Why would a $302 billion international global sovereign investor headquartered in Abu Dhabi resort to counterfeiting the Triad brand name on an obscure website selling electric bikes online with no customer support?
This might seem confusing, but follow the bouncing ball. Triad is not associated with the website electri-ride dot com. The products listed on that site are all counterfeit.
Electri-ride dot com is owned by Electric Bike Pros - which is owned by Transtar LLC - which is owned by Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors - which is owned by Fortress Investment Group LLC - owned by Mubadala Investment Company - owned by Mubadala Capital - a multi billion dollar investment firm which is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. So why would Mubadala Capital - a multi billion dollar investment firm located in Abu Dhabi even be interested in counterfeit electric scooters and ebikes at all? That makes NO sense! First let’s look at the trail of companies, mergers and acquisitions when electri-rides dot com was initially founded.
Preconceived before the corporate acquisitions closed, electri-rides dot com was founded and owned by Electric Bike Pros who was owned by Transtar LLC according to the business filing records in WY. Transtar, LLC is a group of rail carriers that specializes in transporting steel products and raw materials. Transtar LLC WAS a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) until it was sold to Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC in July 2021 for USD $640 million. (Side note: Maybe this is part of the reason special interest groups wanted to sell US Steel to a foreign nation? Who knows.. anyway..)
Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC (FTAI) is externally managed by an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, a global investment firm.
Fortress Investment Group LLC has 34,286,000 Class A Shares Representing Class A Limited Liability Company Interests with underwriters as Goldman, Sachs & Co., Banc of America Securities LLC, Lehman Brother, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., Lazard Capital Markets, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo Securities.
Mubadala Investment Company, through its wholly owned asset management subsidiary Mubadala Capital acquired 90.01% of the equity of Fortress Investment Group LLC that was held by SoftBank Group Corp. Softbank, had been the owners of Fortress Investment Group since 2017. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, obviously. Fortress managed $45.8 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2022, on behalf of over 1,900 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and permanent capital investment strategies.
Mubadala Capital is the asset management subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, who is a leading global sovereign investor headquartered in Abu Dhabi. In addition to managing its own investments, Mubadala Capital manages $20 billion of investments and third-party capital verticals on behalf of institutional investors, including four private equity funds, three early-stage venture funds and two funds in Brazil focused on special situations.
Mubadala Capital is a state-owned enterprise that's fully owned and supervised by the Government of Abu Dhabi. So... how is this $302 billion global investment firm in Abu Dhabi related to counterfeit US e-bike and electric trike sales you ask? Well…
It's unlikely that a company owned by such a large and established investment group such as Mubadala Investment Company would be directly involved in selling counterfeit electric scooters and e bikes on the obscure US based website electri-ride dot com. To think they are doing that just sounds insane right? Yeah. Agreed.
What is more likely is that the manufacturing country of origin of these items, and the shell company they are sold under were set up for and by the international government institutions behind the obscure electri-ride dot com website and other sites like it, who are illegally using the trade name from the recently acquired logistics company Transtar LLC.
They've strategically chosen this name and the timing of the website ownership filings to capitalize on its familiarity to establish and expand black market US trade routes and financial electronic payment channels for selling and distributing many other counterfeit products into the US market, not just high dollar electric scooters and e bikes.
Because of this, potentially any and all their non branded and counterfeit items can more easily pass into the US market and be sold to unsuspecting US consumers who are unaware of the products' authenticity. They are betting that US consumers generally don’t care, they just want cheap and they don't pay attention. BUT, when these consumers who buy and use the products try to contact the brand name company for the product they are familiar with for support, in this case, Triad, they'll discover that the company doesn't actually make or sell those products they bought from electri-ride dot com, and the company they thought actually made the product they purchased - is unable to offer support, parts or service. In some cases, the counterfeit products can cost these unsuspecting US consumers over $5,000.00 USD just for one item.
Electri-ride dot com was purchased as a domain name May 2021 during the time Transtar LLC was being sold to Fortress Investment Group LLC which closed the following month.
Electri-ride dot com is not a Triad reseller. All of these products are totally counterfeit. These sophisticated international enterprises are using the sales of counterfeit goods to launder money and transfer wealth out of the US. By setting up online stores with legitimate-looking websites, they can process payments through US banking systems to send money right out of the US to international banks literally overnight. The market for e-bikes in the US is substantial and growing, making it an attractive target for counterfeiters.
2023: The U.S. e-bike market was valued at $943.3 million.
2022: The U.S. e-bike market was valued at $1.98 billion.
2025: The U.S. e-bike market is expected to reach $1.2 billion.
I guess a few billion dollars isn’t much these days. But if these illicit online sellers can effectively put a majority US companies and sellers out of business, like they did with Segway, and they do not have to support or repair the products due to lack of regulatory oversight (like they have to do now with cell phones), then the products (ebikes and e trikes in this case) become unserviceable, obsolete and disposable, and the company isn't located in the USA, then the figure the US consumer will just buy them again without thinking about it and toss them out like yesterday’s table scraps.
Win win for international illicit companies and governments seeking to undermine the US economy piece by piece, lose lose lose for US consumers, US business owners and US revenues.
The underlying infrastructure and connections established by these counterfeit operations are highly valuable. Once they've set up a functioning pipeline for importing, selling, and processing payments, they can easily pivot to other counterfeit products.
The ability to seamlessly switch between product categories demonstrates their adaptability and the strength of their network. This makes it difficult to shut them down completely, as they can simply resurface under a different guise.
Electri-rides dot com is undoubtedly unaffiliated with Transtar LLC from the setup, they have merchant accounts under Electric Bike Pros anyway, not Transtar because that would be stupid, and all the revenue generated by Electric Bike Pros by way of electri-rides just gets washed out of the US market day after day. Then, Electric Bike Pros, the empty shell company simply gets folded because its been fictitiously owned by Transtar LLC, and rinse and repeat. Its likely they already have any number of fake shell companies like this already up and running in the US market because thats how they do it.
Electri-Ride dot com is selling counterfeit TRIAD products, including electric trikes with potentially dangerous batteries and chargers. Consumers are concerned and skeptical about the safety of these products on electri-ride dot com as they associate the Triad brand with high safety standards, and these products on electri-ride dot com are NOT Triad products. Companies like Electri-Ride dot com are also likely selling products with used or refurbished batteries, falsely representing them as new. This deception is causing confusion and concern among consumers and presents specific dangers especially with Lithium batteries that have no BMS system.
Unfortunately, there is no way for Triad to help other than to provide a reliable educational resource to assist in helping to avoid purchasing those counterfeit products to begin with.
Are there other fake Triad look a likes and who are they?
Yes, you can find them out there. They are known as Challenger X, Freedom Chaser 1000, EW-18, Fivestar, RMB Multipoint, and Euroscooter also attempt to market as Triad products, but none of them have the power, performance, reliability, durability, serviceability or battery like a true certified authentic Triad Electric Vehicles product. Now you can get the latest counterfeit Triad model, the Euro Scooter Roma for $4,695.00. Honestly, it wouldn’t really be much of a "deal" when the original Triad model it’s based on is less than half the price, and the Triad 750SE offers more power, includes a battery lasts 24X longer and a full 1 year parts replacement policy against OEM defects.
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