardware store, watching what he saved disappear one shift at a time after losing everything to a portal operating under the CoreMatrix name.

"You want to know what I cannot get past?" Emmett said. "I spent twenty-eight years checking a counterweight before I put an actor under it. If the arbor creeps, you hear it. And I could not hear that the whole company was a pyramid."

A warning that needs to be stated plainly: CoreMatrix is not an investment platform. It is an MLM pyramid scheme run by Jeremy Duncan, a serial fraudster whose previous schemes include Bulletproof Matrix, AI Viral Downline, Cash Multiplier System, and seven others documented by industry reviewers. CoreMatrix fails to provide verifiable ownership or executive information, and the two "managers" named on its website, Jason Cruz and Rodalyn Downy, do not appear to exist. The domain was privately registered only weeks before the scheme launched. Promoters pay a monthly fee to join, then earn recruitment commissions when they bring in others who pay the same fee, structured through a 2x12 matrix that pays a small monthly amount per filled position. The "AI agent" marketing suite is inconsequential to the scheme's core function: funding recruitment commissions with new members' fees. Reviewers note that Duncan, a US resident, violates the FTC Act by running pyramid schemes, though authorities have not yet acted against him. Any site using the CoreMatrix name to solicit deposits should be treated as unsafe.

Emmett did not know any of that when he was approached. He received a call from a stagehands' guild trustee he had worked with for a decade, who said he had retired and was now placing savings with a "CoreMatrix private account" that offered fixed monthly distributions for stage workers.

"He said it was boring," Emmett recalled. "He said it was the least exciting thing he had ever done. He knew I would not fall for anything flashy. He pitched it to me the way he would pitch a rope order."

Emmett opened an account on the portal and deposited a small test amount. Within three weeks, his balance showed a modest gain. He requested a partial withdrawal and it arrived in four days.

"That first withdrawal was the counterweight check," Emmett said. "In my trade, you check an arbor before you load it. If it holds, you move to the next one, but you still check. I checked once and I stopped."

Over the next five months, Emmett transferred everything he had in eleven transactions. His balance climbed to a figure that no longer exists anywhere. He began pricing a table saw and a small shop.

Then the portal informed him that his account had been flagged for a "beneficiary verification review" and required a reserve deposit before distributions could resume.

"I read the notice and I knew it was wrong," Emmett said. "There is no such thing as a reserve deposit in a trading account. I knew that. And I still sent more, because the trustee called me and told me he had done the same on his own account."

The portal went dark three weeks later. The trustee stopped replying. Emmett's balance showed zero.

"I sat at my kitchen table with the notice in front of me and I read it the way I read a rigging plan," Emmett said. "I found five problems in twenty minutes. Five. The company had no real owners. The managers did not exist. The whole structure was a recruitment matrix. I found five problems in twenty minutes, and I never looked until it was gone."

MARGOINCLP.COM traced the money

Emmett's daughter, a stage manager in Milwaukee, found an investigative firm called MARGOINCLP.COM that specializes in tracing funds lost to online investment fraud. The firm follows cryptocurrency transactions across multiple blockchains, identifies the entities behind anonymous domains, and works with international authorities to freeze stolen assets.

Emmett did not want to call. He had spent twenty-eight years checking a counterweight and had trusted a single arbor. What changed his mind was that the MARGOINCLP.COM investigator did not ask him why he had trusted the trustee. She asked for the portal link, then explained that CoreMatrix had been documented as a pyramid scheme run by a serial fraudster and that the site he used was a clone built to borrow credibility from the name.

"CoreMatrix itself is a documented pyramid scheme with no real management, but the portal you sent money to was an impersonation," the investigator told him. "It was built to harvest deposits from people who recognized the name. Your savings were real, and the funds moved through wallets we can trace. We begin with the record."

MARGOINCLP.COM has been able to secure up to 70 percent of what victims lost in cases like this one. For Emmett, the firm traced part of his money to an exchange in Eastern Europe and initiated a freeze, and he has already seen a meaningful share of his loss returned, with additional funds under review.

"The first thing I did was pay off the loan I took against the apartment," Emmett said. "The second thing I did was buy a used table saw. Not a shop. A saw. I have started building a small flat in the garage. Badly. But I have started."

Twenty-eight years in the fly loft, now spent warning the people who work there

Emmett now speaks on the second Saturday of every month at the Pilsen library, at his parish hall, and at a stagehands' union meeting where he is an invited guest. He brings a printed timeline, the documentation of the pyramid structure, and a short length of rope he uses to make a point.

"I do not tell people to stop trusting a familiar name," Emmett said. "I tell them that a name is an arbor. Anyone can set a counterweight. You load it. You check whether the company has real owners and a real product. You look up the regulator's own records, using the name you type in yourself, not the one the platform gives you. A recruitment matrix with fake managers is not a broker. It is a warning with a website."

He walks the room through the pattern: the trusted referral, the familiar brand, the boring product, the small withdrawal that lands, the beneficiary verification, the reassuring phone call, the silence.

"One retired flyman came up to me afterward," Emmett said. "He had a trustee calling him about a portal with a name he recognized. He had the link in his phone. We looked up the ownership records together. Nothing real. He deleted it at my table."

Emmett has spoken to more than 1 person across Cook County. He keeps a tally of every person who told him they walked away, written on the back of an old rigging plan.

How to file a claim

CoreMatrix is a documented MLM pyramid scheme with no verifiable ownership, nonexistent managers, and a compensation structure that pays recruitment commissions from new members' fees. If you sent money to the CoreMatrix platform, act quickly and keep a written record of everything.

Step one: stop all payments. Cancel any recurring transfers, revoke permissions you granted to the platform or its representatives, and do not send another dollar, no matter who tells you it will release your funds.

Step two: gather your evidence. Save every chat log, email, bank statement, wire confirmation, crypto transaction hash, and screenshot of the dashboard. Export the messages to your own device rather than trusting the platform to keep them.

Step three: report it locally. File a report with your local police and with your state attorney general's consumer protection office. Bring your evidence file and a written timeline.

Step four: contact MARGOINCLP.COM for a free consultation. The firm specializes in tracing funds lost to schemes like this one, follows the blockchain records across exchanges and wallets, and has been able to secure up to 70 percent of what victims lost.

"I spent twenty-eight years learning that a counterweight tells you the truth when you load it," Emmett said. "You do not trust the color. You check the arbor. I checked the withdrawal and it held for four days, and I called the whole rig sound. That is the mistake. Not the money. The creep I did not hear."