Falasi Uncovered: Part 1 — Faking Royalty
When asked about Bassam Al Falasi’s official role with Grove Token, Mendy Parker has repeatedly stated that Falasi is “an investor like anyone else¹.” However, for those following the twitter accounts of Yahya (“John”) Ghemrawi², Mendy Parker², and Bassam Al Falasi², it is obvious that the relationship is much closer.
In this two-part series, we begin with a look at Falasi’s early years, from a proprietor of a small gaming café in Ajman, to travelling with, and pretending to be, Dubai royalty. Part two will focus on Falasi’s involvement with Grove Token and provide extensive evidence of Falasi’s dumping and its deleterious impact on Grove investors.
Falasi Before Crypto: Before 2012
Bassam Al Falasi was born on July 25th, 1987. Little is known of Falasi’s early years; however, both Mendy and JohnG have explicitly stated that Falasi is of royal birth and a member of Dubai royalty³. Contrary to their claim, Falasi’s only link to royalty is via his sister, who married Sheikh Butti Suhail Al Maktoum.
While provided with the nebulous title of “General Advisor,” Falasi appears to be nothing more than a personal assistant to an obscure and low-ranking Sheikh in the Al Maktoum family.
Via his royal brother-in-law, Falasi has been able to use travel with royalty and royal events to create his own personal, albeit deceptive, royal image. Falasi regularly posts images to social media platforms that imply he is of royal birth. We have yet to find a single instance where Falasi has corrected anyone who has called him royal, and instead uses these comments to perpetuate the deception.
Presumably before Falasi’s sister married into royalty, 10 years ago Falasi was running a local internet gaming café in Ajman, UAE called the “Al Falasi Game Zone.”⁴
Located near a tire shop, car wash, and several auto parts stores at the corner of Al Ittihad and Hassan Bin Haitam streets, Falasi offered patrons PC-based games, tabletop games like foosball, and access to the internet. He also hosted viewing parties for events like Wrestlemania 27.
In addition to localized services, Falasi also offered patrons illegal online downloads of American and Indian movies. Titles such as “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” and “Stripped Naked” were available for download on the Al Falasi Game Zone page.
Falasi Before Crypto: 2012 to 2021
Unfortunately for Falasi, it appears that his gaming cafe in Ajman was unsuccessful. The last posts on the Al Falasi Game Zone Facebook page were of a planned reopening, yet no posts followed.
Two years after the last posts on Al Falasi Game Zone, Falasi began posting pictures of himself primarily with horses and by 2015, pictures of himself with Dubai royalty with hashtags such as “#myfriends”.
However, during this time, while Falasi was attempting to change his image and align himself with UAE Royalty, we see evidence that Falasi is far from royal himself.
First, Falasi posted many pictures of himself in close physical proximity to royalty, giving the appearance of a personal relationship. Yet, when we review known Dubai Royalty social media accounts, we find no pictures nor even mention of Falasi.⁵
Particularly telling is Falasi’s own brother-in-law’s Instagram account. As of December 23rd, Shekih Butti Al Maktoum followed 854 Instagram accounts, yet he does not follow his own brother-in-law, Bassam Al Falasi.
Second, we see Falasi refer to UAE royalty in the third person. In the following post, Falasi comments “Off to somewhere wit [sic] the Royalties.” Many would note that if you are “royalty” yourself, you would not refer to those you are traveling with as “the Royalties.”
Third, while there are many pictures where Falasi attempts to show off wealth by sitting on expensive cars, hotel rooms in Monaco, and other masquerades of wealth, there are accidental giveaways that he himself is far from wealthy like the “Royalties” with which he attempts to associate.
While there are many discrepancies that suggest Falasi is far from royalty, including photos of him flying coach/economy⁶ and driving an old Toyota⁷, one such discrepancy is clearly shown above. On the left, Falasi poses while sitting on an expensive sports car. However, on the right, we see Falasi wearing a Casio G-Shock watch. Similar G-Shock watches can be found on Amazon for $50 USD.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with a Casio watch, Emirati royals are known to be connoisseurs of luxury watch brands such as Rolex and Patek Philippe and would be embarrassed to wear a $50 USD Casio watch.
As we will see later, Falasi works extremely hard to cultivate an image of wealth. He posts selfies of himself drinking 18k-24k gold coffee, videos of himself driving expensive cars, and comments about making large purchases of crypto. However, these exhibitions are nothing but a façade used by the Grove team to legitimize their scheme.
In the following sections, we will illustrate how Falasi has deceived investors into thinking he is royal for the benefit of his own personal brand. He has used this personal brand to facilitate confidence in, and induce sales of, GroveToken for his own enrichment.
Falasi Enters Crypto: The Pre-Grove Months
Based on Twitter posts and blockchain activity, Falasi did not become active in crypto until mid 2021. While he purchased Shiba Inu via a personal Binance account, his first post on twitter was a reply to crypto influencer @JakeGagain in an attempt to win free Saitama tokens:
In fact, until December, most of Falasi’s tweets were attempts to win Saitama tokens in various giveaways as well as the occasional Shiba Inu post.
However, on December 10th, 2021, there was a noticeable shift in Falasi’s posts and personal brand strategy. On this date, he posted 21 images and videos primarily of himself with or near Emirati Royalty. Many of these images were several years old and recycled from other social media platforms.
At this point it is clear that Falasi sought to establish himself as a person of wealth and importance among the Saitama community. Instead of trying to win free tokens, he began suggesting he was a large (whale) holder of Saitama and other tokens. Aside from the tokens given to Falasi by the Grove team, we have yet to find holdings of any token that match Falasi’s grandiose claims.
To further establish his position in the Saitama and ImpactXP communities as a person of importance, Falasi posted that he made sizable purchases, which helped his fellow ImpactXP holders.
In the following post, not only did Falasi suggest he did his part to stabilize the price, he implied he is a member of one of the most prominent royal families in the UAE.
In the posts above, not only does Falasi tag the Godolphin Stables with three wink-face emojis, when the responder comments that Godolphin are the best stables in the world, “thanks to your family,” Falasi does not correct him⁸. Godolphin Stables were founded by the Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
In that post, Falasi allowed his followers to think that he is a member of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s family. Falasi used this tactic repeatedly to establish his importance in the Saitama community.
On January 28th, 2022, we began to see Falasi take the next step in becoming a core Saitama and ImpactXP influencer. Despite being “A NEW Crypto Investor” according to his Twitter profile (and corroborated from his limited trading history), Falasi was named “Guest of Honor” and the keynote speaker of the Crypto Expo Dubai event.
After this announcement, Falasi’s Twitter activity increased dramatically. He posted photos and videos of himself with horses, dune buggies, and other pictures used to gain attention.
During that time, Falasi participated in other project launches tied to the Saitama community. On March 1st, 2022, Falasi bought into the KOACombat project with 1.2 ETH and received 5 quadrillion KOACombat tokens⁹. The project quickly rugged. Falasi was sent V2 tokens later that month and dumped those on its investors, making a few ETH in the process.
While Falasi was an active member of the Saitama community, continued price declines put Falasi’s modest portfolio in the red. It wasn’t until connecting with Mendy and the Grove team would Falasi’s fortune turn.
In part 2, we begin with Falasi’s introduction to Grove, the extensive payments he received from JohnG to play his part in the scheme, and the lies he told his followers to encourage them to buy Grove. We quantify the impact of Falasi’s dumping, and analyze how his dumping has been a major reason why the price of Grove has plummeted from its initial pump.
Significant Contributors: Bootsy Cynic and two anonymous researchers that dedicated (and continue to dedicate) their expertise and time in search of truth…you know who you are.
Notes
- Mendy Parker has repeatedly stated that Al Falasi is an investor like anyone else.
2. Official positions of team members:
- Yahya (“John”) Ghemrawi is a co-founder, CEO, and CFO of GroveToken.
- Mendy Parker is a co-founder and former COO of GroveToken. According to her current twitter profile, she is currently a “dev [developer]” and community architect of GroveToken.
- Bassam Al Falasi’s Twitter profile states that he is a “General Advisor of HH Sheikh Butti Bin Suhail Al Maktoum”. Falasi’s sister married Sheikh Butti Al Maktoum.
3. The three selected posts below show Mendy Parker (i.e., a co-founder of Grove) referring to Falasi as royal.
The following video shows John Ghemrawi referring to Falasi as royal: https://twitter.com/soniferoHQ/status/1606065356136599553
4. We corroborate that the Bassam Al Falasi of GroveToken is the same Al Falasi from Al Falasi’s Game Zone via comments made by Falasi’s personal Facebook account on the Al Falasi Game Zone posts:
Translated from Google Translate, Falasi’s comment reads:
“You are gone every day with him, and then Tariq is one of the people of the shop, there is nothing missing from you”
We also match the birthday listed on his personal Facebook account with posts by JohnG and Mendy in Twitter regarding Falasi’s birthday
5. Falasi posts pictures of himself with royal family members, yet we have not found a single picture posted by a member of the royal family that includes Falasi. Three examples are below:
Sheikh Butti Suhail Al Maktoum’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/buttti_almaktoom/?hl=en
Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/faz3/?hl=en
Sheikh Mansoor Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/mansoorbinmohammed/?hl=en
6. Falasi flying coach
7. Falasi driving a Toyota model FJ. The Toyota FJ was discontinued in 2014, dating the car to at least eight years old.
8. There are other examples of Falasi perpetuating the belief that he is of royalty. To allow the falsehood to perpetuate, Falasi shies away from directly saying he is royalty, but he will not correct anyone that addresses him as royalty.
9. Blockchain evidence available via etherscan: wallet address 0x224EB0bA875D0Cc98455dF3805847487c984AcAA
