Troy Barnes indicted for wire fraud (Achieve Community)

With his partner Kristi Johnson pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy back in June and the SEC’s case against Achieve Community continuing, we’ve been wondering what of Troy Barnes?

At risk of being found in contempt of court, in late June Barnes had to explain his non-participation in SEC proceedings.

Barnes plead ignorance and uses his son’s illness to explain his absence, at the same time pledging to ‘do everything (he) can to move forward in helping this case.‘

A month later the SEC filed an update, informing the court that Barnes was still not participating.

Things have been eerily silent on the criminal front meanwhile, leaving us to wonder why proceedings had commenced against Johnson but not Barnes.

Now we have an answer.

As per a press-release issued by the Department of Justice earlier today:

A criminal indictment was unsealed today in federal court charging Troy Barnes, 53, of Riverview, Michigan, with wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud, for operating a $6.8 million Internet Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 10,000 investor victims worldwide.

Barnes’ conspirator, Kristine Louise Johnson, of Aurora, Colorado, pleaded guilty in June 2015 to wire fraud conspiracy for her role in the scheme.

According to filed court documents, Barnes was the owner of “Work with Troy Barnes, Inc.” (WWTB), which did business over the Internet under the name of “The Active Community” (TAC).

Barnes was the President and Marketing Director of WWTB responsible for promoting the online scheme.

Johnson served as TAC’s Chief Financial Officer, and managed TAC’s day-to-day operations, including the company’s bank accounts.

Filed court documents indicate from about April 2014 to February 2015, Barnes induced victims to invest money in TAC, claiming “Achieve is the answer to all of our prayers…” and falsely promising investors would receive a bogus 700% return on their investment.

Barnes also told his victims they could make as much money as they wanted claiming the investment was “never-ending,” when, in fact, TAC operated solely as a pyramid scheme and initial investors were paid with later victims’ money.

Barnes also falsely touted TAC as a “lifetime income plan,” with “limitless returns, even though by August 2014, Barnes and Johnson had discussed TAC’s inevitable shortfall and knew that TAC did not have sufficient funds to cover weekly payouts to investors, much less operating expenses.

Achieve Community was shut down by the SEC in February 2015. BehindMLM reviewed Achieve five months earlier in October, 2014.

Barned indictment follows an investigation conducted by the US Secret Service.

According to court filings, as the scheme grew in size and scope, Barnes and his conspirators concealed the true nature of the scheme through multiple misrepresentations.

According to court records, when the conspirators became concerned that the use of the term “investment” would draw scrutiny from regulators, they instructed victim-investors that “We ARE NOT an INVESTMENT program, please don’t use that term when you speak or post about our re-purchase strategy.”

Even when TAC was unable to operate because their payment processor concluded that TAC was indeed operating a Ponzi scheme and ceased doing business with the company, Barnes and his conspirators lied to victims, falsely stating that “The only reason that [TAC] is not paying out today is that our processor can’t handle the volume of money we are paying our members.”

We picked up on this dodgy reasoning as it happened in November, 2014. That Payoneer, one of the world’s largest payment processors, couldn’t handle Achieve Community’s investment volume was obviously porky pies.

According to court records, in order to sustain the scheme, Barnes and his conspirators encouraged investors to “re-purchase” positions in the matrix, thereby reducing the amount of money needed to pay out to early investors and enabling the fraudsters to prolong the scheme.

As indicated in court documents, the investment scheme began to crumble when payment processors stopped processing the Ponzi payments to victim-investors.

By the time the scheme collapsed in February 2015, the conspirators had defrauded over 10,000 investors in the Charlotte-area and worldwide, and owed victim-investors at least $51 million in purported investment returns, yet only had available approximately $2.6 million.

According to court records, over the course of the scheme, Barnes used over $140,000 of the victims’ money for his own enrichment.

Although a tad smaller than what we usually see in an MLM Ponzi bust, Achieve Community’s downfall reads much the same as its larger predecessors.

Banks close in on laundering suspicions, funds run out and then kaboom.

Looking forward,

Barnes had his initial appearance today and was released on ($25,000) bond.

Johnson’s sentencing hearing has been set for November 19, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn, Jr.

As per the case docket, a scheduling order will see Barnes’ criminal case back in court on November 16th.

Stay tuned…

Footnote: Note in their press-release the DOJ incorrectly cites “The Achieve Community” as “The Active Community”.

I imagine that’ll be corrected when someone realizes the mistake.

Update 7th November 2015 – Troy Barnes has been assigned a public defender, who has requested a scheduled November 16th trial date be continued (postponed).

As of the time of publication of this update, no new trial date has been set.