An ongoing lawsuit sees a Lubbock resident under suspicion that he’s involved in a Ponzi-type scheme from the cash he receives from his backers.
Now while some viewers may not know what a Ponzi scheme is, others might think they are just a pyramid scheme. However, they’re not the same. While both are considered fraud, the pyramid schemes involve ‘investors’ making money from more ‘investors’ that they recruit. The money travels upwards to the top, and the bottom only loses money.
On the other hand, Ponzi schemes require their victims to invest in something with a guaranteed payback – and typically a higher amount than the victim initially paid – later down the road.
Blake Robert Templeton, an entrepreneur out of Lubbock, has been accused of working an extensive, multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme where the Securities and Exchange Commission group SEC has recorded a standard string of claims against Blake Templeton and his three organizations, which include: the United BNB Fund 2018, LLC, Boron Capital, LLC, and BC Holdings 2017, LLC.
Templeton founded Boron Capital back in 2006 as a house-flipping business where he’d buy houses that were worn down. Unfortunately, these houses needed too much TLC for the average house owner to put money into bringing the dead home back to life so that he could then, in turn, resell it at a much larger profit. So, in 2011, Templeton began rounding up financial backers. He quickly raised more than $18 million for his companies.
Lubbock business owner Blake Robert Templeton has been accused of using money from investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. https://t.co/DdglhxL8tU
— KCBD NewsChannel11 (@KCBD11) June 17, 2022
From there, he disbursed roughly around $14 million of his financial backer’s assets into Dallas Oasis, which is a 10-acre section of land that he converted into a wedding venue over in Red Oak. He allegedly utilized a portion of the leftover assets to “make Ponzi payments directly to other investors,” as indicated by court reports. Bank records show that Templeton took on even more incoming assets from new financial backers that weren’t in the initial batch of people who invested.
With the new funds, he got back to the initial group to pay the obligations owed to them. Notwithstanding Ponzi installments, Templeton’s SEC cases deceived his financial backers into getting even more funds later. This time the theme was ‘Security,’ which included mutual funds, stocks, and bonds, along with others.
There were a total of three forms that were known at the moment of securities he was selling. They include Promissory notes issued by BC Holdings 2017, Investment Units in United BNB Fund 2018, and Promissory notes issued by Boron Capital. It sounds like a whole lot of IOUs to me, going off the name alone.
Reports from the court express that Templeton’s organizations or securities are generally not enlisted with the SEC. He supposedly promised his financial backers that their deposits were guaranteed when they were not, with the Dallas Oasis property being held as insurance. Nonetheless, Templeton still couldn’t seem to take any lien on the deed of trust or home loan out on the property.
Some financial backers were substantial to his cause (or scheme) too. For example, documents show that Boron Capital alone owes a single financial backer $4 million. That’s just one single backer from one of his three businesses.
Since then, the court has put a lock on all resources related and linked to Templeton and his organizations, saying: “good cause exists to believe that, unless restrained and enjoined by order of this Court, Defendants will dissipate, conceal, or transfer assets that could be the subject to an order directing disgorgement or the payment of civil money penalties in this action.”
This story syndicated with permission from For the Love of News