SEC: 'Cash Flow King' Host Ran $11M Ponzi Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged the host of the podcast “The Cash Flow King” with fraudulently raising about $11 million from over 50 investors in a Ponzi scheme involving notes that were purportedly backed by residential properties.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Matthew Motil, of North Olmsted, Ohio, defrauded investors by promising them low-risk, high-return promissory notes purportedly collateralized by first mortgages on homes throughout Ohio.

Why it matters: Retirees are at particular risk of seeing their life savings and retirement accounts wiped out by scams.

Motil promoted the investments on his website, inviting potential investors to “be a real estate investing badass!” On his podcast, he promised investors that the investments he offered were safe and backed by a “first lien position” on the underlying real estate assets, the complaint said.

What to know: Motil told investors he would pay returns on their investments from profits made by renovating, reselling, refinancing and renting the properties.

The complaint alleges, however, that Motil didn’t really secure first lien positions for the investors as promised and he regularly sold multiple promissory notes he claimed were secured by the same property to multiple investors.