Did Pornhub’s Owner MindGeek Just Pull off a Brazen Scheme To Avoid Getting Blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard?

Pornhub’s shady owner, MindGeek, is not a stranger to controversy. After all, when a company is widely believed to have profited from sex trafficking and child abuse, notoriety becomes a de rigueur of sorts. However, MindGeek just might have outdone itself last week when it pulled off a very convenient sale to an obscure Canadian private company just ahead of Netflix’s highly anticipated exposé.

MindGeek’s Shady Past

Let’s be honest here. It would be a herculean effort to find a person who has not heard of Pornhub, a veritable repository of carnally satisfying videos. What many people don’t know, however, is that Pornhub is simply one cog in a labyrinthine universe. Apart from Pornhub, MindGeek also owns websites such as Brazzers, YouPorn, Redtube, etc.

Before its recent sale, MindGeek was controlled by the banker Bernd Bergmair, with David Tassillo and Syrian-Canadian programmer Feras Antoon having joined the company back in 2008 to eventually become its CEO and COO, respectively. Tassillo and Antoon resigned from their high-profile roles at MindGeek in 2022 but retained their shares in the company.

Back in 2020, a New York Times op-ed accused Pornhub of hosting child porn. About six months later, 34 women publicly accused Pornhub of profiting from their trafficked videos, including instances of underage sex trafficking. These allegations then prompted Visa and Mastercard to cut off Pornhub from their network for a short while, with connectivity only restored once Pornhub implemented a wide-ranging purge of troublesome content.

Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) Comes to the Rescue

Netflix has just released its new documentary, titled “Money Shot: the Pornhub Story.” The 94-minute documentary places the ugly past of Pornhub and MindGeek under a glaring spotlight. Interestingly, just days before the release of this much-anticipated documentary, MindGeek pulled off its sale to an obscure Canadian private company, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP).

i'm like 99% sure pornhub's acquisition is a scam:

— Evan Armstrong (@itsurboyevan) March 20, 2023

The Twitter thread above explores some of the more interesting aspects of this transaction. However, there are a few glaring mistakes.

Source: Ontario Business Registry

As opposed to what is alleged in the thread, Ethical Capital Partners is indeed a fully-registered company. As can be seen in the snippet above, MindGeek’s new parent is registered in Ontario, Canada, bearing Ontario Corporation Number (OCN) 1000060312.

In summary:

- a fund that doesn't exist
- staffed with complete industry noobs
- bought a company they can't afford
- run by a bunch of shady characters

this story is so obviously a conspiracy that it looks like a really lazy storyline in the Sopranos.

— Evan Armstrong (@itsurboyevan) March 20, 2023

Nonetheless, the Chair of Ethical Capital Partners, Rocco Meliambro, made most of his money by selling cannabis. Moreover, the obscure entity is stuffed with lawyers and other “industry noobs” who do not have any direct experience with an online content platform.

More striking still, MindGeek and Ethical Capital Partners have not revealed the amount that underpinned this sale transaction. Additionally, ECP has chosen to withhold the identity of the executives who are now slated to steer MindGeek in order to avoid the associated stigma.

I’m guessing leadership resigned because of the Netflix story, and they had to get out of the picture so Visa MC doesn’t cut them off from payments. Seems like a good reason to fake a sale … to yourself. https://t.co/Cvoe2tDTBt

— Ben Miller (@thatbenmiller) March 20, 2023

Taken together, this transaction is almost as murky as legally possible within the existing regulatory framework. This is prompting some people to ask whether MindGeek stealthily capitalized Ethical Capital Partners and pull off a sale ahead of the Netflix documentary to dilute the upcoming attention and prevent Visa and Mastercard from reevaluating their association with the troubled porn content provider.

Do you think there is more than what meets the eye when it comes to the recent sale of MindGeek to Ethical Capital Partners? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post Did Pornhub’s Owner MindGeek Just Pull off a Brazen Scheme To Avoid Getting Blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard? by Rohail Saleem appeared first on Wccftech.