The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Uncovering Wall Streets BIGGEST Scam: Notorious Ponzi Scheme Criminal Exposes His $1 Billion Fraud

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

Barry Minkow is one of the most infamous financial scam artists in American History. By the age of 21 he was running a ponzi scheme worth a billion dollars. He made history by being the youngest person to take a company public with his carpet cleaning business. But what people didn't know was that Barry was using money from the mafia to help fund this business. He ran bank and wire fraud, embezzled money from investors, and much more. Barry was so committed to running scams that he's been convicted more than once- one of these convictions came down WHILE he was helping the feds in fraud cases. He ended serving time in federal prison and turned his life around. He works now with the federal government go after companies that are committing fraud just like he used to. Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The decisions I made were selfish and evil. Cold evil. So I was prepared to lie, cheat, and steal to keep that money flowing. It's not a manner of if you're going to get caught. It's a manner of when and how many get destroyed in the process. Barry Minko is one of the most infamous white-collar criminals in American history. By the time he was 21 years old, he was running a Ponzi scheme worth billions of dollars. He was the youngest person in American financial history.

to ever take a company public. His carpet cleaning empire, Z carpet, went public through the help of money raised by the mafia and quickly became a darling of Wall Street. It was all a lie. He soon got taken down and Barry was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for bank and wire fraud, running a Ponzi scheme, an investor embezzlement.

But that's not the end of the story. He ended up doing this like two more times with other companies. He was even running Ponzi schemes while he was helping feds take down other companies running Ponzi schemes. He was finally released from prison for the last time in 2019, and today he is completely legit, and he helps the federal government take down fraud inside of companies like the ones he used to run.

He's here on the pod today to not only tell us his story, but to expose the companies on Wall Street today that are running the biggest scams, from cryptocurrency to real estate. And of course, for more Barry content, check out the Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Connect Show. All right, without further ado, you're going to love this one. Barry Minco right here in The Connect with Johnny Mitchell.

The government later would come to me and say, we need your help on a certain case. And I said, why? And they said, well, we need somebody who's a conniving, manipulative liar. When you're a crook, you anticipate what crooks do. And then we found the smoking gun. That's when I see lights. behind me, start the flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, hopped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out

a burner, shang, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Barry, we're so thrilled to have you here. We've known each other for five minutes, and you're you're already a lot. You've got this incredible Jewish energy. You're from L.A. You're one of the most well-known white-collar criminals in American history, I would say. Your Wikipedia page is like, as long as the presidents, it's pretty wild. Somewhere in there, there's a compliment. Yeah. Jewish energy. I love it. Good to be here, Jody. Thanks for having me. What's the background? You're from the valley. You're from L.A. What did your parents do?

Great parents. We grew up in Recita, California. Dad was a commercial real estate broker, but never really set the world on fire financially, but was most memorable as was the only father on the block that played football in the street with me, catch, baseball, basketball, went to all of our games, so he was a great dad. Mom worked at a carpet gliding company as a telephone solicitor. got me a job after school and on weekends, probably from age and summers during like 13 and on as a telemarketer. Yeah. So was she the salesperson in the family? Or did they both have a pension for salesmanship? That's a great question. I would say that mom was very good at telemarketing because of her persistency. My dad was funny. Yeah. Likeable. Yeah. So you get both of those things from your parents. You have both of those qualities.

I would hope. And they were great parents in that they always put the needs of us over themselves. And so some people can point to their childhood and say, well, that's why I committed crime. I could never make that argument. Well, but from a very young age, I'm talking like 15 years old. You were on the phones selling, selling for your mom's carpet cleaning business or the one that she worked for. So was the drive to get rich? or what were you thinking? What's going through your mind?

Because you're kind of a genius. So what was a 15-year-old protege? What's he thinking? Well, you got to remember that 1979, 80, when interest rates hit 16, 18%. Yeah. It was hard on my dad. And he had to, you know, he lost his job.

And we had no heat in the house. and we'd have to spend the night at friends. Yeah. Yeah, so things were hard. You were hard up. Like your parents weren't rich by any means. And that was the drive. Right.

Sorry, that was the drive because mom and dad were struggling financially. And I saw the turmoil that it caused the family. Yeah. Did you have formal education after high school? Yeah. Bachelors of science, a masters of arts, masters of divinity. an honorary doctorate, which they want back, and an earned doctorate while I was in prison

from the other Trinity in Dearborn. Do you have any accounting or financing background? So a great question. Everybody asks me. So life is a great teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards. So I learned general ledgers, balance sheets, revenue recognition, all. by doing because I owed the mob money.

I had to meet payroll. And everybody at a bank or leasing company said, we need financial statements. And I'm like, what the heck is that? So I found a crooked accountant named Freddie Cranston, an older lady, and learned accounting. And I became very proficient at when you do something the wrong way, you learn what they're looking for and you have to anticipate what they're going to say

and come up with an answer. So I learned about balance sheets and income statements and sources and uses of cash. So I became, by the time I'm 19, I'm pretty proficient, and we needed audits. So you needed to know what the auditor was going to ask. So when they, in the 80s, they would send out confirmations to your bank and suppliers to verify balances as of a certain date. I knew that was coming and my confirmations were off. So I created different companies and addresses. This is the 80s to intercept the confirmations,

knowing the auditors would take that step. They never anticipated that from a 19-year-old or 20. Right. Yeah, because part of what your success in the criminal world and then now where you investigate and audit companies for fraud, the rub, what makes you the arbitrage, the advantage, is to be able to look at the number. numbers, like balance sheets and accounting statements.

If a normal person, like if I looked at them, I would go blind. I would fall asleep. It's like, it's like reading Chinese. But you're able to look at that. And you were even able to look at it back then and see, oh, this company looks like they're spending more than they bring in. Yet they claim they're profitable. I'm going to short them. I'm going to bet against them.

And you, I mean, it's so really highly. level scrutiny. There are many that are better at it than I am, but the advantage I would say that I would have is when you're a crook, you anticipate what crooks do. I was recently brought into a government case asked to look into some Reg D real estate stuff. And the person who referred me said to the case agents, you're really not going to like this guy. Why is he do something?

No, no, no. He'll get you usable evidence. but he's not going to search for a disclosure or lack of a disclosure and some technicality. He's going to think like a crook and back reverse engineer what a crook would do. And you're going to be confronted with him nagging you to shut the thing down once he proves that it is a crook because he actually cares about victims, but he wants to move on to the next case. So we go, I just think, it's like financial fraud chess. If I was a crook, this is what I would do in overencumbering buildings.

I would create all kinds of LLCs and confusions. I'd file tax returns on buildings, so I wouldn't have to disclose their debt within a fund. I'd do all kinds of games. I wouldn't file purchase prices. I can control the internal rate of return because you don't know what I paid for the damn thing. Now, at Z-best in the 80s, when I filed an S-1 registration statement, Johnny, we had to get audited financials. Sammy Antar from crazy Eddie Antar. famous in New York.

Electronics case in the 80s. Brilliant guy. CFO. We were very close. When I repeat offended, he stopped talking to me. He was absolutely pissed at me. Hates me to this day. I love him. He's genius.

And we used to talk about the money we used to spend to try to fool the auditors and how we couldn't sleep at night knowing they were coming in because you had to fool him. Today, if you're in the Reg D real estate multifamily. universe for accredited investors only, you got, you don't have to disclose what you paid for a

building. You certainly don't have any independent proof of profitability or financials you give to an investor. So you're an investor. You say, I would like to see those apartments that we bought how they're doing cash flow-wise that you showed me those projections to get me sucked in. You've got nothing coming, bro. Wow. Keep it moving. And is that because the government deregulated that part of the financing system? Like the SEC. So the credit. The credit of the SEC chairman, they're re-looking at it. Okay. However, too little, too late.

So it's actually easier to commit fraud now in some ways than back in the 80s? The six, it's not even close. The perfect $6 trillion fraud, and why do I say $6 trillion? Because as expert Craig McCann proved, between 2021 and 2023, Johnny 6.2 trillion with a T, not a B, was raised. raise for reg D accredited investors, no audits needed from investors. That's more than the public markets. Now, not all of that was real estate, multifamily, but most of it was. Trillions of dollars, no audits, no independent proof profitability. And oh, by the way, did I tell you, the projections that I showed you on the front end, good luck. Getting me to give you an audited financial

on each property to show that it's cash-loying. Well, it's not cash-loaning. Johnny because, well, I got all kinds of undisclosed debt that you never even knew about. I'm allocating my jet airplane or whatever else it is towards that expense. And it's not cash flowing at all. You know why? Because if it was, well, I wouldn't need your money, Johnny, because I'd be cash flowing. I wouldn't need to raise money. Nobody ever stopped to think about it.

You're willing to pay me 20% a year. I just got an email. I'll double your money in three years. Well, then why do you need it in the first place? It's all bad. So it's entirely possible that someone, between $4 and $6 trillion in the economy is overvalued. So there are some legit ones.

I have found a whole lot. So they're either, what I've seen is soft fraud and hard fraud. Hard fraud you're about to read about. And it's going to get me in a lot of trouble, but I'm not tripping. Hard fraud is we say we own a building. We raised money. We paid returns. And we never owned that damn building and title reports prove it.

And somebody else at the very same time said they did. Right, right. That's happening. So that's a whole other thing. But the real issue is the soft fraud. The soft fraud doesn't mean any less severe. Doesn't mean any less illegal. It's just it takes longer to prove because then you've got to subpoena the bank statements and do so.

That's why I like catching hard fraud. Then I can go to the government and say, okay, shut these guys down. You don't need a subpoena to prove this. Is Trump, is what they're trying to do with Trump to sue him or I are basically charge him criminally, but using like the civil courts is a way in. In New York City, they're saying it was criminal. He overvalued his Manhattan buildings by half a billion. But that was just what he was, I don't know, to me it just seems like you try to ask what you think you can get for something. What's your opinion on that? Memorial Day weekend is almost here. And it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting

ready for the first big weekend of summer, total wine and more is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine and More. Your Memorial Day made easy. Shop total wine and more in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. So there were no victims. So you lost me. I lost interest.

If there's not a victim in a financial fraud, then keep it moving no matter who it is because. But a bank can be a victim. There's trying to raise money from the bank. The bank was fully paid back. So the problem I have, Johnny, is I got enough real fraud in New York with private equity, real estate, reg D. There's enough financial fraud there to keep those investigators very busy. I wouldn't waste a whole lot of time on a bank that says, we'd love to do business with him again.

Thanks. And I don't do politics, but I'm just saying as a fraud guy, the allocation of resources when I'm and others are on the front lines of the devastating consequences of turning a blind eye to real financial fraud that victimizes people is untenable. What are those consequences and who are the victims? like in this scenario because right now the economy hasn't collapsed it's you know tons of people have benefited from zero percent percent interest for 15 years and everything is just but the bubble hasn't burst i suppose that's when the victims come in right so say people whose name we will not mention yet uh they have a huge real estate fund keeps his word brian and well you should see what we do with the thumbnail uh that's really gonna you know uh but so say So the bubble hasn't burst, but when it does, what does that look like for the victims?

So a couple things there. Excellent question. The authenticity or legitimacy of an investment opportunity has nothing to do with how long it's existed. Madoff was 20 years. And as a perpetrator fraud, all I got to do to keep the damn thing running is pay people. Why? Because the greatest apostle for my deal is the guy who got paid. on time, his returns every month. He doesn't care about financials. He's not thinking critically,

evaluating sources and uses of cash, the tenability of the business model, independent proof of profitability. Heck no. Johnny, he's getting paid, and that's all we as perpetrators of fraud need to create enthusiasm. So I read a press release that scared me to death in December from somebody we both may know that said, I paid some odd millions of dollars in returns, quote, and I'm quoting, you can't fake cash flow. So believe me, investment world, I'm making my payments on time, ergo I'm legit. Now, what do you think every Ponzi scheme in the history of the world in finance can attest it's faking returns because there's no real returns?

of course you can fake cash flow Stanford did it for how many years with the bank in Aurora Madov did it I did it because 86% of our revenues were fraudulent so when you're not creating real revenue what are you doing Johnny

you're faking cash flow so for somebody to say I'm legit because I'm making payments every perpetrator of a Ponzi team made the same argument it's all a lie so you look for points and similarity but my point is is that to your original question

you have and you can just test this. Look at the returns, and I save them on social media, these reg D real estate offerings, or even crypto returns, 1,000 percent. I mean, people have become desensitized because it's so outrageous, these returns, that they don't get shocked anymore.

And that's what perpetrators want. They want to remove the shock value. 10% a month, you'd be in jail tomorrow 20 years ago. Right. Today, it's low. Right. And people are buying it. Why?

It's on social media. They're not critically thinking. And they've been desensitized. So what happens is if they have this investment opportunity that they, in 2020, if you're a real estate deal, they're offering you internal rate of returns, best efforts targeted 20% annually. Okay. So that's when interest rates to your point where zero. Now, fast forward four years. Go look at your social media feed for Reg D real estate offerings.

They're offering the same interest rates. Now, the competition in this market, in this world of reg D offering, and invests is fierce. Inflation is crazy. Interest rates are, I don't know, how many times. And yet they're able to do what Buffett? Forget Buffett. Forget Vanguard.

Those morons, we are the Reg D real estate promoting. Nobody ever thinks these things through. It's insane. How did you possibly still return a rate of 20% when, you know, interest rates are 7.5 right now? Brian, did you hear that? Why can't I say it that clearly? So in your estimation, in your professional opinion, all Ponzi schemes eventually collapse. When the music stops.

You know why? It's called the second law of fraud dynamics. Okay. And the second law of thermodynamics, it teaches that entropy, things go from order to disorder. Right. You clean your son or daughter's room on Monday. By Thursday, is it less clean or more clean? It's less order to disorder, right?

I'm being oversimplistic. In frauds, things go from order to disroom. disorder. You can't control them. They're called the unknown variable at Z-Best. I was days away from closing a Michael Milken, Drexel Burnham, $40 million acquisition of KeyServe, another 40 million in senior subordinated debt. And an article came out in the LA Times about from a reporter who was mad that I didn't disclose my past mob ties. And I was crumbled in 60 days. Frauds, we can't think of everything. When you're lying, it's going to catch up with you. You're going to have a falling out among thieves, a reporter. You're going to have something. They go from order to disorder.

Let's say you're cutting checks, you're going to miss the bank once. Let's say you're lying on your audited financials. Some investor is going to be a forensic CPA and catch it. Order to disorder. It's not a manner of if you're going to get caught. It's a manner of when and how many get destroyed in the process. It's a law of probability, I suppose. It's a law of They go from order disorder. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to talk about you now because I still don't know what to think.

You were called by a judge at one of your sentencings, a man without a conscience. These are strong words. Hold on. That's Judge Trevezian. Sure. And he was, you need to know this because it's critical because David Kenner had his 80th birthday and Judge Trevisian, Snoop was there. I was there. My wife.

Dog. Bo Bennett. All of us were there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were, they were, I was there at the firm when he was being represented for the murder case. But Bo and I had done time.

I introduced David Kennard to Bo in the hole in Terminal Island in 1988, which kicked off the introductions. But anyway. Okay. So, but the point was, is he said to my wife, my judge, he was a huge fan. He wrote a letter to get me out of prison early. He supported me. He went on 60 minutes from me. And I let him down when I went back to prison.

So he told my wife, make sure he doesn't go back to prison. again. Because, you know, I'm just trying to get a sense of, were you like this just innately? Because you were, when you started Z carpet, well, tell us about, let's go back to when you're 16 years old, you start Z carpet, right? Your own business, you're a teenager, you can barely drive. Did you go into that business knowing that you were going to commit fraud? Are we trying to make it legit? So that's a great point. And I would say that at the time I started, I had no intention of ending up in federal prison, no more than the guy who got his law license. Well, I was moving, you know, pounds and pounds of pot.

I didn't think I was going to go to prison. But I was going in knowing it was illegal. So my question is, did you go in knowing? At 16, no. At 16, I started. Had you done anything illegal as a boy up to that point? Like. I mean, I'm certainly lied and...

Of course. But I mean, like, you know, nothing... Because you were an extraordinary young man. So I'm wondering if there was like any extraordinarily... No, I mean, I just... You know, underhanded things you did as a kid. So, but here's the point. I didn't realize how prepared I was to be that guy.

Because I got a taste of what it's like to be successful and get attention that I never got. And recita. Yeah. We were the, you know, not financially studying the world on fire. And then when I started the company in 82 and got a diners club card and took people out to dinner, I started getting invited to the parties. I was never invited to at Cleveland High School. And I felt like I was finally made it to the end crowd because money equaled acceptance. So I was prepared to lie, cheat, and steal to keep that money flowing.

So certainly, you know, nobody that I ever met in, that went to medical school or law or accounting. passed the CPA exam said, okay, federal prison is in my plan. Something happens along the way, economic pressure, whatever. In my case, it happened very quickly. Yeah. And I was very prepared to do the unthinkable. Right. Okay, great.

So let's talk about that. So you start this carpet cleaning business. You're having trouble making payroll. How did you first start making this fraudulent? So I accepted, I guess I was doomed by design because, the $200 interest only loan. I got a $1,600 loan from a guy I totally looked up to. And I didn't calculate how much $200 a week was.

I just knew I was going to start my own business, get a new car, so that I could have a date with some cheerleader and be accepted. And I was a very one marshmallow now micro, not macro thinker, and immediate gratification. instantly. So I thought, okay, who cares about payments? Steroids. Who cares about if I can walk at 40? I'm taking steroids now. Right? So I was consistently horrible in decision making as it related to immediate gratification. And it doomed me. And when I went to the bank to open a bank account, Johnny, and they're like, we can't, they'd open it because they didn't expect me to be 16,

didn't even look at the signature card. Two weeks later, Mr. Minko, we have to shut your account. you have to be 18 to sign an illegal binding contract in California. So that made everything okay in my mind to steal, lie, cheap because liquid, I'm trying to, I'm not doing drugs, no disrespect. I was doing actually worse, but in my mind, I was, hey, I, they won't let me. I need to overcome. So I found another way. And that's when the theft and the rationalizations began.

Gotcha. I accept all that. I accept all that. I had a lot of the same traits as a kid. So I wasn't 6-6 and good looking I wasn't back then either I was Jewish with a big nose Although I did play quarterback in prison

You were the Sandy Kofax of Jewish inmates I know he was a pitcher Insurance Restoration This was a major part of the fraud Of Z carpet That blew it up And eventually got it on the NASDAQ

Which is wild So tell us that, tell us about that. Just really quickly run us through the fraud and how you built this fraudulent company up to, you know, a publicly traded company. So financial fraud is only two things. Simplify. Lying about what you owe and lying about what you earn. The attention I got and wrongly was the youngest person in American business history to take a company public on Wall Street with an S1 registration. and fully reporting public company before I was 21.

Now, don't be impressed because I was a liar, thief, involved with the mob, but it's still true. The way we did it was the restoration jobs. So while we professed, we did have, remember, also frauds the skin of the truth, stuffed with a lie. We really did do carpet furniture and drapery cleaning. And you had a really good service, too. People liked your company. As long as I wasn't the guy going out doing the Hesian Gun and soap, if I'd turn it brown, it was ugly. But it was overweight.

You said the guys that are already brown to do the job. Right. Well, the guys that we did have good solicitors, good management, and so the retail was legit. Well, the key was to get the auditors, lawyers, investment bankers, mob, analysts on Wall Street to shift 80 to 90% of their due diligence on the carpet cleaning side. And where 86% of our revenue was rest. have them barely look at it.

That was the challenge because it couldn't hold up under scrutiny. And we almost made it. And then one of them. Explain the restoration. I didn't get it. So today they have actual companies like Service Master that buildings that have been damaged by water or fire. But if you have a 1985 or 86 yellow pages, every carpet cleaning company advertised emergency restoration jobs. And that was our niche.

And it was basically Mrs. Jones's toilet overflowed, and it's a grand from the Allstate homeowners. Because you pull up the carpet, pull out the padding, deodorized, sanitize, relay it, clean it, you're good to go. Right. So I just took the Miss Jones overflowed toilet and made it a 50,000 square foot building and made a $7 million job in Sacramento, California. Right. Okay. So it's insurance fraud. You're banging out insurance companies.

So here's the thing. the mob because when when I got convicted I went to trial for four and a half months on the Z-Best case I was the number one defendant

and nobody from the mob ever went to prison but one of the stories that I had heard afterwards before sentencing was that the mob was inoculated on the restoration jobs

meaning I didn't really fool them but I fooled them in this regard they thought the adjuster was on the take. That's New York. That happens every day. They never fathomed that they were not insistent. Right. So I kind of got them to believe, yeah, of course she's on the take. So that inoculated that group of streetwise people. Right. Then it was kind of a little easier with this book smart people because I said, hey, you can't visit the job. Why? Well, no unauthorized personnel or allow another job site at any time because of liability. And that

worked almost to the end. And then we had to give a tour. So we rented a huge building. spent tens of thousands to make it look like we were there like a Hollywood studio and toured them and we made it. Wow. So, okay, you were just making, you weren't, it wasn't that you were overcharging for actual restoration jobs. You were making them up out of thin. And not only that, you have to have the income. So it's back to the accounting. How do you create hundreds of of thousands of dollars of provable income, check cutting? Yeah, check cutting. Tell us what that is.

Today, checks clear overnight, but in the 80s journey, it's called the float. Ah, yeah. So credit card, fraud, we used to have those. And it would take six months for them to find out we overcharged them. Yeah. But in check guiding, you had three or four days in between banks. Right. So when I write a check from Bank A to Bank B, when that statement comes in, it shows credit to cash.

Right. Auditors like, what's that? Restoration income. They never tested. Now, the $3 check on the expense side, they'll test six ways from Sunday. Today, banking allows you to see what was actually deposited because of technology. I can't lie about income. And say an undisclosed loan, for example, was income because they would catch that today. But back then. Right. So you could write, so in other words, you could write a check to your own company from one bank to another bank. and that check won't clear, but it'll take four days to show that. And so you can use, in the meantime, you can use that balance sheet that states that, yeah, that check went through, and you can show that to investors and auditors, right? The IRS criminal, Paul Davis, said 30 banks, 40 months,

80 million, all in your head. I have no idea how you did it. Wow. Every time, let's say, Bank of America, Citibank, and Chase, they weren't the banks. you have to remember Wednesday's chase day you have to put in this much you can't ever drop a ball

because if one check bounces they discover the kite oh okay what about so 80 million in a little less than four years what about but we didn't get that there was just floating money right right right what about the insurance restoration

side how much do you think in the lifetime of z carpet did you bang out from insurance restoration for the answer would be none Johnny they didn't exist that's the point So, but we said, it was in 86 when we went public that we had a $7 million job. Now watch this. We were $7 million a job.

And then because of the percentage of completion method of accounting, let me break that down. How much are you going to make on this job on $7 million, Mr. Minko? Oh, we're going to make about 40%. Okay, so that's $2.8 million. That's right. How much are you done as of this date? We're halfway done. Okay.

1.4 million in profit you can recognize. Just like that. Wow. Revenue recognition is you could drive a truck through it because it's very much subjective. How much money had you raised from investors and who were these investors up to this point when you're about to go public? So showing these phony income statements. So Cotain, the mobster from Chicago brought in a group of people, about a million total, but they were two. points a month, three points a month interest. The biggest one was the first one,

when after I met Kataney, introduced me to two brothers who are still alive. The only names I don't mention, everybody else has passed because this happened in 85, 86. These guys always treated me wonderfully. They're still alive. They're still very high up in their organization. And they're out of Chicago? No. L.A.? I can't say. You came into the city? Because of the brothers. It's a lot. And give it away. But the point is they treated me great. I met him on a corner. Sherman Way and Lindley

and he hands me a brown paper bag with $25,000 cash in it and says, $12.50 a week, Barry, pay the juice, keep it as long as you want. Wow. Don't miss a payment. Do they know they're investing

in a fraudulent company? He didn't care. Right. He thought it was legit. I was the goose. Right. That's why the other mob family came in and threw those guys out,

paid them off, and I stayed with Vigiano and the other guys. Gotcha. sharks that are giving you. Well, they were a little more than that. But the guys who I end up going with, I got called to a place called Reliable Auto in Mission Valley. The funny story. I had clean carpets and we were friends. And then I started Z-Vest and I never heard from a guy named Bob Victor. And he lived in Mission Valley. Great guy. Him and his son, Stevie. They were nothing but great. And he said, Barry, I need to see you. I thought, do I owe him money or something?

So I go over to Mission Valley. I'm like, too. I just started. my relationship. I just got the 25K. And he says, my name's not Bob Victor. I said, okay. He goes, it's Robert Vigiano. I've done time in federal prison. I'm connected. I know what you're doing with Jack Catane and his friends. I need to get you out of that because you're in trouble. Trouble, they're using you, kid. Now, I'm 18 at the time. And I go, well, how would you get me out of it? Now, him, I trusted because I knew. And he had some people in New York. and they had sit downs and so forth.

And I ended up being with him and his crew, Joey Mangipani and Showman and Rind and Vigiano, and ended up going public. And I had to get their permission before I did because they were worried about getting caught with the restoration jobs because they thought I was kicking back the adjuster. You'll never pass to due diligence. I said, yes, I will. And I did. But when you're lice on the line, because they had a million shares, Johnny, that they bought at five cents.

The stock went to 18. Yeah. They never went to jail. Wow. So they made out like bandits. And then they shorted it. I found out I didn't know at the time. When things were falling apart, they weren't angry.

I thought I was dead. Be here every day to give us an update. Yeah. And they were shorting it, the stock. Right. So they were making money on both ends. So how much money do you think you took a million from the mob? By the way, so they, in your estimation, there's mafia out in L.A.?

They didn't. You and Michael Francie say the same thing. they weren't born in L.A. Of course not. They used to live in New York. He did time in Lewisburg. Well, Coutain was, but Vigiano, New York. Yeah, New York in Chicago.

He lived, hey, showman lived in Rigo Park. He was a concierre for other mob families. Lorenzo lived in New York. He's still around today, but he's a good dude. And he was always good to me as well. You know, all the wise guys are from the East Coast, but I'm saying... But they don't fly over Kansas and get nonviolent. That's what the government tried to say by trial.

When, you know, my lawyer was trying to say that... What do they fly over Kansas? and become nonviolent when they deal with Barry. Barry was, you know, forced to do it. I wasn't forced. I didn't follow it. So these were Italian guys, though. This wasn't like the Armenian mob.

No, no, no. It was big in the L.A. This is 80s. Yeah, these are old-fashioned gindaloons. Okay. So you know what? You did right by these guys. But they did right.

Listen, they never forced me to do anything. I take 100% responsibility. And they were being deceived by me. Okay. So, um, you've got a million in from them. What about legitimate people, private? equity hedge funds. Well, the million people were legit.

Oh, you had a million investors. They brought in. Liketain had some legitimate people. But the hedge fund, I mean, when I went public, so the government's victim impact for the ZBest case in the pre-sentence report, which was critical because I'm under the old law. Remember, this is 87. I fall.

So I just made it under the parole guidelines for the old sentencing guidelines for the feds. So my guidelines were 40 to 52 months for a first-time offender. I got 25 years for going to trial. And, but they, it was 26 million. But in the probation report, the U.S. attorney did us a huge favor by saying, Mr. Minko has no money hidden or otherwise. It was all like, it was Pundi. It was, there was no, it was no offshore.

So all the nuts. But when I went to prison, everybody thought I had zillions. And you know what, Johnny, they said. I found out when I went to Englewood, at the time, he used to be Youth Act, 89, kind of violent. medium, not what it is today. And I was a hero because they're like,

what a stand-up dude you are. You went to trial for four and a half months. I'm like, dude, I'm thinking to myself, I went to trial to try to lie out of my evil that I did, not because I'm a stand-up guy. And I got credit for, but I didn't deserve it because that wasn't my motive

to be some stand-up guy. I was just trying to lie. I was 21. I'm like, I conned everybody. Why did you think you could beat it? Because I had to the point. And by the way, To date, there wasn't a whole lot I couldn't talk my way out of.

Okay. So, and everything was going well until cross-examination. Did your lawyers think you had action? When I was doing direct, they said, we're going to win this case. And then, you know, when the lies come up, right, the details. Yeah. It's easy to paint a big picture. But when you're a liar and a thief and a manipulator like I was, and up until that point,

James Asperger and Gordon Greenberg, the two U.S. attorneys, were the first to confront me in a way that I couldn't control. And Judge Trevezian did not let me expand or explain. And the truth came out. And I was convicted. Hang on. So you raised $26 million, according to the government, from investors. No, Wall Street.

That was including Wall Street, banks, everything. Okay, got you. The entire victim impact. Right. According to the government. How much money do you think you raised before you went public? So because you... A couple mill.

I mean, I wouldn't be able to... It would be Union Bank. Didn't give me $7 million until after we went public. Okay. So you raise, say, like a million or so from the mob and then a few other individual entities. So JLB equities. Okay. Mob place Montvail, New Jersey, Jay Botchman, arranged by Vigiano and Sherman, $250,000 kickback, and I got a $2.1 million loan loan.

It's a public record. You could see it. Okay. Jay was kicked back $250 in cash. I paid the whole loan back. Okay. With the proceeds from the offering. How many people were working for Z-Best?

1,300. Oh, my God. So you had carpet. You're 18 years old and you had carpet cleaning. By the time I was 20, we had 1800. But we had three offices, then five, then 10, then 20. So you look like a- TV commercials?

Yeah, yeah. All over Southern California and Nevada and Arizona. Yep. So you're like the Mark Zuckerberg of carpet cleaning companies. You're a young prodigy. Yeah. Are your parents proud as shit? Are they over the moon?

Are they suspicious? That's a great question. So thanks for asking that, actually. So fast forward to my 21st birthday, USA Today does an article. You can Google it. Happy birthday, Barry Minco, March, 1987. Your stock in Z-Best is worth over 100 million, personal. Wow.

And the company stock is worth over 300 million. and had a picture of me and guys around a carpet cleaning van saying Z-Best. My 21st birthday, I was living in Westchester County Estates and Woodland Hills. Heather Locklear and Tommy Lee lived down the street at the time they were together. He used to do the carpets a little bit. Can you get this stain out for you, Heather? Yeah. Anyway, there was a bunch of blood and cocaine on the carpet.

They were nice. Tommy had that big Harley, and it's like every time he'd pull up, he'd almost fall over because it was like bigger than him. Yeah. Scott Bayo was one of my best friends growing up. He was at my 21st birthday. So all these people are there, right? Yeah. And it hit me because I'm at the top of my game.

I'm about to do Oprah. And back then, that was huge. Yeah, of course. So I go, something hit me and I went from room to room, you know, family room, Dan, and everybody's there. And the accountants and the lawyers are talking and they're happy. Well, I'm paying them. Next room, there was my public publicist.

I'm paying her. A lot of employees, well, I'm paying them. And I started to think, is there anybody here that's not on the payroll that likes me for me? And then I went to my best friend at the time,

but I'd just given them shares a stock. And then the gal I was with the time, to her credit, she was cool. So I wouldn't lump her in that, but my mom walks in to the kitchen, and I'm depressed. She goes, what's wrong? Now, she had become a Christian.

Now, we're all Jewish. So she was the first to become a stay as Jew, but a Jew believes in Christ. And she used to always witness to me. I'm like, later. So I'm at the top of my world, and she comes in and she says, you know, what's wrong? I said, yeah, I don't know. Son, you need God. And I pulled out a stack of cash and said, how much is he?

I'll buy him. Broke my mother's heart. Jesus Christ, Barry. That's so dark. Broke my mother's heart. And mean. And she, no, no, but she forgave me and she walked away dejected, but she never stopped praying for me.

And the point was, is that when you find yourself climbing that ladder to the top and you get to the top, you find out that it's leaning against the wrong wall, and you've devastated a lot of people, innocent people, with manipulation, using lies and stepped on them. There's a lot of dead bodies. Sure. So you had your Tony Montana, a lot of. moment where he's fucked up in the restaurant. This is what is all about money. You've got the, you had that kind of like early existential rich guy moment. And you'd taken, so for the people

who don't know, you were the youngest person in American financial history to take a company public. Stock went from three shares in a warrant, started at 12, ended up at 80 at a time. Wow. And now did you buy in? Did you buy? First of all, the end. So full disclosure, me and three mobsters, 250,000 shares each, all bought them at a nickel. A month later to meet payroll, I had to sell mine. Okay. So that was long, but the free trading shares, see, Johnny, we who perpetrate fraud want to sleep at night.

So we know what we're doing when nobody's looking, so we're lying. So what's the Xist strategy? Well, everybody has a cure. The lie we tell ourselves is a cure. What was my cure? The key serve deal. And I had six million shares. after I held him for two years, I could sell them a million at 20 a share, pay off the mob, pay off the Ponzi, and in my mind, Johnny, go legit.

Now, I was lying to myself because faced with economic pressure, I'd go back to what worked, lying, cheating, stealing. So I, I, I, you were looking for a way out. It's called the cure, but everybody who does crime, watch, I'm going to lie on this tax return, but I'm going to pay it back. Nobody's going to get hurt. Everybody does it. please understand people want to sleep at night and have a good image of themselves so it's called rational contemplation rationalization consent that's the anatomy of fraud contemplation the government shut me down i could do this rationalization everybody lies as long as you make your loan payment

nobody cares what you lie to the bank and say you earned consent i'm going to do the action because i've rationalized and justified it and the way you rationalized this problem of you negative cash flow in Z-Carpit was to merge with this no legitimate company well then no that was the cure but what I rationalized was Johnny I'm not out there doing drugs I'm a good guy I'm employing a thousand people people need to get paid so I created a meeting payroll excuse and if you have a meeting payroll excuse everything's on the table right so tell us about uh so you go public your your net worth is on paper a hundred million dollars uh you try to merge with, tell us about the attempted merger.

And then the arrest. So Michael Milken, yeah. Michael Milken, infamous white-collar criminal of the 80s, junk bonds, all that shit. My hero at the time. And by the way, for the record, has done remarkable things for people with prostate cancer research. Since he's been out, he's the most underrated, incredible prison comeback story. Great. We believe it.

Huge fan. Yeah, a huge fan. And so at the time, part of the cure was he was going to finance 80 million total, 40 million to buy key serve. They were the authorized carpet cleaners for Sears. We were the authorized carpet cleaners for Broadway. So I wanted the whole, I wanted Z-Bet. You call Z-Best, you get Z-Best. You call Broadway, you get Z-Best. And you call Sears at the time huge in Chicago. You got Z-Best. It was all done.

Yeah. And then the article, May 22nd, 1987, you can Google it. Behind Whiz Kid lies trail of false credit card billings. Within 45 days, I was bankrupt. And stock went down how much? Four and a half points the first day, Friday. Worst 45 days of mine. I still tried to hold everything together.

Couldn't because finally people were looking at me skeptically. And that number, it was a great story. I had the imputed credibility with Oprah and publicity. And at the time, the whiz kid and nobody knew, you know, the truth about that I was lying about what I owed and lying about what I earned. And I was really a liar and a manipulator. And, you know, there was kind of the point where there was an opportunity early on for me to just say, you know what, I'm in over my head.

And I probably should just say failure, but I chose liar. And I got both. Right, right. And the, so I went under. The, I was, it was brutal. And how long after the failed merger did the feds arrest? Oh, no, no. Oh, January, 1988, I was in prison.

And I never, I did a year in the hole in the, remember, 88 Terminal Island. There's no MDCLA. I was the first baker at MDCLA, one of them. But that opened in December 88. I had just been to four and a half month trial got convicted. And then so I had to get up and schlep from Long Beach to trial to L.A. Back and forth. Oh, my God.

the morning. Yeah. But I was young. So you were down for a year fighting your case. You couldn't bail out. I, a judge, a reason gave me 1.7 million bail. Yeah. Yeah. No. So, but I did a year in the hole. Wow. So you're 21 when you get arrested? But I had a cellmate bank robber named Hensley, tattoo, spider web tattoos, great guy. And I mean, it was just great.

It was a perfect, silly. So, and you blow trial. they give you 25 years. You could have copped out for like four to six. But I would have had to do some things that might have got me in some serious trouble, but I didn't think about that. What do you mean? Would I had to do some things.

So remember, I'm the number one guy on the indictment. Yeah. But people whose last name end in vowels in 1987 and 88 make bigger headlines than me. Oh, they wanted you tell on the monsters. So here's what you Google. You're going to have Brian Google it. The police learn how mob

moved in on Minko. Google that. L.A. Times, huge article. So that's a sexier story. Right. Then believing some 20-year-old punk kid from Recita fooled Wall Street. Right. Right. So that, that was a, but it was, it didn't happen and I'm grateful. Was that what the U.S. attorney wanted you to do for that deal? They wanted you to rat on the, the law guys? The U.S. attorney. Is that what you're saying, though, Barry? Like, is that, is that the reason that you? That was a real possibility. Yeah, I mean, on the table. Yeah, there was deals on the table, of course. you told me that a first time offense for what you did was like 40 to 50 months. 40 to 52 months under parole guidelines.

Doesn't mean you're not going to get sentenced to 30. Our argument to get out on parole on a, but you couldn't get out under a third, right? Remember, unless you had a B1, B2 number. So if you got a B2 number, you can do less than a third. But if you didn't, even if you got 25, no matter what your guidelines were, you had to do a third. So it didn't much matter.

So you didn't want to tell. Good for you. You didn't want a rat. Well, but I also more than didn't want a rat, I wanted to lie my way out of, yeah. So I have to tell you that, I just, you were more of much more a stand-up guy than I was. I was 21 thinking I could lie my way out of anything. And for me to say otherwise would be disingenuous. I see.

So you were really trying to win. Like, that's the reason you wanted to go to trial. You wanted to win. And Kenner wanted to win. Paul Palladino wanted to do it. But I had Jack and Paul Palladino. I mean, they're the best private investigators in the world. I mean, they don't represent people who

cooperated. Jack Palatino was my investigator. He's in the movie The Insiders. He's the Clinton Bimbo's investigator. He was my investigator. Well, lawyers say they don't represent rats, but that's because they want to charge you trial fees. Right, right, exactly. I'm sure they were great. They were great, yeah.

And I like aggressive lawyers. We went to win. Yeah, I like lawyers that have an emotional stake in it. Okay, so you go do your sentence to 25 years, dog. You like... Did a third. Right, right. This is when you could do a third. If you go into the feds now for 25 years, you'd do an 85% maybe. So you, you got in, you slid in at the right time. You know how I got out? How? Judge Treveezy and wrote a

pro board and said the guy earned a bachelor's degree and a master's member. And that's the guy. And that's the guy who called you a man without a conscience. That's right. Wow. It turned out to be a huge supporter. And you know what? Devastated me, Johnny, letting him down because he went on 60 minutes in 2005 and said this guy's uncovered more fraud than you know I've had people come to me and tell me um and stuck by me and then I went in 2011 for insider trading for lanar and all that yeah so when we go to kenner's 80th birthday pulls my wife and side and says Lisa keep him out of prison I'm trying your honor he's just a dear guy yeah he never it was never personal even for the prosecutors it wasn't the FBI agents at the time different than today mm not personal strictly business

brilliant guys, put the case together, keep it moving. Right, right. So what, tell us about prison really quick. Is that where you got your education? Because you haven't been to college at this point. Dude, they had Chapman College in Orange County coming into FCI, Inglewood, in Colorado. It was Pell Grant World. Wow.

So you could get colleges in the prison. Yeah. Take fully accredited video correspondence. It's not. Yeah. Liberty was the largest Christian university in the world at the time, I think still is. Fully accredited. Yeah.

Video, not. So you could get a real bachelor's degree from a great school like Chapman in federal prison. I don't know about today. No, I don't think so today. They're taking it all the way. Yeah, set. But they don't put people in prison anymore. Yeah, no, yes, they do.

I promise you that. Just not a lot of guys like you, you know. So when you were in there, you got your degree. Is that when you became a Christian? So, no. Right before I went in to prison, it was July, 1987, cameras were parked out.

That was the first time I was on 60 minutes. I was the O.J. of 88. Because at the time, remember, there's no social media cable. So when the government issued my indictment and I turned myself in, they stopped programming in LA. And it was in the journal, New York Times.

It was a huge scam. They haven't seen anything. like I was the first of the bad CEOs. Yeah. Right. Oh, wow. So were you the first of that generation? I would say even though I was,

that wolf of Wall Street generation of 80s hedge fund managers and dirty. I think Bosque was the big insider trader. But I'm talking about crooked CEOs, people that did hard fraud. Yeah. That had the fully reporting public companies, not penny stocks. I was a CEO that went bad and you didn't have many of them. Right. plus my age.

Yeah. The mob. How'd you become a Christian? So I go to, my mom says, I have a friend I want you to meet with, longtime family friend. Her name is Dottie Shore, lived in North Hollywood.

She was a counselor. She goes, I know you probably have done some things you don't want to share with your mom. But I've known this lady my whole life. I said, I'll go see her. I sit in her chair in North Hollywood, expecting her to just say, I'm so disappointed with you.

And I'll never forget what she said. She said, Barry, you grew up Jewish. Yes. I was bar mitzvahed, of course. And she said, you know, I want to share something with you. I want to tell you about the Christian faith, but not the way you might think I am. I said, what are you talking about? She goes, I want you to know that good people don't go to heaven.

Forgiven people go to heaven because everybody lives forever somewhere. And I said, what do you mean? And she goes, every world religion without any disrespect teaches good people go, whether it's Islam with their five pillars, Judaism with its mitzvahs, reincarnation, which is you pay for your sins in this life, for past life. Everything is good people go, except Christianity, because there's a thief on the cross who never was bar mitzvahed and he wasn't baptized and he had done nothing but crime. And he looked at Jesus and said, I'm a sinner. I deserve to be here.

You're the sinless son of God. Remember me. And Jesus says, today you're in heaven with me. And she said, that shows you that there's only one faith in the whole world that teaches that good people don't go to heaven. forgiven people go to heaven because everybody lives forever somewhere. And I'm like, I like that because I'm not good. And she goes, neither am I.

And I said, well, there's a difference. She goes, no, there's not. He who is forgiven much loves much. Do you have a lot that you need to be forgiven, Barry? And I said, yeah, more than I care to admit. And she goes, well, I got good news for you. There's a faith. There's a savior.

Good people don't go to heaven. Forgiven people go to heaven. Everybody lives forever somewhere. I never forgot that. And that's what set you down your path to... Absolutely. And I've gone off the path and on the path, but so did David and so did others.

And nobody in my walk has been shameful, especially when I betrayed my position of trust as a pastor to a church that I pastored 14 years where the people, Johnny, they love me. They... I mean, they were fantastic. but when I started to live a double life and become addicted doxy content or sexual addiction porn or having an affair, I always was too embarrassed to share with people that would have not judged me.

But I thought they would. I go, how could they look at me preach and know that I struggle with? So one thing that prison did for me the second time that I never had happened the first time is I was able to look at people wearing, tan or green depending if I was in Lexington or MCC San Diego, which was rocking and rolling when I was there, and say, you know, I'm a, the truth about me is I'm real deceptive human being and I lie when I don't even have to lie and look at Damien, who was a former drug dealer who's now pastor, and say, and him tell me, yeah, well, I struggle with this. And no, Nobody's judging you.

Men today in this world are lonely because they have nobody that they can say, you know, I'm looking at stuff at my phone. And it's consuming more and more of my time. And I probably ought, but there's nobody in their life. And one thing, prison, I bonded with guys at a level where I could finally be transparent. And those guys are still in my life. Just look at my social media. How many of those men? Yeah.

To this day, five and a half years later. I can call up and say, damn, dude, am I a freaking manipulative lion dog? Do you know what I did? And that prevents you from being a manipulative lying dog. It's like an AA meeting. Let me talk about drinking so I don't go do it. And nobody there is thinking, dude, what's wrong with you, man? You look at that or you take oxycontin.

Why did you do that? Yeah. So when I got out and they had the gas station heroin, it was 2021. I was working as a homeless service provider. Hold on. So you came home when? This second time. Okay, so tell us, I don't want to jump ahead.

So you find God, you get this degree, a bachelor, an accredited, real bachelor's degree. And a master's. And a master's in what again? Masters of Arts and Religion. And then a Masters of Divinity within. So the Masters of Arts was in an emphasis in defending the faith, apologetics. Oh, wow. So I used to debate atheists and the greatest training ground is prison because you got 80 different people that,

And always loving and always respectful. One thing I learned is you never, you can, listen, you cast more light than heat when you talk about, I don't talk politics at all. It doesn't transform anybody's life. But I always, well, I meant one of my clients is, today is in the Muslim community, love my friends of different faith and respect them. I may not agree with their conclusions, but I absolutely love them and respect them. And we learn that in prison. Yeah, yeah. Sure. I want to know, so when you got out, you became a pastor.

So I went and started as a job. I had to do an internship at the church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth. Great church, great people. Then I got my MDIV in 96. And then in 97, I got hired as a senior pastor, Community Bible Church, San Diego, wonderful church. Mm-hmm. Okay. And two years in, disaster struck. Okay. And just had a heartbreaking situation where the woman I was married to just kind of left, never came back, wrote a letter to my elder board saying, look, don't fire the guy. He didn't cheat on me or he didn't hit me. I'm just done. She wrote a letter to the elder board.

Got it. So they kept me. And I never saw her son. It was the most heartbreaking thing. First of all, it was embarrassing that you're the pastor trying to fix people's eye. and I it really kind of I mean it was a difficult difficult time maybe gave you the fuckets a little bit you ever heard about the fuckets and I didn't realize it and it's no excuse for evil or crime but it was probably then that you know the government says my first criminal act was four years after I became a pastor right to do the fraud discovery and co-mingling funds and insider trading.

But that was kind of a trigger. You're right. It was kind of like something that said, come on, man, that wasn't the deal. But before this, though, I mean, in, so as you're being a pastor at this church in San Diego, at the same time, you're also looking at companies around the country.

You're not doing this yet. 2001. I see. Okay, got you. But you're right. It's just a little fast right. Right. Okay.

But the good news is I ended up in 2001 also meeting Lisa. So God brought me somebody better. So you went back to the, you went back to prison in 2011. So I was out between when I was out for 16 years. So guess what happened? I was the first time offender twice. When you're in the feds and you're out for 15. So when I went to judge sites in Miami and she's like, I know you're not a first time offender even though it. Right. So do your points restart after 15 years? Okay. But this is fascinating. So you start, you get remarried in 2001. Are you already committing fraud within the church, you know, writing bad checks and using the church's funds to, you know, pay off credit cards? Probably it started with the credit card that I had of my own.

Instead of, I would always mandatory pay it off if I used the church credit card, even if I had used it for a personal expense, which was inappropriate, pay it off at the end of the month, never carry a balance. All right, right. When I got, when she left, when I had alimony to pay for 18 months, half the length of the marriage. The excuse was, well, look what happened to me. So I started, that's where it started. I see.

And were you raising money from the church for personal expenses or anything like that? It was small. No, no, no. So then you started, that kind of nonsense didn't happen until 06, 07, much later. The smaller stuff was no less significant, lying on loans,

undisclosed debt, tax issues. and then 2008, 9, 10, inside a trading. Okay, so it's pretty benign at the beginning. Correct. But it's justified, evilly, wrongly.

So, by the way, so watch this. Here's how bad it got. By the time, it's 2009, just to fast forward a bit, I'm addicted to oxy-contin. Nobody knows it. I'm having an unfaithful relationship with somebody.

Completely wrong. Totally. I have financial shenanigans and fraud in a position of trust that people loved, trusted, and worst kind of evil. So I'm sitting across the street, Johnny, from the church in my car, hiding my car in a commercial building waiting for the mailman to come. Why? Because when I go look at a company, I always want to know, is there some fascination that the CFO or CEO has with getting the mail first? Because here's one thing, even today you can't do. If you have a, remember lying about what you owe?

If you have an undisclosed loan that you don't want the auditors to know about, they've got to mail that bank statement to your office. And if the lady who picks up the mail or the guy accidentally gives it to the auditors, you're dead. What's this loan balance? So sanitizing the mail kept me alive. And I'm sitting there waiting at a church as a senior pastor and a parking lot. This is how evil. There is no excuse for that. Not offering one. But I'm saying this is how depraved it got for me. And I'm thinking in my car, this isn't going to end well. This is going to be like a book or I'm going to be like in prison. I knew where this thing ended up. And yet I still did it. Knowing I was sanitizing the mail. I did it without anybody getting suspicion. Oh, I was looking for my

friend who was going to make a donation, you know, whatever lie I told. But it was really sanitizing and making sure nobody found undisclosed debt relationships or credit card relationships. Yeah. And it was evil and it was wrong. I see. So you didn't want other people opening the mail discovering funny business. And today that's a technique. I still teach and help. Right. Or when you're setting up on a company. Yeah. And another company. But you ever do that? It's like maybe you had a situation in your life where you were like, you know this is going to end well. Yeah. Yeah, I have. And that was horrific. And that was horrific. And then, you know, so that I had a bunch of people that love me.

And the irony is they probably would have helped me. I probably if I would have said, I'm addicted to oxygen. I haven't a fair of doing this. They probably would have six months sabbatical and brought me right back if I got therapy and dinner. But I was too embarrassed. You're a pastor from San Diego. Of course you got a pill problem and you're getting strange, dude. This is what mega churches in San Diego are known for.

So, okay. Yeah. So it was bad for you. But around the time, this is what. what gets so fascinating. When I was reading your Wikipedia bio, this was like, you became like the Catch Me If You Can type of guy. You in the early 2000s started looking into companies committing much the same kind of fraud that Z carpet was committing back of the day. And you were making money out of it. No. You weren't making money out of it. Not one dime. Not at the

beginning anyways. Not at all. I'll tell you about that. first of all, the whistleblower program with the SEC didn't start until 2011, and it wasn't retroactive. Okay. So there was no rewards. Okay. Other than, you know, a nice pat on the back. Right. But I never made one dime, but benefited from the attention or publicity that I'd do a book, so indirectly.

Okay. But certainly getting threatened by people. Right. Yeah. So tell us. My guy, I met a hell's angel in prison. Badass. Mm-hmm.

Good dude, though. came to me one day, almost got me indicted for, he said, would you buy me a cashier's check? And two weeks later, the FBI said, why did you buy a cash? I said, how would you know that? You red flagged. I said, well, it was for a legitimate. He said, you're fine.

But he said, I want to invest in this factoring company. They're offering 12% a quarter. And I said, okay, what do you want me to do? He goes, well, you teach the FBI. You went to Quantico. You teach people how to uncover fraud. I said, yeah, but I don't believe any of that crap. What are you talking about?

He goes, you need to check this investment thing because I'm not going to put $250,000. And it was all cash. He was going to put any of them, satchel. Yeah, yeah. Bike over to the side. I'm like, bro, I'll check it out for you. No charge. He goes, no, I got you.

So I'm like, this is probably fine. Now, as a crook at Z-best, I did a factoring fraud. And I learned very quickly that when you factor receivable, there's always a UCC1 public record filed against that receivable, giving the lender right to lean so you don't double pledge and they have a legal right to what they've. I start looking at, I can't find any UCC ones. They're supposed to have all these customers, doing all these loans, generating enough profits to, turns out to be a $100 million fraud.

You can Google it. MX factors Barry Minco, 2003, my first case, 100 million. Wow. And they were trying to, your friend was about to dump. I called the guy right when I knew it was a crime and I wasn't going to turn any. I was going to let it go. I said, dude, you don't know me. And I'm not tripping about what you're doing.

I don't care. However, you have somebody who I know very well and he will kill you if you lose his money. I know this is a fraud. I'm not even tripping, dude. You know what he said to me? You're an ex kind. You don't know what you're talking about. Go.

And then his lawyer wrote me a threatening letter. My wife got it. Lisa, 2003, FedEx, to our Imperial Beach House. she freaked out. I said, okay, this guy's done. Yeah. So I went to the SEC's office and had a report. And I remember the guy saying, well, normally we don't take people off the street, but you are an infamous crook and probably know what you're talking about. And they shut them down. Was it hard fraud or soft fraud? It was hard fraud. Because when you're hard fraud being that they had no customers. Right. So where were they generating the returns? Other people's money. Brian, he knows. Peter, Paul. You said, Peter. Yeah. They're taken from Peter. to pay Paul. Wow. So meets the papers, right? All the papers. And you can Google it. MX factors bury me. And then all of a sudden somebody calls me, said, Mr. Minko, I just read about you.

And I have an investment. $300 million fraud, James Lewis, financial advisory consultant, all within six months. Yeah. And I'm like, I think I found a new gig, but I was pastoring, but here's what happened. All of a sudden, the taste of attention, even if it was for a good thing, caused me to be double. double-minded with my ministry and my priority, which was the church and the people that I did funerals, hospital visits, weddings, and it wasn't enough anymore. And that's when the evil started. And it led to four felonies a day devastating people. But here's the thing. When I did my time on the church seven plus years and my kids grew up without me and it was in this last bit, when I got out, an FBI agent who asked me to speak at his thing said, do you know the only reason you're here?

I said, because I know the topic. Lots of guys know the topic. But in both instances of your horrific impaired judgment, you did your time. And in where you served wasn't always pretty, you got hammered. I respect that you did your time. If you didn't do time, you wouldn't be here. You did seven and a half years twice for two white collar crimes. And I respect that.

So you get a do-over. But don't do it again. But they respected the fact that you can't burn down a Wendy's and not get time. You can't shoot up a police station and not get time. When you're me, like I always tease my friends and say, if Barry Minko was running the Reg D offering, they'd already be shut down. Okay, why did these people approaching you? Was it with these law enforcement?

Yes. This was, why couldn't they catch these guys? They just couldn't read the books as well as you? Like why? So hold on. Give me the time period you're discussing so I can accurately. This time period. This when you're, when you start to get these.

Oh, when I came out the second time? Yeah, when you know, when you're starting to get. Oh, the first MX factors. They didn't know about it. See, look at the law enforcement, here's what crooks know. Law enforcement is hopelessly overwerex. When there's no perception of detection and there's no perception of prosecution, that is the perfect environment for rolling investors.

And I mean people's moms, grandmothers. So that's why I still do it to this day because there is no perception of detection, no perception of prosecution. And then you had well-meaning law enforcement. They just can't know about every deal. And this financial advisory, $300 million. My biggest case was 12 daily pro that the SEC wrote my judge at sentencing and said,

so the judge was like, hold on, you're being busted for insider trading from the SEC. And somebody in the LASCC office just wrote a letter saying he uncovered, it's a public record. Wow. You uncovered over a billion dollars in fraud. Mr. Minko,

when you get out and you will, stick to uncovering fraud. Stay away from the public companies. You can't resist temptation. What was that one? What was the $12 billion? No, it was a $580 million. 12 daily pro it was okay gotcha tell us about that kid it was just a freaking Ponzi scheme uh where you invest in 10 days later you get your money it was the least sophisticated of anything we ever uncovered and the most money the one they made a movie out of was Derek Turner turning international I went undercover in the Bahamas never made a dime for the FBI the guy got um and this almost got me killed when I was in Lexington but the guy got uh uh it was offering

37% annual returns internationally, and I found an article in a New Zealand paper that he had done it before. The FBI wouldn't take the case. Attorney General in New York, I finally found the article, went to the AG in New York, he took the case. Long story short,

he got 20 years, he got out. Then I went in and he wrote me letters in some smack he wrote. Wow. And then he committed suicide when he got out, sadly, because I didn't want to see that, but they did a movie in New Zealand. And somebody played me where we uncovered this fraud because it was huge news.

And what was that company purporting to do? Turning International was an investment company, Derek Turner, Google it, New Zealand movie Turning International, Barry Minco. And 37 percent. And I said to saying true, and he hit my church up. And the FBI created fraudulent bank statements for me showing we had $2 million on deposit to prove that we could invest so that I could get misreps from them. Right. Oh, wow. What of the irony of that? So all that time we were with the restoration jobs creating phony banks,

David's. I remember Matt Galeoti who was a special agent, he hands to me this. I go, what's this? He goes, well, it's a bank statement showing $2 million. Derek Turner wants to see it. I said, this is so ironic. The FBI giving me a fraudulent, hey, you guys don't do bad work.

Where were you in Z-Best? He goes, I was two. Wow. So you're not getting paid for this. Never got a dime. You're just doing it for the rush and the attention. I don't know. No, here's why I was doing it.

Because when you're uncovering 14 cases and it's over a billion, it makes your sexual addiction affair and intermingling funds and undisclosed loan relationships all okay because I'm doing good, Johnny. It was far more valuable than money. There was no vehicle to pay whistleblowers, period. I didn't make a dime. So now whistleblowers who do similar things, get paid from the government.

Supposedly. You think that Boeing whistleblower got murdered? Oh, I don't know enough about the case to comment. But if Brian says so, I'd be willing. Google that, Brian. If Brian says he was, then I'm tend to go with Brian. So how many of these did you do before you started to actually make money out of it? And meaning how many cases of fraud did you uncover of the civilian?

I went to prison in 2011. I didn't get out until 18. So I did seven and a half more for insider trading. I don't know how many cases. How many of these fraud cases did you help the feds bust? Which time? Around this time period. Before you create FDI.

16. No, no. Between 2002, 2003 and 2010, 16 cases. Rainmaker in New York, our case. Now, when 60 minutes, 60 minutes to 2005, Steve Cross documents like 11 or 12. And then after 60 minutes, it's called low-hanging fruit. people would call me. Right.

And so I was more lucky than good. But we still had to uncover them. And I remember the Rainmaker case in New York, they threatened me. Everybody threatens me. What was the Rainmaker case? Real estate fraud, we got it at that. What did it look like? What kind of fraud?

Oh, 25% returns nursing homes, something or other. I'm like, you're a crook. And so they're just- The lawyers threaten me just like M-X-Factors lawyers. Lawyers are always threatening me. So it was a real estate company on Wall Street that was raising. money guaranteeing a return and it was all. They weren't on Wall Street.

They were in New York, but they were private. They were the latter day equivalent of Reg D real estate offering. And was that was that soft fraud or was that just made up paper? They're just making it. Skin of the truth stuffed with the lie. Did they have nursing homes? Yes. Did they, were they able to sustain 25% annual returns to investors?

Not in a zillion years. Did Z-Best really do carbon? That's why people believe it. Skin of the truth. There's these real these reg estate Real estate deals. They really do have some buildings. They make it no dang money.

And are they telling investors, we guarantee you a return? So this is the- Because that's so why? It seems such a red flag now. Targeted. So these finessed $900 an hour regdy lawyers, real estate lawyers, that collect fees

that have template offering memorandums. They just put a different name in. and disclosures that prevent an investor from suing if they lose money because we said targeted. Look at the risk factors. So it's the perfect scam. You can't know what I'm doing. You can't hold me accountable. You can't sue me when I lose your money.

It is a total scam. And you know who's getting rich? Not just the promoters, but you said it. I believe it is the biggest unprosecuted aiding and abetting fraud I have ever seen is the lawyers that represent these companies that they know are doomed by design. They're just collecting a fee. We're not responsible. Sure you are.

You created the language preventing victims from recovering money that they lied and deceived to obtain. But they crossed just enough T's dot just enough eyes to say, we said the word targeted. We didn't use guaranteed. Never will you see guaranteed. Ironically, in the course of doing this, as a civilian working with the feds, helping them prosecute these cases, you're kind of bill. building up goodwill for when you yourself get busted the second time.

You know what I mean? Yeah, but I wasn't thinking. It didn't. No, but it worked out that way. No, it did not. It caught me. The FBI in Miami was so pissed at me for betraying. Because I traded on FBI information that I got on in somebody else's account.

They were livid. Oh, I see. I violated a position of trust any given a day. It kind of evened out. No, they, prosecuted me to the fullest. Okay. They were pissed.

But they were rightfully pissed because just like the church, and you know what, I'll never forget the U.S. attorney said, Johnny and the sentencing, Mr. Minko squandered his second chance. I went to prison with that on my mind, and I'll never forget, Pastor John Woodfield, African-American pastor in Luxemis, Mississippi, said to me, still friends to this day, I told him about that. He goes, why does that bother you? I said, because she's right.

He said, Barry, as only John Whitfield could say. You have a God of another chance. You're long past a second chance before you ever went to Miami. We worship a God who gives you another chance. I don't care how many times you've blown it. 70 times seven, brother. Don't listen to what that prosecutor said. Do your time.

And you have a God of another chance. He's not counting. He's not keeping score. He doesn't grade on a curve. That's why Christianity rules. You can just keep fucking up. No, you can't. They cut your head off.

By the way. There's consequences. You get hammer. Well, when I did evil, the consequences for 15 years. I didn't get away with shit. No, that's fair enough. Okay, so tell us how, tell us when you went bad the second time and because I just loved reading about this.

You created FDI. What a hater, dude. Did you hear that, Brian? What? I said I loved reading about this. Oh, I thought he said, okay. No, no, I, I, you know, it got my own criminal, uh, inclinations buzzing because uh, you start to make money out of this and it's brilliant. How did you start to, you know, as you're getting insider information about

Oh, the public companies, I see what you're saying. You're looking at companies. So that was a hedge funds, yes. You're looking at companies balance sheets and trying to determine if they're fraudulent. No, it's different. Let me, let me see. The verbal life case.

Come on. Oh, my God. You can't mention that. I'm bound to not talk about that. But there were cases with multi-level marketing companies that all remain nameless. Or I'll just, they'll say. But I want to know what you're looking.

I'm going to tell you. Okay, go ahead. So I uncover all these frauds. I get invited to speak in New York and I think it was 2006. And a guy comes up to me and he says, Barry, what translates into public companies that you're doing? I said, what are you talking about? He goes, you uncovered like 17 frauds. I saw you in 60 minutes.

2005. I said so. He goes, maybe it's time. You cross over and show me, I'm a hedge fund guy, what companies. in the public realm are doing crime. And so he goes, what area would you look at? Oh, I said, without question, I'd look at one area. He goes, what area?

And I said, multi-level marketing. And he said, why? I said, because the failure rate's 99%. You're not incentivized by retailing a quality product. You're incentivized by recruitment of people into a doom by design, business opportunity, disguised business opportunity, that delivers a blow to them that they often don't recover from financially. Because right when they think they're going to have an income opportunity, they're hit with some cosmetic vitamin or whatever that promises like a

God and pays like a devil. He goes, well, can you be a little more specific? I said, what do you have in mind? So he said, why don't you find one? So I found a company and I spent six months. putting together the 300-page report that the Wall Street Journal published. Let me just say this. In every instance with multi-level marketing companies, even the Metafas case, which I knew I was getting indicted, so I never lost. In Metafast, I dropped my website. They still sued me.

I won in federal court, even though I was indicted. And they said, no problem. He's going to get indicted for the church stuff. And no appellate court will hold up. We want an appeal. So we never lost in court. Everyone sued. We won them all across the board,

anti-slat motions federal court. And then we ran up against Lenar. And they kicked my ass. Hang on, Barry. Hang on, Barry. You got to just,

just because this is complicated stuff. I need you to pretend on the cops and answer my question. Because this is, got it. You know what I mean? Like I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible. You're looking at these companies,

finding fraud. Then you are using that information. I wrote a report. I wrote a report. gave it to the hedge fund, and they lied about how much they were going to give me. I found out that the companies lie about the hedge funds, and the hedge funds lied about the companies. I'm like, why would that surprise me? I lied everybody, too at the time. So you were planning on getting money from the hedge fund. Why did they want you to write up this report?

So they could short the stock zillions of dollars. And they probably did. And I had no way to prove what they did or did. Oh, we didn't get in on the trade. It's kind of like the rolling gross in movies. You grossed a billion, but you didn't make no money because the accountants at the studio sharpened their pencils and by the time they got done expensing everything, you actually went in the hole, even though you grossed a billion. Same thing on Wall Street. Okay, wow.

So for people that don't know, you can make the traditional way to make money from a company on the stock market is to... Betting that stock go up. ...is to buy it hoping the stock goes up. You can also short it, and what you're doing is betting

that the stock's going to go down. So let me give a clue. You have puts and calls. Everybody thinks it's, you short a stock. Hey, bro, in the option market, call up, put down. They've always existed.

When you buy a put, you're betting the stock to go up or down, put down. When you buy a call, call up. So, Barry Minko didn't create short selling, neither did the short sellers. If you ever bought a put, you're a short seller at that particular time. Yeah. So it's totally legal. And people make billions and they're about to betting against the stock market and the recession we're going to go into. There's people shorting.

but your insider knowledge would then be used to create like a public event that would tank the stock, right? Here's the problem. I was a horrible timer of trading. So the first case I did, the stock was at like 47. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to start working on the part. I'm going to short it. And this is the... Don't mention a name.

Okay, but it was a multi-level market. Okay, got you. And the stock's at 47 right now. The time. Can you name the hedge fund? that hired you to do this? No, I could if I remembered, but they're, they'd lied. But anyway, okay.

Why, I don't, listen, what did C.S. Lewis? What did C.S. Lewis? What did they say about C.S. Louis? C.S. Lewis never criticized anyone, and he never responded to his own critics. So, let's try to play it that way. The, Johnny, I bought it at 47 and shorted it. The freaking stock went up to 60 by the time the report was done. I barely drew even on the trade and the stock tanked the first day. So how did this,

stock tank. My report. I was able to convince the Wall Street Journal to publish it. And that's how you get the stock to tank. Back in the day, today he just used Twitter. Right. Do you think that goes on now in the Twitter digital age? So I think today there are many great, well, Hindenberg research.

Google them. They just hit ICON. Icon's what, 30 billion. And they proved that he was running a podcast. Hansi scheme to generate returns in a fund. Google it. And the U.S. Attorney didn't go after Hindenburg. They went after Icon.

Carl Icon. Google it. It's the most fascinating. That's how good these research firms are. Right. So today, I think law enforcement correctly looks at people like Hindenburg, Wolfpack, Chanos, and all the rest, Blue Orca, as defenders of the, the, investing public by exposing what law enforcement doesn't have time. And by the way, I know a lot of

these short sellers. You know what they do, Johnny? Yeah. They cooperate with law enforcement when they find something and they give them a heads up. Sure, they do it for the whistleblower reward. Right. But they do it. And it gives the law enforcement people, I think it's a win-win. If you're not lying, you ain't got nothing, you're tripping. Yeah, you've done all that work. You've exposed the bad company. If you're a legitimate company, what do you care? Right. You got nothing high. So is that illegal? Is that considered insider trading? to short the stock to do what you did? No, I never got busted.

No, never once. Wow, okay. Never once. I want to do this. You can, listen, here's what you do responsibly. You find a company whose fundamentals are materially off. Look at research companies that you don't have to become one. Just follow them.

And when they issue a report, you're right there. And you can get tips and you make your own decisions after you read the information. You know what the beauty of Wall Street? today is, is transparent in the sense that in real time you can find out anything. Back in the day, you couldn't. Right. And what should you be looking for if, like, you wanted to get in?

Revenue recognition. You should be looking for industries that are dependent upon things that are quickly becoming extinct, like robocalling or, you know, advertising that it's going to be banned. Yeah. You know, things that cause and effect issues. Yeah. But, but you know what? You don't have to guess because you got Hindenberg and Wolfpack and Blue Orca and you got all these great, brilliant guys that do the research for you, just go on their email list and you're hooked up.

Right. So you're not doing, so this is not illegal. This reverse pump and dump, right? The shorting of the stock is not illegal. We want every case. We never, the only securities fraud I did inside of training, Lenar. Right. And Lenar, tell us about this.

So the guy who got OJ convicted civilly, Dan Petruchelli, also represented the president of Enronron. went to the Supreme Court. Yeah. And brilliant a lawyer. We hated each other. He represented Linar.

I represented. And Linar's a big home builder. Like a billion dollar. Good guys in the sense. Listen, when I was, I did everything evil. I even hired somebody to try to hack their computers. So there were no co-defendants, just me. So in the first case, I'm the head guy.

In the second case, I'm the only guy. So we're at, I pled guilty and Petralli comes up and said, did you have, yeah, I thought so. And he said, no hard feelings. We fought, you pled guilty. It's over. It ain't personal for us. And at sentencing, the president of Lenar, Stuart Miller, came to Miami courtroom. Shook my hand before I said, the government wants me to talk smack about you.

Not doing it. Okay, but what were you doing illegal? So I took information about Lanar that I knew from criminal FBI probe, traded on it, and used inappropriate techniques to investigate Lenar to add to that criminal case, then traded in somebody else's name. And I'm at the U.S. Attorney's Office. I said, yeah, but I didn't make any money on those trades. They're like, just because you're a lousy trader, doesn't mean you're not guilty of insider trading.

So I'm like, where do I sign? So you can not make money and still be convicted of insider trade. You know what they said? You caused a $600 million victim impact. I said, now you're on dope. They said, no, Barry, we're not saying you got 600 cents. We're saying their stock dropped because of your reputation. When you released your report, two points.

That recovered the next day. But we're going to get you for, do you know what the guidelines are in $600 million under the new law? So you go ahead and you go to your church and we'll get you in six months, no bail and life without. I said, where do I sign? Right. Were you up to that point, what other illegal things were you, doing co-mingling funds tax fraud insider trading primarily and this was within the church all the same period yeah it wasn't like i got out and in and it was it was a conspiracy that uh was between

san diego and florida right one conspiracy nine years running and that was six years running and that was what lanar tax fraud insider trading commingling funds embezzlement whatever okay what were you what was the main revenue generator of all of those illegal? None of the above. So you were making any money? The irony. Yeah. So what I did do, yeah, no, no, it was, right, crime doesn't pay, but that's the point

was, it was always the cure. I was always the next trade, the right hedge fund that's not going to rip me off, or I won't miss time the trade, or I won't be so desperate for cash that I have to get out early. I made other people money legit. One trade. Oh, there was one trade. On one case, when a reporter called me and said, what if you were to find out that this particular company,

the SEC is going to know action, meaning they're not going to do anything, even though you said to a report, I thought it's Thursday afternoon. If that information was going to hit, he'd probably print on Friday. He never gave me any information. He was the above-reproach guy.

I got an instinct. Instead of going short, I bought 20 grand in calls, made 1.1 million on a trade. Fully reported, paid the taxes. Government knew about it, never got charged for it because they knew that reporter never gave me insider information. I just knew. And sure enough, the next day, they released,

and their stock went from 38 to 50. And I was on the calls. So the irony of my biggest short, I made most of my money out of call. And how do you infiltrate? These are just people that are giving you tips. No, no, no. You, uh, when you say identity, like, how do you choose which company to identify to investigate?

I, I did it by the law of compartmentalizing, meaning we who perpetrate fraud do not lie, cheat, steal in a vacuum. If we do it in one area, it's going to spill over in another when it serves its best purposes for us. So if you're, for example, lying to people normally and regularly as a business, model by saying we have a business opportunity that they know by absolute math over a sustained period of time that 99.5% fail and less than 1% get 90% or 98% of all the commissions paid that you can continue to promote that business opportunity you're a crook and you're going to lie somewhere else and I just need to find it right but how do you initially find which companies are doing that.

I'd look for anyone in an industry that is spurious at best, multi-level marketing. Wow. Okay. So you were going after the MLM space. And then I went to, then I got called in because a banker got hit on a loan. Lanar owed his client money.

The bank was going to go under. He said, can you save the bank? And I'm like, I'm a hero. And I got my butt kicked. Wow. But I learned. What we learned in prison, I never underestimate anyone.

Right. I learned that you, I thought, I had a lot of false bravado because I had a lot of success with the MLMs. And then I met the builder. Whole another league.

Lanar. Beast. Beast of a company. And they kicked my... And you know, Petro Jolie said, next time you're going to take somebody like us on, don't have an addiction to Oxycontin steal from commingle funds.

And leave yourself open. He goes, you need to have a clear head when you go after fraud. Yeah. So why? And you went after Lenar. Were they involved in any kind of fraud? No.

I was. And you're convinced of that? That's all I'm going to say. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Did you go after anybody else that it turned out was clean? No.

So you were right. We were. Someone argue I was right about Lenar. Some people visit me in prison. I'm like, I went to prison. I'm guilty. By the way, even if you think I was right on the facts, I lied, cheat, stole, hacked.

Oh, I, oh, I, oh, I, Big fan of the Rockford files, so I would call and pretend I was like the president of Lenard just to get their bank balances and insider information. That's like a felony pretexting. Here I am the pastor of a church. Wow. I was pretexting to infiltrate. Wow.

Were you also raising money from other people saying, hey, look what I can do. I'm getting all this insider information. We're going to, let's raise a million bucks so we can short this company. Anything like that? There were two people at the church that had invested in the movie side. that were true victims that were repaid by insurance proceeds. What do you mean? When you say that, they were true investors.

True victims, I would say. True victims. The guy who funded my movie, Jeff, sorry, don't want to use names. Nicest, most wonderful guy in the world who believed in me. And in 2009, when I was on the height, uncovering all the fraud, center of attention, we did a movie and he funded it. Business plan, he was going to get paid. but right after it was in post-production,

I got busted by Lenar for insider trading. So he's left with worthless. So they sued. And before I went to prison, I called his lawyer and said, I want to settle. I'll give him all the rights. I'll do whatever I can to help him.

I'm totally wrong. He was the nicest, most wonderful guy. And when I went in prison, there were certain people I had no trouble doing time for. You didn't have that experience, but for me, when you think of victims,

certain victims, like your church family, your family, my sons, my wife, the people I hurt the most. When I was in prison, if I ever thought about complaining, I just thought of them. I was straight. So you were raising money from people in your congregation? One or two, no, just one or two, but the one was a huge amount of money. But he never sued the church. I see.

Not him. He sued me correctly. Okay. So you were basically just using your own funds to either short or call on the hedge fund. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was a terrible trader. Okay.

There was other hedge funds that helped. Oh, interesting. So there was. But I still managed to some out. You know what? I probably, you know what? To be all fair, I would say, counting the trade on the upside in between 2007 and 2011, probably a million one in gross.

And when you count legal fees, investigator fees, hours, I probably spent two. So I'm upside down. Right. On your fraud. or on your insider trading. Absolutely. Yeah. But it wasn't really fraud you were doing at this point.

Or would you consider what you were doing fraud? Well, yeah, but I leveraged. The government didn't like a bit of it. They said you're using your influence. Right. Incredibly to benefit yourself. I'm like, and well, it's not illegal. It's just, you know.

How many companies before you got busted did you use this tactic on? Five. Five companies. That's it. Okay. So these would take a while to look into. Oh, yeah. We were thorough.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I had a teams. I had a forensic account. Oh, you did? Oh, yeah, I had a great team. So you guys are... I like my team now.

So you guys are scouring the books? Yeah. What do you, like, what do you need the team for? I, we do not try to redo auditors work. We have highly specific looks. For example, if you are in the lending business, I want to know how much bad debt you have, secured, unsecured. I want to know what's securing the lending. I want to know if the UCCs are filed.

if you're a factor. So we know where to look for industry-specific things. Failure rates, disclosures on failure rates. Marketing materials that contradict-oh, anytime you write a letter to the government and say one thing about your entity, and in a marketing material you say something else, that's our best evidence.

Right. Same thing. MLMs do that all the time. Right, right. And sadly, the direct sellers association is the most powerful lobby, one of them on Washington. And they fund a lot of politicians to make the FTC turn the other cheek on the most heinous activity that devastates the people, churches. You remember that you have infiltration of nonprofits with this stuff.

And it destroys relationships. It makes you double-minded money or church. It's bad. And it's the, you know, that's why. you know what you run out of people so they go to China where you never run out of people the expansion you see in Latin America Europe and China is what do you think they're just no they churned through most of America because how many people when they hear Amway are over they're not public so you can talk bad about that but they're we remember oh oh it's horrible so so multi-level

marketing companies are going to these places with huge populations developing countries and affinity hey my if i'm a Latin yeah i'm in a business and I invite you as my Latin brother. There's an affinity there. Right. And they exploit the hell out of it. And they're pitching themselves as financing. We're going to make you financially free. You're going to quit your J-O-B. Oh, my God. You go to these rallies and it's all great. Right, right. Yeah. And they, and really, here's what it is. Feel, don't think. Don't think critically. Don't ask for, am I incentivized to sell a quality product or am I push to recruit? Right. That, that, that's, That's the test for legitimate versus illegal.

Am I supposed to exploit family and friends? Make a list? What do you mean make a list? Customers? Why would I go to my mom, sister, brother, and damage that relationship by pitching of a doomed by design? But that's the damage. Right.

And you go to uneducated or poor countries where people are more desperate. I mean, those are your perfect victims. China. Funny. My expert for multi-level marketing. most brilliant guy on the subject. Doug Brooks, Robert Fitzpatrick. China in 2008 passed a law banning because of Fitzpatrick's work,

our expert we used, multi-level marketing up to level three, meaning you could be a direct seller, but you can't multi-level market. Now, China did it because they don't want rallies of 10,000 people or more. But I'm talking about 2008, China, not today, China. But to the credit of China, even they saw it for what it was,

but you still had people. We proved. We called a cheating in China investigation. We caught multi-level marketers in U.S.-based public companies cheating in China and infiltrated them, got them on tape and exposed them. Wow. Wow. We did.

We worked. So you're doing all this. You know, some of it is, yeah, there's definitely some moral ambiguity here because you're doing a good thing. I mean, these are evil entities run by evil people. Right. But I hear I am a past. and I'm leveraging the goodwill. Now, by the way, I shouldn't feel guilty.

It wasn't like I made any money off the uncoverings. It says you were embezzling the church. Can you tell us about that? The commingling of funds between my personal account, FDI, the church, oh, I'll write the credit card. Oh, I'll repay it, undisclosed debt relationships, all that stuff. And, you know, the government did say he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars back and forth.

So, yes, that story holds up, but it's still criminally illegal. what I did was abhorred and wrong, but it amounted mostly to tax fraud. And explain that, how are you? So whether it was giving somebody a tax right if they weren't entitled to. A what? Tax right if they weren't entitled to.

Or income that I had booked as an expense in my personal return that was really commingled funds. So it wasn't, that was a significant portion of the indictment with the IRS. Really? So it was a $3 million restitution, but there was a huge reduction in the restitution the day after the sentencing.

So it was about two. I think the victim made back church when you count the loans, tax fraud, it was $2 to $3 million range. Linar, $680 million. Right. But it wasn't real there. It was more real church. Right. Because that's real money.

Correct. That's why I have no problem. And so I have been paying restitution without missing, and I have no problem doing it. I still pay Lenar too. Oh, wow. And you're going to be, I mean, it's five and a half years. I haven't stopped, but I started Unicorn in prison, 50%. Never stopped paying restitution.

Even though I did my time, doesn't make up for the fact that I still need to pay restitution. So you're going to pay off until you die? $600 million. It's 15 years, I think. Okay. But I have no problem paying. Okay.

How much you have to pay every month? We made some deal with the government, but I have four restitution orders. Florida, San Diego, I, even though the church is criminal IRS, predominantly. That's the lead victim, not, you know, the criminal IRS through the church. But it's separate from the civil IRS from 2009 tax returns. So I pay church, IRS, Linar, and state of California. I'm almost paid off.

How did you come under? State of California, not the six. But by the way, even, but you know what? the the the it's it's a lot of money you can make a house payment or certainly a car payment every month it's meaningful it's not tax deductible and it's a good testimony i believe and my probation officer i'm not on probation anymore of course but i think it was a good example that um i think in our in the worldview of christianity there's a white color criminal like zikias and he's like he was a huge tax director and he got met

crisis, he's like, okay, I'm going to pay everybody back. Never got asked to do that. He just did it on his own. Right. The fruits of being sorry is you pay. Yeah, good karma. Sure. You pay. Yeah. How did they come on, how did you come on their radar? Because you're working with the feds. Oh, no, I was so. So how did they, they were also investigating. Lanar hired Lenar. Uh-huh. They, Lenar had a U.S. attorney in Miami to go lobby the U.S. attorney in Miami. How about this? I was guilty.

So let's just leave it at that, no matter how they got, but it was Lenar. They had home court advantage. Remember, the first indictment, the first domino was Miami U.S. attorney. Then I admitted to everything, because I had no co-defendants.

What was going on in Miami? Insider trading. That was where you were investigating. That was it. That's where you were investigating Lenar. Yes. And I thought they were calling me to say, we're going after Lenar and shocking.

Yeah. No, it's you we're going after. Wow. So did you know the arrest was coming or they popped you right there? No, when I went to, I'll never forget, I went in February 2011. And that's when the bad decision started when I knew I was getting indicted. Instead of facing my kids, my kids, I ran to Tennessee with my wife and kids instead of facing the music because I had been at 88. I'm like, here we go again. And that was a cowardly move to do based on how well I had been treated by the church. But I just couldn't face the media and all the people I had let down. Shame. Wow. So you fled the church without a word? No, no.

I, I submitted a resignation letter. I, you know, people knew. I moved. But it was still a punk move. Straight up punk move. Went to Tennessee. And that's how come I got designated to FMC. Lexington. And then Lisa and the boys ended up moving back.

She divorced me when I admitted while in custody to being unfaithful because I had a buddy in prison say, you got to start fresh, which means the truth. I'm like, come on, man. Truth enough, I'm in prison. Yeah. No. You need to. So you build another foundation.

So the greatest thing that ever happened was that. So let me just tell you real quick. So I'm in prison, 2011, 2011, 2018. The most amazing thing happens to me. I'll never forget it. I'm in Atwater camp. I had been in four and a half years, did Ardap. I worked my way to a camp.

My sons are 11, twin boys. They went in when I was seven. I got out when they were in ninth grade. We're sitting in the vision room, Lisa and I, because we won the appeal on the Metafas case, I split the money with her. So we were starting to talk again. She had already filed for divorce.

It was final. But she never remarried or anything like that. And I had always prayed. My friends always said, you're going to get your family back. I'm like, you're crazy. You don't know how bad they hate me. Mary, God is bigger than Google.

Never forgot that. So I'm sitting in the vision room in Atwater, and my son Dylan, who's not known for speaking a lot, said, Dad, I'm 11 now. I said, I know you look, you look great, son. He said, I have a question. I understand what happened. When we left San Diego, I didn't understand, but now I understand. Do you mind if I asked you a question? I said, absolutely.

He said, the church grew doing five services a weekend. You were uncovering fraud. You were on TV all the time. And then you did something unfaithful of mom and broke her heart. And you committed crimes, even though you're uncovering crimes. And it seems to me like you had all this and then you lost it. And he said, why did you do that? And Johnny in my life.

there was never a time where I couldn't have a witty quick comeback. And the irony of what he said was the famous story of Jonah running from God. He's on a boat and the bottom. And they have a storm and all these non-believing, he's like, guys, throw me overboard. What? I'm a prophet of God. I ran. You're going to be fine.

Just throw me overboard. I ran from God. and they look at him and they said, why did you do that? And so I looked at my son and for the first time in my life, I said, Dylan, your dad has no answer other than I am so very sorry that the decisions I made were selfish and evil, cold evil that destroyed mom and you and your brother. and I offer no defense other than an apology of how devastated it is to be here because prison is not where you are, it's where you aren't.

And it's like dying with your eyes open. You can't do anything. You see what's going on. You can't help. And son, I am so sorry. And I learned from that moment that whenever you defend, your past, it's over. Nobody believes you anyway. So I never, did you do that?

Yeah. Guilty as charged. My bad. You're right. Barry, you're a liar and you betrayed your church. Yep. Did seven and a half for that. Lost a lot.

Never do it again. But I met some great guys and I deserved more than I got. What's your next question? No defending. There is no defense. That's the irony. And when I said that to my son, I never knew that 10 years later,

I was in Connecticut last week and he's 21. And he's living at home with me and his brother. And he's got a daughter and he's a lord willing wife to be in him we're going through a difficult time, calls me at 11 o'clock. I go to bed early, I'm old. I mean, you and Brian are young, I'm old. Hardly. So Dylan calls me at 11 o'clock, and I'm in Connecticut on a business trip, and I'm exhausted.

Let me ask you a question. I looked at my phone. Do you think I answered that call? Johnny, just like you, I prayed for that call in prison that I get my family back. And God miraculously brought my wife and boys back. And they're now asking after five and a half years of watching me, diet, workout, work, love them, go to church every week with them, walk the talk. I'm back in their lives. And he said, Dad, can you help me? I'm going through a difficult time. And I said, son,

I am all ears. Yeah, that's awesome. That's all the dads want is to be useful. And when you're in prison, the hardest day is when your dad is Father's Day. It isn't Christmas. It's Father's Day. But I tell people, Johnny, good people don't go to heaven. Forgiven people go to heaven because everybody lives forever somewhere. And if you've blown it like I have, you're my people. If you're a liar, manipulator, if you're somebody who's failed at drug rehab, sexual addiction, and you have been cast out by society, you are my people. I am with you.

I live there. And I love you and I'm pulling for you. And that's why I do this to give people hope that all you said is true and it's much worse. If you knew the half of it. But the good news is, as you know, I mean, did you ever envision where you're at now? No, I guess not. Not, not, not, yeah, sorry. I thought it was going to be a movie star, to be honest with you.

Well, if I was six, six. And here I am podcasting out of a garage. The last chapter, folks, has not been written about Johnny yet. Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. I got another era in me for sure. So it sounds like your biggest issue was just being fundamentally honest, you know. But I lie about it.

Brian, that was funny. Do you think like you're going to get like Eddie Murphy here? It's me today, buddy. That's as good as it's going to get. I don't know who you're waiting for. So now you've, you did seven and a half off that off of. Second time. Yeah.

Yeah. And in my opinion, this second stretch was far less bad. But in terms of what you did, the crime. than what you originally got sent to prison for. Yeah, but it was way worse because I'm 21 and I'm in prison. So there's no, there's no expecting. Here, people trusted me. So the hearts I broke, the lives, the people I let down.

And your masquerading is a pastor. Well, no, I was a pastor. But a righteous pastor. Correct. Well, I didn't play that card either. I was up there. When I preached, you know, I kind of like almost was like confessional for me. And people dug that like.

Right. Right. Little did they know how much worse it really was. But I tried to like be, you know. And you're calling these companies out on YouTube and. Oh, but that was during the church thing. But yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. We did some creative things. Back when YouTube wasn't like. Right. Yeah. You could say whatever you wanted. Do whatever you wanted. Right. Well, it did. But I didn't get paid for that either. So you get out and here you are five years later. You got out in 2019. 2018, December. Oh, okay. Okay. So you did seven and a half, this second stretch. By the way, where were you? You were in a camp, but did you do any hard time?

Yeah. The hardest time was MCC San Diego, six months. That's locked down a lot. Is that a jail? Yeah. Okay. A lot of OKC time, jail. Two months.

FMC, Lexington, three and a half years, controlled movement. It was a level one through six because University of Kentucky, for the mid-Atlantic region, did USPs, FCIs, and Lowe's medical. So we had to have a yard that was cleared for... Yeah. Did you see any violence? Did you see any, like, gangster shit?

You know, being a white-collar guy in prison? Yes. Oh, yeah, especially in MCC, San Diego. Yeah? Yeah. Did you ever have to fight anyone? Please say no. I can't imagine Barry.

I can't imagine sweet pastor oxy cotton pastor Barry. Yeah. Having to get ones. Thank you. Definitely if I was in prison and you were the guy I had to fight with six six in that reach, it's not going to happen. Sorry. My scariest moment, FMC Lexington had 2,000 people in 2011, 2012 when I

went there, Johnny, the population was supposed to say 1,300. But hopelessly overcutter, right before the crack cloud changed. Right, of course. So I felt like everything was fine. I got there in September of 2011, and all of a sudden, Fortune magazine did a story. 12 pages, you're going to look it up online. It came out in December of 2011, early 2012, and they threw me in the shoe. 10 days.

Warden comes up, says, sign this piece of paper, we're not going to let you out of the yard. I said, why? She said, because your life's in danger, but probably not, you know, this is a softer place that's a big Sandy,

but still. Right. So you became basically famous from this article? No, I was a snitch in it. It would appear. So here's what happened. Remember the FBI undercover work?

Uh-huh. At FDA. So it had nothing to do with the case, but people in prison. Yeah. So I thought, nobody's gonna think that. I get out of the shoe, sign a piece of paper that whatever happens, it's on me.

And first thing I run into one of the mob guys, white townies, I can't talk to you anymore. I don't even come to me. And I start to get shot. I'm like, holy snikis. God. They move me to a Cardinal, which is the most violent unit from Anteus to Cardinal. We had Crack Alley on the third floor. What does that mean?

Crack Alley. Oh, it's just bad. It's fights in the bathroom on Saturday night. Yeah. There's only one entrance, one exit. So the cops were at a huge disadvantage. So haircuts, night, it was a nightclub atmosphere. Right.

Lights out. I mean, yeah. We can guess who a lot who's on that tier. Tattooing, a lot of tattoos, a lot of gambling. Yeah, yeah. A lot of gambling. So the church community and the African American community really stood by me like I had never seen when I got out because I was very, listen, everybody thinks are tough. prison and I was on the weight pile all the time and I had workout partners and they were friends

but when it's 10 to 1 or 5 to 1 it's not a movie it's bad it's bad so the prison is not that you know resilient jiu-jitsu or not because you're never going to get the opportunity that's a fair fight that's not going down they're hit you with the brougham and three guys and they're not going to lose so I'm not stupid but also I had not really caused anybody there any issues but it was But still the rep. So the article was interpreted that I was a snitch. So in Cardinal Unit, a guy comes up to me named Isaac Knapper. He's on my Facebook.

I always tell people to look. That way, you don't have to believe me. Go check. Nobody cares. Nobody believes anything on this show. Right. But that's why I tell him. So you can go look.

But he's wonderful. A Golden Glove champion, Angola State Penetertentiary, Louisiana State Penetertit. The toughest prison in the world. Literally. he was 20 years not guilty of a murder they let him go found that he wasn't guilty the daughter of the victim helped him get out but and so then he went into drugs years later it was just finishing out a federal bit he says you're barry with his louisiana accent he still calls me on the phone with that and i'm scared out of my mind because of the numbers against me and despite the people that the church were great and my other friends african-american community great workout partners great but still enough he said um I need your help with the book. I said, I'd be honored. He said, yeah, and I want you to take a walk with me.

So Isaac Napier was so badass that the lieutenant's office, his hands were registered. They talked to him every week because he would, I mean, he would train boxers, my friends, on the third floor illegally. He was amazing. He still is. And he's like 55, 60, whatever. And he was, wait, left her, took me from unit to unit. I didn't know he was going to do this.

And he said, this is Barry. my friend. You might have read about him. Listen, you morons. Mr. Minko never told on anyone. In his first case, he got 25 years. He has no co-defendants. He was a licensed private investigator who uncovered frauds that saved your grandmother and mother from losing their ass. Now, if you have a problem with him, come see me, but he's no snitch. None of his cooperation benefited him, not financially, certainly not with the government that's about to re-indide him. You'll read about that in a year.

So if you have an issue, come see me. And he saved my to this day. And everything changed. And the other And so were you still ostracized? No. Or did they, everybody brought you back in after that. So the other piece of advice is Jeremy Grammer, who looks like Kevin Costner, from

Fadville, Arkansas. Was very good with his hands. Crudy. Detective. So you don't want to be a detective, but everybody knew it. But nobody messed with him. He had earned his, he'd been there for years. He's out now, but did way too much time.

And he came to me and said, Barry, you need to get back out in the yard. I said, this is a day after I got released. I said, I'm not going back. Get back out on the yard and go to your weight pile. I'll do what you do. I said, why? He goes, because when bad stuff happens, people need to see that it's not going to knock you out of who you are. You are a weightlifter.

You work out. You have a routine. Nothing. None of these guys are going to knock you out of your routine unless you let them. It's critical. And I remembered that so that when I got out, some advice I give people is you got to get back out of the yard. And the equivalent to that for some people is don't quit church. Don't quit your program.

Don't quit your gym membership. Just because something bad, you got divorced, you got bankrupt, go back into business, figure out what you did wrong. Yeah. Don't quit. It was great advice in prison, believe it. Yeah, for sure. So that was the closest disaster. That's pretty amazing.

And the African-American community was like, it isn't just, oh, they were about the money. The people that rallied around me, still friends to this day, it's just amazing. You know what it is? It's a, first of all, we don't believe it. Second of all, we ain't tripping. And third of all, we know you. And it doesn't tie out to what we're hearing about you. So we're going to give you the better.

Black people are, I think, the most forgiving in this country. They've had to be. And the most. And the most to this day. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Huge fans.

So you got out. You're a big fan. I put that on the record. Barry Mincalf, a huge fan of the black community. No, no, they were fans of me.

And I am too, but they were to me. No, no, no. No, that was your first answer. Not really, you said.

Okay. We're going to let, we're going to do the replay. I let Brian determine the way. Okay. So now you're out. You got out at the end of 2018. how quickly did you fall back working as a private investigator?

So never. And what's going on now? Okay. You got some big cases, which we're going to talk about. Which we're going to talk about on the Patreon, by the way. So we, I get out and I work for a homeless service provider,

Hope of the Valley. They're now, Hope the Mission, wonderful organization. They were legitimately in an above approach way, trying to deal with the problem of homelessness. And you're broke, I assume.

Yeah. I got my family back, Lisa, me and the boys. Lisa and I remarried, like, less than a year after my release. Wow. And we lived on Tierra Street in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. And happy as could be. Yeah. And the dog, us, and then we moved to a two-bedroom and two-bath.

What are you doing for money? Hope of the Valley, full-time. And I'm working in a sports card division. My buddy owned the business gave me a job. It was great. Love here. him. And I'm watching television before COVID, and there's an advertisement on, like, radio shows and

TV that is just prolific. And it's a company called N-R-I-A, National Realty. And it was an 18 to 21 percent return. So I'm like, in real estate? I mean, but interest rates were low at the time, so maybe. Yeah. But I thought, I'm going to take a look at this. So I pretended to be a customer.

you know, didn't think anything of it. And everybody's like, they've been around for a long time. And I remember sharing something with somebody, Hope of the Valley, like, Barry, it's on TV. Of course, it's legit. And that's what I thought. Boy, I used to say that about Z-Best. I was on TV and I was a straight-up crook.

Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. That doesn't mean anything. But we, so COVID hits. I've become a manager of an emergency shelter in North Ottawa. And I start writing the report and researching. And reach out to a few of my old reporters that I knew and they're like, Barry, we're out of the game.

And you're looking into this company, this particular real estate, reet, real estate trust. Now you have whistleblowers. So I called the SEC in LA, my buddy Peter Del Greco did all my cases. He goes, Barry, can't take the case. I go, why? He goes, whistleblower laws. Everything goes through D.C.

Except that they'll sit on it. They won't do Jack Diddley. I don't want the money. Let's you and I just do this. He goes, it ain't like that no more. But he was the one who wrote the letter to the court. He always had my back. Friends did this day.

He's still at the SEC. So, okay. He still won't take my case. All right. What's going on? How did so... Anyway, long story short, I believe that these returns were untenable. I got, talked to my old investigator, Dave Pellegrinelli to help me.

He goes, you know what? There's probably a 50-50 chance that you're going to go back to prison. But I got you. Right. Because they thought you were just going to manipulate it again, an insider trade again. They're not public. Okay. So you can't insider trade on a private company.

At all. So why would you be going back to prison? Why would this guy insinuate that? He was just kidding? state. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Oh, this is fascinating. So you can't insider trade a public company, but you also can't sell stock either. But I never got in, that's why all those frauds before the MRIs, I never got a dime. I see. So today, so I go and I look at the company, and I said if I was a crook, what I do? Now, there was another whistleblower.

Can you whistleblower on private companies? That's the only one. Yeah, yes, you could do both. Okay. And you get a fee. The only way you can get pay, yeah, but you'll wait three to five years. Okay. And it'll take, if you're trying to meet payroll, being a proactive fraud and cover, you'll go broke. Right. There's zero money in it and it costs a ton up front in time, sweat equity. Right. And in the case of NRA, title reports. Because in order to prove they had undisclosed debt on properties, I had to pull title reports to show the loans. Right. And so I'm saying, well, they can't do this debt service. They're lying to investors about the stability of the company because I'm thinking, they're saying, hey, don't worry about it.

Your investment's real estate security. No, it's not. You've borrowed to the hilt. So the things that I go for as sources and uses of cash, so you look for over-encumbered properties, debt, that has to be paid back. And then you look for, how are they generating 18 to 21%? What is it that they're doing better than Buffett and Vanguard and Black Rock and everybody else? And the answer is they're not.

Yeah. And they're borrowing. Because even they're advertising. That's right. And they're also raising money professionally. Right. So remember, they're not just borrowing. They're raising money.

Equity. Right. Like actually cash. Always a new offering. Yep. And when you see somebody always raising money and borrowing, it's because there's a constant need of cash. Why, Johnny?

Because that thing that's supposed to be laying the golden eggs is not real. Right. They're not buying and selling properties at a profit. They're not managing. They're getting killed. Right. Their delays in their buildings, they have permits, and then we found the smoking gun.

The guy who was the, and Dave Pellegrinelli, to his credit, found it when we had background checks. One of the managers added a letter to his name so that when you pulled the letter out, it showed a pass fraud with a mobster, long story short. So Dave found it on social media, not on his bio.

And he had three of his kids there working at the company. All changed the spelling of their name. Satero or Cater, whatever his name was. I could look it out, but it's public record. And he purposely took a T out because with two T's. And then I learned about Google games. Google cleanup like you wouldn't believe. They paid SEO people tens of thousands.

to make sure you can never tie to no virgins, which was the old bankrupt company that the mobster that's in jail, Scalzano, and him are involved in. We found the connection. So we submitted the bankruptcy to connection and say, that's why he misspelled his name.

So little did I know there were other whistleblowers because you have hedge funds now. But like the SEC lady told me, she goes, you didn't know who they were. Your work is pure. You had no help. The other whistleblowers

on the other side of the country, your partners. Yeah. So how long did it take you to put together this package to give to the FBI? Eight months. And then how would that conclude? So my first one came up. First one, August 2020. By April, 2021, an article came out. The government took forever to, they knew it was a fraud. They didn't, they shut down in December 22. I brought in another reporter, Jacob At Adamen and Barron's. He got a award for covering it. Did they prosecute it? Criminally?

Absolutely. Absolutely, $650 million crime. Three are in jail, one ran. Wow. Only three years of jail for $650. No, no, no. Three in jail, the top guys. Scalzano got eight years a month ago.

You can Google it. N-R-I-A. Barry Minco fraud, whatever. But there was another whistleblower in the case that I didn't know about who's now my friend. I just saw him in New York last week. Wow.

But we didn't know each other. Yeah. And then Harbor City Capitol. Remember the congressman who just resigned? Uh-huh. Yeah. My case. Miami shut down. Bond case. 18 million. Boom, shut down. Then it was prestige equity. Boom. Shut down.

Okay. So, and now you're getting press again. So now the press is like, oh. But you're now you have people hitting you up with these cases. So here we go again. No. No. No, because this time around it became very painful to for people to write. I hate to admit that he's like good at this. I mean, the hater. But it's so. Okay, that's not why I was doing it. Right. So filing whistleblower claims little did I know that was a freaking, you know, you wait five, ten years. Still wait for nothing. But then one case led to another because on social media, it changed my algorithm. I learned that they, if you search for investment opportunities in reg D. Real, you'll get everybody. So if they're allowed to lie to me about how much I could earn, I'm allowed to lie to them about who I am to get the information.

Wow. And then I'd share it with authorities. And, oh, you should file a whistleblower. Yeah, you'll get right on that. Not a dime. 15 cases submitted. Now, since you got out. 15 cases, five shutdowns.

Aren't you worried that this podcast is going to blow your cover? Titanium capital. They don't know who am. I don't go in as me. Come on. I have all kinds. Now, now I have phones and we have a setup. Wow.

And we're good at infiltrating. So titanium capital got shut down a couple months ago. 5.4 million, Florida. My case. No media. My case, my whistleblower, my report, my TCR. Before that, Zara Financial, SCLA office. My report is, my addendums are in their filing. My case, shut down.

So, meaning, so finally, a dear friend on Wall Street said, you're going to work with me. I'm going to take you to the greatest whistleblower lawyer in the country, and he's going to represent you. I said he probably won't even talk to me. He goes, he'll talk to you. He took four months, analyzed our cases, and he represents us now. So after 2020, it's 2024, not a dime.

We have some in holding right now, IRS fighting, but a small amount. But all of them still, even the cases that we got shut down, take time. It does for everybody. So your fees are supposed to be whistleblower fees? That, but then, though, that's separate from what the government later would come to me. Okay. and say, we need your help on a certain case. And I said, why?

And they said, well, we need somebody who's a conniving, manipulative liar. And I said, is that supposed to be a compliment? No, they were actually kind. So. And so they're paying you now. So they say. Okay. So you have.

I turned it over to the lawyer. And I cooperate. They just let me do what I do. And they get mad when I push them to shut these people down. because when you prove hard fraud, Johnny, and it goes on a day longer, that bothers me. Yeah. Wow.

So you're now at least working with this, your Wall Street friend, so he can bankroll some of... He doesn't bankroll anything. Well, he offered to. So how do you finance your life? Because it's sweat equity. Oh, because I have the job. I do consult him for companies.

No, no, I'm good that way. But in the whistleblowing, yes, he would, but I know it's a long-term play. he's not a fund that has a deep pocket that could go to investors and say we funded Mr. Minko 15 cases, $2 million. But we're represented by this lawyer who says we have a likelihood to. And it's over five years. That's a long-term play and it's legit.

This guy is not that kind. He doesn't have a fun. I'm sure he would do it, but I ever asked. But he got me to someone. But remember what we do. Product of fraud and covering is mostly what, Johnny? well, ask you in time. Yeah.

When you do this and studying and research and because of the connections and friends, I have a team in India that I test with my team in America. They don't know each other. But to make sure I'm right, my India people, Benny, F the feds, we do this for you, but forget the feds. We hate that you work. It needs to be a hard time. But they don't understand the value there of cooperating.

It helps victims. Are you paying them out of your own pocket? How do you pay your team? Because I have clients that I do work for that aren't whistleblower clients. For example, I ran into a father and son disaster fraud team on a scale of which I had never seen that victimized somebody I love and care about for $33 million. And I'll mention their names. that the media it's shameful Johnny

that investigative reporting put me in jail correctly put Elizabeth Holmes in jail in 2015 but you have a father and son team that has destroyed state after state victim after victim in what business what industry health care right devastated lives

a trail of tax liens not paying their bills liens fraud allegations and fines by the U.S. Attorney's Office and not one article. If one Wall Street Journal reporter would say, you know, it's a pretty good story that wherever they go, fraud happens and they're a father and son team. Let me do a little digging. People would not have been devastating. Right. So you're really like the Batman of fraud on exposing. Yeah. You hope that it pays off, but you're really kind of doing it on the strength right now. Right. You know what? But we are getting in the position where we have 16 cases.

What are the top industries involved with fraud right now today in America? Top three industries? It's not even close. Regdy offerings, specifically multifamily real estate that, for the reasons we've been through, the trillions at stake, the literal zero accountability for the promoting. for the promoter to do whatever with your money and you have no control. And you're, oh, by the way, you forgot this. One of the most, we who perpetrate fraud learned from Madoff, we don't want to run on the funds.

You know what the Reg D real estate guys do with multi-family? They lock you in. You can't get your money out for five years or 10 years. Why? Well, the only thing that implodes me is a run on the fund because I don't have to be real money. Right.

It's based on nothing. So they lock you, out. Wow. So they know you have to be so the Reg D real estate world Wow. The crypto and

Forex untenable offered returns. We went after this company called TechBerry. I don't mind mentioning them. Well, FTX, Sam Bank from Freed is the most famous example of that, right? He is it's different because it's way different

because with Bankman-Fried, you had legitimacy and authenticity, and then you had malfeasance. Skin of the truth stuffed with lie. TechBerry, you don't get a proper noun. You get fake pictures. You get 12% guaranteed monthly returns from insurance. It's not insurance. It's not like Allstate, insuring against losses.

And you get the most powerful SEO, what I call Google Cleanse. And the reg D guys do it, a couple of them too. you can't find a negative article. You know why? Because they pay for advertising on Google and then they pay for fake reviews. There isn't a negative thing you can find on TechBerry.

One false review after that. So I'm in a social media guy and I know not to believe 12% a month returns and I see it on Instagram. I see it on Facebook today. And I'm a Jen Zier and I don't have to be accredited and I'm 12% a month.

Wow. They don't stop to think that that's whatever. percent annually. And that 12% a year is not bad. You couldn't get that even in a bank. And they search on

Google, not a negative thing. That's enough. And they'll never see their money again because it's all a fraud. And they're now in America. So the SEC would push back at me, well, they're foreign. These guys, because if the perfect fraud is, get American money, stay off American soil,

they can't get you. Well, these guys opened an office in San Francisco. The next day we filed on them. Wow. And I do it on my show. They're frauds or this. And Instagram threatens me.

I said, hey, you have inappropriate content. Hey, you know what inappropriate is? The 12% a month, you big dope. Why don't you go after the guy who's paying you to advertise a fraud that's devastating your viewers? No, won't do that. We're going to get the ex-carpet cleaning con who exposes them. you live in you know crazy world very man this was a very enlightening uh fascinating talk we've had

do you have a show what do you want to plug let's plug for the people real quick so um we do the fraud minute sorry my son uh roberts my editor he's my brian equivalent and it's called the fraud minute and where can they find one minute on fraud on tic doc at minko and Instagram primary. We're on Twitter as well or X. Yep. So the goal is 60 to 80 seconds every day, a well-thought-out, well-done current event

or proactive way, the goal of the show, don't invest before you do the three-p's. Promoter, profits, produce. Promoter, I'll give you the $20 to do a deep background check because you're going to find out that he's got suits for fraud or tax liens. Wow. If he has tax liens, why does he need to raise money from you?

If he has an operation that's going to make 12% a month, then I suppose he could pay the tax lien, or he wouldn't have been sued for fraud. Know who you're dealing with. Profits normally and regularly do people in the FX, 4X, crypto world make 12% a month every month, guaranteed with insurance? Never. And then produce. Johnny, people do more due diligence in the supermarket, produce section of the supermarket, differentiating between a right banana and a non-right banana.

than they do when they invest their entire life savings in some fraud. And our goal is the best fraud uncovering is the one that you never invest in. So we beg people, do the three P's, simple, don't invest, easy to give your money, impossible to get it back. Right. And it breaks my heart to hear it. So proactive fraud uncovering and proactive fraud, don't invest, please. And I get to work with my son. Yeah, that's awesome.

My twins living me. It's all good. God's good. Yeah. Got the family bank. Yeah. I'm so happy for you, man. So follow you on on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter.

That's where we're going to see the fraud minute. Right. That's right. Got it. Okay. Awesome. All right, you guys. We're going to switch over to the Patreon now.

Barry, thanks again, brother. Honor, Johnny. Thank you for having you. Yeah. You got it, man. Thank you guys.