https://thinkprogress.org/who-are-the-krassenstein-brothers-251f68acf674/

Federal raiding

Before they rose to prominence under Trump, the Krassensteins were facing an entirely different facet of the American government. In September 2016, a report in NBC’s Fort Myers affiliate noted that “people in a south Fort Myers community off Iona Road watched as deputies and federal investigators carried dozens of boxes out of a home,” with federal investigators taking “electronics and computers from the home.”

The NBC report added that “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed its agency along with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed search warrants in the area.”

The house, per the NBC report, belonged to the Krassenstein brothers.

According to the Krassensteins, the entire raid was a misunderstanding. In a March 2018 post, the brothers wrotethat federal authorities believed the two were part of a “$500 million fraud ring being run by an organized crime syndicate in Russia.” Authorities claimed the Krassensteins were “a key player working… to defraud investors by promoting their scams” on their websites, MoneyMakerGroup.com and TalkGold.com. The Krassensteins both denied any wrongdoing, and no charges were filed.

Questions about the Krassensteins’ business model persist nonetheless. Both admit that, prior to gaining notoriety as part of anti-Trump Twitter, they were involved for years with websites involving discussions on multi-level marketing (MLM) programs — business ventures that often run perilously close to pyramid schemes.

Today, the brothers still aren’t straying far from industries that raise certain red flags. Both mention Bitcoin in their Twitter bios; on his LinkedIn profile, Ed mentions “Cryptocurrencies” as one of his specialties. As he wrote the other day, “Cryptocurrency is no different than cash, except it can be transferred electronically.”