A Texas couple was just sentenced to 40 years in jail after running a scheme that defrauded Black Americans out of $30 million in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (1).<\/p>\n
From 2020 to 2021, LaShonda and Marlon Moore ran what was pitched as a community wealth-building program called Blessings in No Time, or BINT. The scheme had thousands of participants. Each was promised quick returns of 800% on their investment, and refunds if they were unsatisfied.<\/p>\n
Must Read <\/p>\n
Instead, unwitting participants lost thousands of dollars each \u2014 widening the U.S. racial wealth gap (2) when many could afford it least.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis scheme deliberately targeted the African American community, exploiting cultural trust and community ties,\u201d said IRS Special Agent in Charge Christopher J. Altemus Jr. when the couple was convicted in January (3). \u201c[The] conviction sends a clear message: if you abuse trust and exploit communities for personal gain, you will face justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the couple defrauded 10,000 Americans \u2014 and what you can do to avoid similar schemes.<\/p>\n
The couple used a shared background to defraud people <\/p>\n
The Moores were running a chain-referral pyramid scheme (4), an illegal system where people make money by recruiting multiple new people into it.<\/p>\n
The Moores\u2019 scheme had people join one of many \u201cplaying boards (1).\u201d Each playing board had four levels: eight people on the \u201cfire\u201d level on the bottom, four people on the \u201cwind\u201d level, two people on the \u201cearth\u201d level and one on the \u201cwater\u201d level.<\/p>\n
Once the fire level was filled, all eight participants on the fire level paid $1,400 to the one person on the water level, equalling $11,200. Then, they graduated to the wind level. From there, they would have to recruit eight fire-level participants to climb up the pyramid.<\/p>\n
Of course, few people ever got to the top level. To make things worse, the Moores put themselves and their relatives on the water level for multiple boards, racking up payment from thousands of investors (5).<\/p>\n
According to the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Arkansas, people paid as much as $62,700 to participate in the scheme (6).<\/p>\n
The Moores used language with religious and cultural ties to pull investors in. They called payments \u201cblessings\u201d and modeled the scheme after a \u201csou sou (7),\u201d a West African savings circle.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
\u201cThey used the right language,\u201d said Mica Scott, who joined BINT despite initial skepticism (5). She ended up turning over evidence of the scheme to authorities when she realized it was a scam. \u201cThey were talking about financial literacy and generational wealth, Black wealth, the Bible, religion, God, all those things. And then, fast money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chain-referral pyramid schemes also exploit people\u2019s personal ties to get new recruits. One BINT member, Jennifer Fergusen, says she was recruited by her church minister \u2014 a figure most people trust deeply. She ended up charging her credit card to put more than $34,000 into the pyramid scheme.<\/p>\n
Her minister persuaded her by saying his daughter had already made money from the scheme.<\/p>\n
They played to that, saying, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re doing this only with Black people, we\u2019re trying to help the community,\u2019\u201d said Ty Thompson, who put $8,400 into the scheme. \u201c\u2018They pushed that really heavily, and it was convincing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This is called affinity fraud (8): A type of scam that relies on common ties between a community group to get people interested.<\/p>\n
Read More: About 1 in 5 Americans over 50 has zero retirement savings. Here’s why it’s not too late<\/a><\/p>\n How to avoid falling for affinity scams <\/p>\n In 2025, Americans lost almost $16 billion to fraud (9). Here\u2019s how to keep affinity scams like the BINT pyramid scheme from happening to you.<\/p>\n The best way to avoid affinity scams is to always be skeptical of any investment opportunities or money-making schemes, even if someone you trust (10) is the one bringing you into it.<\/p>\n Watch out for emotionally charged language. If someone is saying that your investment will help out a struggling community, that you need to act fast or that this investment can help you live the life that you\u2019ve always dreamed of, then they\u2019re hoping you\u2019ll make a quick, emotions-based choice instead of slowing down and thinking through things logically.<\/p>\n Also look out for get-rich-quick schemes, as well as schemes that offer huge or guaranteed returns on investments. Real investments very rarely give you 800% returns, and those that could certainly aren\u2019t guaranteed.<\/p>\n No matter what, it\u2019s always a good idea to research an organization or asset thoroughly before you invest. This can mean researching who\u2019s asking you to invest, whether the described investment matches a common type of scam like a pyramid or ponzi scheme and even contacting a trusted third party to give you advice.<\/p>\n The more information you have, the easier it is to make a financially sound choice.<\/p>\n You May Also Like <\/p>\n Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise\u2019s best stories and exclusive interviews first \u2014 clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now.<\/a><\/p>\n Article Sources <\/p>\n We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. Department of Justice (1<\/a>); Duke University (2<\/a>); Internal Revenue Service (3<\/a>); New York State Attorney General (4<\/a>); The Washington Post (5<\/a>); Federal Trade Commission (6<\/a>), (9<\/a>); Eew Magazine Online (7<\/a>); U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (8<\/a>); North American Securities Administrators Association (10<\/a>)<\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com<\/a> under the title: Texas couple to serve 40 years each for duping 10,000 Black investors out of $30 million<\/a><\/p>\n This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas couple was just sentenced to 40 years in jail after running a scheme that defrauded Black…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[42346,121683,59198,121682,121681,121679,11330,27,12210,29,28,121680],"class_list":["post-341143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-african-american-community","tag-bint","tag-black-americans","tag-community-ties","tag-federal-trade-commission","tag-pyramid-scheme","tag-robert-kiyosaki","tag-texas","tag-texas-couple","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-moores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}