Troy Barnes

Paul Burks, the 70-year-old operator of the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme, now is listed as prisoner No. 29723-058 at FMC Lexington. The facility is an administrative security federal medical center with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Lexington, Ky. After being sentenced in February to more than 14 years, Burks was ordered to report to […]

Still promoting your securities scam on YouTube? As the PP Blog reported on Oct. 3, YouTube promos for the alleged DFRF Enterprises’ Ponzi scheme were cited in two of three wire-fraud counts against accused operator Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho. Filho, allegedly at the helm of a fraud that gathered tens of millions of dollars, has […]

Unlike the boffo web-based schemes of TelexFree, Zeek Rewards and AdSurfDaily, the “Achieve Community” scam in which participants were told they’d glean returns of 700 percent did not perform well (relatively speaking) at the MLM Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme Box Office. Achieve’s haul topped out at about $6.8 million, with alleged unfunded liabilities in the range of $50 […]

BULLETIN: (2nd updated 8:54 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The office of Acting U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina has published a webpage for victims of the “Achieve Community” scam. Victims are asked to “submit information concerning the amount of your losses to the U.S. Probation Office,” which is compiling a […]

UPDATED 10:10 P.M. EDT U.S.A. His Achieve Community cycler colleague Kristi Johnson now charged both civilly and criminally, Troy A. Barnes is professing ignorance. In a June 22 letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig B. Shaffer of the District of Colorado, Barnes offered reasons for missing a June 3 conference call with the court. The […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (13th Update 1:43 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) After an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, Kristi Johnson (Kristine Louise Johnson) of the “Achieve Community” has been charged criminally with wire-fraud conspiracy and has agreed to plead guilty, federal prosecutors said. “By the time the scheme collapsed in February 2015, the conspirators […]

BULLETIN: (3rd Update 3:44 p.m. EDT U.S.A.) The Colorado Division of Securities has issued a cease-and-desist order to “Achieve Community” and accused the network-marketing “program” of securities fraud and selling unregistered securities while conducting “a pure Ponzi and pyramid scheme.” The order applies to Achieve, Achieve International LLC, Work with Troy Barnes Inc. and Achieve […]

Two domains linked to the alleged “Achieve Community” pyramid- and Ponzi scheme appear to have been disconnected. On Feb. 17, the PP Blog reported that the domains — ReadyToAchieve.com and TheAchieveCommunity.com — were displaying “Account Suspended” messages. ReadyToAchieve appears still to have DNS servers, but now displays nothing and will not return a ping. TheAchieveCommunity, […]

There is no good state in which to run a Ponzi scheme, but Michigan and Colorado — the states in which “Achieve Community” operated — are two of the worst. This is because both states have racketeering statutes that have been used in Ponzi-scheme cases. The case of Joel Wilson, convicted yesterday in Michigan on […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated at 6:35 a.m. on Feb. 27. **______________________** It happened in the Zeek Rewards pyramid- and Ponzi case in 2012 — and now it has happened in the “Achieve Community” case filed earlier this month. A woman has contacted the court presiding over the Achieve case to solicit help in […]

BULLETIN: “Achieve Community” Ponzi/pyramid defendants Troy Barnes and Kristi Johnson have informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they have invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves in the agency’s civil case. A deposition scheduled for Barnes Feb. 20 in Detroit was canceled. So was a deposition set for Johnson today in […]