(KLAS) — The Federal Bureau of Investigations is looking into an alleged Ponzi scheme involving slip-and-fall lawsuits that operated in Nevada, Utah, and California for the last five years.
In a survey published by the FBI, the agency writes, “Members of this scheme sold ‘settlement contracts,’ ‘lawsuit settlement contracts,’ ‘settlement funding contracts,’ or similar contracts related to third-party slip-and-fall lawsuits” between 2017 to Mar. 2022.
According to the FBI the scheme involved the following characteristics:
- Contracts were often sold in increments of $80,000 or $100,000
- Investors were promised a return of 10-13% in 90 days
- Earlier contracts were four to five pages long and often contained a reference to a slip-and-fall incident, the name of the slip-and-fall victim’s attorney, a settlement monetary award, a non-disclosure agreement, a purchase agreement, and an investor agreement; investors were asked to reinvest their original principal into a new contract after the initial 90 days
- More recent contracts were more than 100 pages and changed to a “membership,” where 90-day renewals were not required
- Salespeople described the contracts as scarce and led buyers to believe they may not be able to immediately invest
- Investors were asked to verbally commit to a purchase between Thursday and Sunday and were required to wire money to the organization the following Monday or Tuesday
- Investors were asked to wire money to a…