On December 14th, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it obtained a temporary restraining order, asset freeze, the appointment of a receiver, and other emergency relief to halt an ongoing $191 million cattle Ponzi scheme being perpetrated by Fort Worth, Texas company Agridime LLC, which claims to specialize in meat sales, distribution, and animal supply chain management, and its owners, Josh Link of Gilbert, Arizona, and Jed Wood of Fort Worth.
The SEC's complaint, unsealed on Dec. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that Agridime has gathered more than $191 million from over 2,100 investors in 15 states. The company offered investments related to the supposed purchase of cattle, assuring investors that the funds would be used to buy, feed and raise cattle on a network of ranches. However, the complaint explains that the defendants failed to fulfill their promises by not purchasing a sufficient number of cattle or generating enough revenue.
“The defendants enticed investors with guarantees that they could ‘make money raising cattle without having to do all the work,’ but as we allege in our complaint, their promises of annual returns of 15‑32 percent were, in the defendants’ own words, ‘too good to be true,’” said Eric Werner, Director of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office.
Since December 2022, the defendants allegedly used at least $58 million to make payments to previous investors and over $11 million to pay undisclosed sales commissions to Wood, Link, Link’s wife and other sales representatives, says the complaint.
The court has scheduled a hearing for Dec. 20, 2023 on the SEC’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
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