ANTHONY DEWAYNE CURTIS & BRENDON JACKSON JONES
According to www.investor.gov, a Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often promise to invest your money and generate high returns with little or no risk. But in many
Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters do not invest the money. Instead, they use it to pay those who invested earlier and may keep some for themselves.
Ponzi schemes are named after Charles Ponzi, who duped investors in the 1920s with a postage stamp speculation scheme.
With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new money to survive. When it becomes hard to recruit new investors, or when large numbers of existing investors cash out, these schemes tend to collapse.
Ponzi scheme “red flags”
Many Ponzi schemes share common characteristics. Look for these warning signs:
- High returns with little or no risk. Every investment carries some degree of risk, and investments yielding higher returns typically involve more risk. Be highly suspicious of any “guaranteed” investment opportunity.
- Overly consistent returns. Investments tend to go up and down over time. Be skeptical about an investment that regularly generates positive returns regardless of overall market conditions.
- Unregistered investments. Ponzi schemes typically involve investments that are not registered with the SEC or with state regulators. Registration is important because it provides investors with access to information about the company’s management, products, services, and finances.
- Unlicensed sellers. Federal and state securities laws require investment professionals and firms to be licensed or registered. Most Ponzi schemes involve unlicensed individuals or unregistered firms.
- Secretive, complex strategies. Avoid investments if you don’t understand them or can’t get complete information about them.
- Issues with paperwork. Account statement errors may be a sign that funds are not being invested as promised.
- Difficulty receiving payments. Be suspicious if you don’t receive a payment or have difficulty cashing out. Ponzi scheme promoters sometimes try to prevent participants from cashing out by offering even higher returns for staying put.
Showing “Social Proof."
Sending screenshots of trading account details.
Dating back as far as April 12, 2022, Anthony would randomly send the investor screenshots of the details of PAMM trading accounts displaying deposits, large profits in short periods, and high withdrawals and balances. He also made comments on phone calls with the investor stating "ain't no losing over here." This was a frequent occurrence until the investor finally invested in 2023.
Sending screenshots of a statement showing incoming wires, credits, and deposits.
On April 20, 2022, Anthony sent the investor a random screenshot of what appears to be some sort of statement of his company's incoming wire transfers, credits, and deposits. The verbiage of the text associated with the statement reads "Numbers getting real over here bro." "This is just the month of April. Total deposits. PAMM accounts. Total profits in 4 trading days off $100,000."
Access to a private jet.
In 2023 Anthony sends the investor random text message photos of a private jet that he claims to have access to whenever he needs through a private banker. He even provided the investor with a flight tail number to look up to view the plane's current location.
The luxury vehicle conversations.
In 2023, Anthony tells the investor on a call that he purchased his wife a BMW X7 where he put $60,000 cash towards the $120,000 vehicle. He states he could have paid the entire car off but instead kept a remaining balance, transferred and makes payments in his business' name so he could continue to build business credit off the monthly payments made.
On April 25, 2023, a day before the investor invested $20,000.00 with Anthony in what was deceptively misrepresented as a private proprietary program, Anthony made a statement that when he was paid out 3.5 million dollars as a broker from the profit generation of the proprietary program, he would fly out personally where the investor lives to purchase the investor a Porsche Panamera. The Porsche Panamera conversation was never mentioned again after the investor made the wire transfer of $20k to Anthony for the investment.
Brendon Jackson Jones | BRKR/JOINT VENTURE COORDINATOR, BMLLC & OVERSEER OF MBAT.
WHAT HAPPENED SURROUNDING THE INVESTMENT.
On March 02, 2023, Brendon-Jackson: Jones and Anthony Dewayne Curtis called investor with what they stated were investment opportunities related to PAMM accounts and trading in the Foreign Exchange markets. They mentioned they were connected with traders who were seeing profits of 1-3% daily sometimes 20-25% monthly on investments. When asking the investor about financial goals, they mentioned they had a safe program they thought the investor should consider that just required opening and funding a PAMM trading account with the brokerage Trader's Domain. As part of them now knowing the investor's financial goals, they stated they thought this would be a great opportunity for the investor as a diversification strategy. A month or two prior, the two sent the investor contacts through their network of affiliates to gain access to funding, but the investor decided to use his own capital. The investor decided to followed their suggestion based on financial goals of investing $20,000.00.
Within the next couple days, the investor joined a Zoom call with Anthony where he presented historical data in excel format and pdf. decks (see SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS page) where the traders with the Trader's Domain had significant wins in the FOREX markets. Brendon had mentioned on the initial phone call that he was able to put his mom into the same program and she was able to fully supplement her W-2 income and was able to leave her job working a 9 to 5 from the profit generation of a 50k investment.
On March 08, 2023, the investor made the decision to invest into trading on the Foreign Exchange via PAMM account in the amount of $20,000.00 and signed a transfer agreement with Brendon, Masters' Business Alliance Trust, the investor, and Anthony as a witness from Business Makeover, LLC. After signing the agreement, the investor wired the $20k to Masters' Business Alliance Trust's business bank account. According to the agreement, the monies were to be wired from the investor's checking account to the Masters' Business Alliance Trust account, then into a master brokerage account where finally an internal transfer would be conducted from Brendon's master brokerage account into the investor's sub account on the Trader's Domain brokerage.
On March 08, 2023, Brendon-Jackson: Jones claims he made a request to transfer the $20,000 internally from his master brokerage account into the investor's sub account but stated due to a backlog and slowness on the administrative operations of the Trader's Domain platform, it could take up to five days. After 14 days passed, the internal transfer of $20,000.00 had still not occurred. The investor reached out to Brendon and he stated the brokerage was being sold, the company's platform no longer existed and that the investor would need to wait until it was back up to receive the internal transfer of funds. After 3 months of waiting, the investor requested via email to terminate the transfer agreement and to for Brendon to return the principal amount of $20k. Brendon did not reply to the email; however, within minutes responded to the investor via text message stating that while he may terminate the agreement with him, it does not entitle him to a refund as the funds are no longer in his custody. Brendon was then asked where the proof was that he transferred the $20k from his trust account into the brokerage account on the Trader's Domain platform. He then stated he could not prove it for two reasons. Number one, he could not access his Trader's Domain account and number two because his Masters' Business Alliance Trust bank account had been frozen for some unknown reason by Wells Fargo Bank. The investor insisted that Brendon return the $20k and he began being evasive and speaking in a manner to absolve himself from the responsibility of returning the funds. On a call with Anthony, Brendon called in on another line and was heard by the investor on speaker with a slight laughter in his voice saying "if they want their money back, then let them sue, they can't sue my trust."
Brendon remained firm insisting the funds remained in the master account of the Trader's Domain brokerage. When asked if he would be able to provide proof once his trust account with Wells Fargo Bank was reinstated, he said no because he had co-mingled the funds with other investors money and had also converted the $20k sent him into cryptocurrency. The investor argued that this was not part of the agreement and Brendon stated that he was not obligated to tell the investor exactly how his $20k would be transferred into the master brokerage account. He ensured once the Trader’s Domain platform was sold, all money and information had been migrated over to the new brokerage that the $20k would be transferred into the investors sub account. When the investor attempted to ask Brendon questions about signing a new agreement that would hold him accountable for returning the $20k he made excuses of being sick with food poisoning, being overseas and hadn't gotten time to review the agreement and altogether evasiveness. He never signed a new contract to hold himself accountable.
The Trader's Domain brokerage was later acquired by TruBlueFx around September of 2023. After many intense calls with both Brendon and Anthony, Anthony advised the investor in a one-on-one call that Brendon informed him that he used the investors funds to pay off another investor named Mindy. Anthony goes further to state that Brendon tells him upon the investor's initial discussions surrounding the investment that he had a separate verbal agreement with the investor and that it was agreed to allow him to hold onto the funds to pay off another investor. This was untrue and never had this conversation occurred outside of the written agreement.
After long battles over emails, phone conversations, threatening with lawsuits, and the many false promises from both Brendon and Anthony, the investor has attempted to recover the funds but has not been successful thus far.
After the investor spoke with Anthony about the matter on several occasions, he stated he wanted to indemnify the matter once and for all since he introduced Brendon and the investor and engaged another business associate named Shannon Steel who stated she knew the owners of TruBlueFx and Trader’s Domain. Shannon stated she could potentially have the owner transfer $20k from Brendon’s brokerage account to the investor's and make it available for withdrawal even though withdrawals were not made available on the platform at the moment. The investor informed her that he did not want to go this route as he did not want to deal with the brokerage, or anything related to it any longer. On September 12, 2023, according to Anthony, Shannon reaches out to the owner of TruBlue and states she is able to arrange for $20k to be transferred into an account on the Meta Trader 5 platform. They provided the investor with credentials connecting to a brokerage named Ares Global LLC. The investor was able to login to an account on the Meta Trader 5 platform and could see a $20,000 balance but when asking Anthony if it was tied to his TruBlue account Anthony said yes but it could take 24-48 hours to sync. After waiting 48 hours, September 14, 2023, the funds were not available for withdrawal, and when asking Anthony about it again, he states he will find out from Shannon how to withdraw the funds. He never provided any guidance to the investor to withdraw these funds. For those who know MT5, it does not have a feature to directly withdraw funds from the account. It has to be linked with a brokerage account that has withdrawal capabilities to actually make a withdrawal. The investor reached out to TruBlue Support to see if they had any record of the account in question and they stated they had no record of this account. It appears that the investor was setup with a MT5 account displaying a $20,000 balance that simulates trades and account details and able to initiate a withdrawal on TruBlue's web portal but the withdrawal is never fulfilled. The investor has not received any money back from Brendon for the $20k investment that was agreed to be invested into on the Forex markets. Both Brendon and Anthony used deceptive strategies as unlicensed personnel to solicit an investor to into a fraudulent investment scheme. Again, these men presented themselves to the investor as professionals from Business Makeover, LLC and Masters' Business Alliance Trust yet acted with the business acumen of financial fraudster criminals.
If you have been the victim of financial investment or securities fraud related to Brendon Jackson Jones, Business Makeover, LLC, Masters' Business Alliance Trust, or any of his affiliate companies, you may contact your local police/sheriff's department to file a police report. You may file a complaint with the Texas State Securities Board, with your state's security commission and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, your state Attorney General, the Texas and California Attorney General, and FTC. Additionally, you may open a TCR (Tips, Complaints, Referrals) complaint with the SEC, and express your matter with the Better Business Bureau.
In an effort to recover lost funds due to securities or financially fraudulent transactions with Brendon, you may contact a civil attorney and file a lawsuit.
Anthony Dewayne Curtis Jr.| CEO, BMLLC
In the interim of waiting for the initial investment with Brendon of $20k to be transferred into the PAMM trading account, and not knowing at the time he was being defrauded, Anthony called the investor with great excitement in his voice about what he called a high yielding proprietary investment opportunity. He called it a private placement program on steroids. He stated there was less than 24 hours to participate. He would later ask the investor to mute his phone while he called and talked to his business affiliate about the profit generation of this investment opportunity. Towards the end of the call, Anthony makes a comment, "Rich overnight."
WHAT HAPPENED SURROUNDING THE INVESTMENT.
On April 25, 2023, Anthony called soliciting to me a high yielding proprietary (Sting Account) program he had the ability to participate in through a business affiliate. He told me the program would produce a 200% yield in as little as 72 hours or as long as 21 days. The next day April 26, 2023, we talked, and he created a Memorandum of Understanding/Agreement in which he specifies the 200% yields to be paid out in 30 days that we both signed. The deal was that I would put $20,000.00 USD as a principal payment into the program and would be returned principal plus interest in the amount of $60,000.00 USD in 30 days or less. He guaranteed the profit generation would be $40,000.00 USD. He also created an equity agreement offering me equitable stakes for his share of equity in a ForeEx sub-trading account on the Traders Domain platform as an incentive to participate in the program. He stated that he was receiving around $120,000.00 a month in residual income from his equity stakes tied to the Trader's Domain platform.
Furthermore, he stated our equity agreement would guarantee that I receive principal plus interest even if there were variances with the program or something did not go as expected. Initially, I asked for updates every 3-4 business days and was provided information stating all was looking good for profit generation. After the 30 days had passed, we had discussions about the program and why I was not paid as agreed in the memorandum of understanding and equity agreement and is when excuses began. He began blaming his affiliate of misrepresenting the program and stated it was beyond his control of knowing how the program was to perform. 3 months later, after no profit generation and no enforcement of the equity stake agreement, I respectfully asked for my principal funds back. He immediately stated that he had already acted proactively to send a cease-and-desist letter to his business affiliate who allowed him into the program. The cease and desist letter, according to Anthony was asking that all funds invested into the program be returned. He stated the affiliate started repeatedly calling his phone and he would not answer to speak with him. At a later date when Anthony wanted to speak with the affiliate and tried reaching him via phone, he was unsuccessful.
Four months after the initial $20,000.00 investment with Anthony and Business Makeover, LLC, I had a very firm phone conversation with Anthony through WhatsApp where I accused him of breaching our agreement and taking my money and it going towards his personal interests. The entire call he argued it was untrue but shortly after that call ended, he called me back and out of guilt confessed that he used $10,000.00 of the investment money to pay off another investor and used the remaining $10,000.00 for his personal expenses.
Additionally, he admitted in this same conversation that the agreements he and I signed were fake and that my money never went into the high yielding program according to the agreement. He reiterated that he needed some liquid capital to pay off another investor because he was being pressured and could potentially face lawsuits if not resolved. This entire time, I had no idea I had become a target due to his knowledge of me having access to working capital. I informed him that he had defrauded me, and he agreed that it was true.
For the next month he and I would go back and forth through email, phone calls, and text messaging, where he would continuously state that he would right the wrongs he had done and pay me back.
He continued with his usual strategy of putting the responsibility and liability of paying me pack on a 3rd party. This fraudulent matter marks the second incident Anthony directly and strategically involved me in. in. To date, I have not received any money towards the $20,000.00 I am owed from Anthony Dewayne Curtis and Business Makeover, LLC. Since we have known each other and our families knowing one another for over 18 years and given the magnitude of the strategy behind the deceptive tactics he used to finesse and groom me into two separate programs, I highly suspect this is not his first time doing this and that there are potentially many more victims.
If you have been the victim of financial investment or securities fraud related to Anthony Dewayne Curtis Jr., Business Makeover, LLC, or any of his affiliate companies, you may contact your local police/sheriff's department to file a police report. You may file a complaint with your state's security commission and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, your state Attorney General, the California Attorney General, and FTC. Additionally, you may open a TCR (Tips, Complaints, Referrals) complaint with the SEC, and express your matter with the Better Business Bureau.
In an effort to recover lost funds due to securities or financially fraudulent transactions with Anthony, you may contact a civil attorney and file a lawsuit.