‘ACHIEVE COMMUNITY’: Stranger And Stranger, Murkier and Murkier

An “Achieve Community” promoter recorded a commercial for the purported opportunity at an FDIC-insured bank last year. Photo source: YouTube screen shot.

UPDATED 11:41 A.M. ET U.S.A. On Nov. 12, 2013, an entity known as “The Universal Church of Charitable Life Inc.” filed articles of incorporation in Florida. It listed its base of operations at a street address in Saint Petersburg, a city in the Tampa region.

Its nonprofit mission, according to the Florida filing, was to “act with charity providing relief to homeless and distressed people locally and internationally while providing spiritually educational resources.”

How much relief the firm provided is unclear: Florida dissolved the purported church in September 2014 for failure to file an annual report.

Certain managers or agents of the church also are listed in Florida filings by a company known as Binary Wallet LLC. Binary filed articles of organization on July 15, 2013, listing an address in Palmetto Bay, a Miami suburb.

Binary appears also not to have filed an annual report, because the word “reinstatement” appears in 2014 Florida records for the firm. Binary subsequently filed a report for 2015, listing an address in St. Petersburg and the names of at least three people whose names also appear in the church filing.

One person listed in the church’s articles of incorporation — but not in the articles of organization for Binary — is James T. Lovern. This perhaps is because Lovern had been implicated in a telemarketing/government-grants swindle. The case was prosecuted by multiple states, including Florida and North Carolina.

Also involved in the prosecution of Lovern, according to a document on file at the Federal Communications Commission, was the state of North Dakota. Massachusetts also prosecuted Lovern.

On Jan. 28, 2009, The Tampa Tribune reported that Lovern had pleaded guilty to tax evasion. The church, Florida records show, would come later.

A website styled BinaryWallet.com appears online and features photos of credit cards, debit cards and gift cards emblazoned with or surrounded by “BW” branding. The site is listed in the name of Sagar Kotak at an address in Palmetto Bay. The name Sagar Kotak also appears in Florida filings for the defunct church. Those filings list an address in India for Kotak and include a curious geographic detail: “near Bytco Hosp.”

Binary’s Florida filings list Sagar Kotak at an address in South Carolina.

Multiple links at BinaryWallet.com generate “404 Not Found” errors.

These things may take on increasing importance, because reports surfaced yesterday that suggest Binary Wallet somehow now is involved in payment processing for “Achieve Community,” a Ponzi-board “program” currently under investigation by the Colorado Division of Securities.

It appears that these reports first surfaced on a Facebook site known as “the Sheepdog,” which produced a screen shot showing the BinaryWallet domain loading a page that included graphics from a payment processor known as AeraPay.

Achieve Community has attracted many members of the faith community. Since at least early November — when reports first surfaced that Achieve had lost its ability to do business through Payoneer — the “program” appears to have been playing a game of payment-processor roulette. This has been a signature of other HYIP fraud schemes, including Zeek Rewards and TelexFree.

Those two Ponzi-board “programs” alone appear to have gathered a combined sum on the order of $2.7 billion — yes, BILLION. Achieve purports to turn $50 into $400 repeatedly through a process of rollovers.

People of faith also were targeted in the Zeek and TelexFree scams. Multiple payment vendors have been subpoenaed or sued.

At least one Zeek vendor that is the target of litigation from the court-appointed receiver in the Zeek case has claimed it was rendered insolvent through its relationship with Zeek.

The FBI has been warning since at least 2010 that certain types of debit cards can be used to launder money and to put undeserved wealth in the hands of criminals who may be using shell corporations.

What’s going on at Achieve right now isn’t clear. What can be said, at a minimum, is that individuals associated with a defunct Florida church appear also to be involved in a payment-processing business.

“GlimDropper,” a RealScam.com moderator posting at BehindMLM.com, observes that “Jim Lovern” has a LinkedIn page that asserts he is an “[Executive Vice President] in Binary Wallet.”

The LinkedIn page shows someone posing with Mitt Romney, formerly a candidate for President of the United States.

Lovern, according to the profile, also is associated with entities known as “Upside Client Solutions,” “World Charity Trust” and “Biznetonweb.”

Achieve Community purportedly is operated by Kristi Johnson of Colorado and Troy Barnes of Michigan.

DOCS:

Florida articles of incorporation for “The Universal Church of Charitable Life Inc.”

Florida reinstatement for Binary Wallet LLC.