The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday announced that Vemma Nutrition — a multilevel marketing firm that relies on independent salespeople, called affiliates, to buy and sell its energy drinks, diet shakes and supplements — has been shut down for engaging in “deceptive and unlawful acts and practices.” The announcement followed an Aug. 17 suit filed against the company, in which the FTC accused it of operating as an illegal pyramid scheme.

In October, Al Jazeera exposed the company’s predatory practices and the lucrative lifestyle it afforded CEO Benson Keith Boreyko in a series about multilevel marketing firms. In the stories about Vemma, Al Jazeera detailed how the company rebranded itself to appeal to unsuspecting teens with its Young People Revolution, or YPR, movement. The stories unearthed information about his former company New Vision, which was also shut down by the FTC because of its claims that its supplements could cure attention deficit disorder. In 2011 he changed the name of New Vision International Holdings Inc. to Vemma International Holdings Inc.

“[The Al Jazeera report] was the only in-depth, extensive coverage of Vemma by mainstream media, which lent weight and force to the FTC’s investigation,” said Robert Fitzpatrick, who runs the watchdog website Pyramid Scheme Alert and was quoted in another story in the series about the psychology behind multilevel marketing firms.

Vemma was closed down for, among other things, using “interrelated companies that commingle funds and have common ownership, officers, directors and office locations,” according to the FTC lawsuit. This interconnecting company structure was initially documented by Al Jazeera in the 2014 exposé, which showed that Boreyko and his family incorporated dozens of interlocking companies that share addresses and list only Boreyko and his siblings as the principal shareholders, directors and officers.