Aegis RSI, Houston, TX (2026)

08/07/2026

One of the biggest objections I get from prospects when discussing institutional-grade due diligence is that the hits they've taken so far haven't been enough to bring them down.

They think because they haven't taken that hit yet, it isn't going to happen.

Well, history has a different lesson.

📜 Lessons from the Past: The Hits You Never See Coming
Most people have heard the classic tale from World War II.

The military wanted to put more armor on its bombers to reduce losses, so it took the obvious approach: put more armor where the returning planes had taken the most hits.

Then came the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University.

They helped the war effort by applying statistical analysis to wartime problems.

Among them was Abraham Wald.

At first, Wald was considered an enemy alien and wasn't even allowed to access the top-secret work being conducted by the SRG. A federal court had to naturalize him so he could review his own work.

The SRG pointed out that the planes should actually be armored in the areas where there were no bullet holes, because aircraft hit in those locations never made it home.

This concept is called survivorship bias, a statistical error that results from concentrating on the things that survived a selection process while overlooking those that didn't.

💡 The lesson: Just because you're still flying doesn't mean you aren't vulnerable.

The absence of failure isn't proof that risk doesn't exist.

We see this all the time in due diligence.

It comes in a lot of forms:
▪️ "I've done business with them for years." → Without ever checking their current risk profile.
We've seen 20-year partnerships fall apart in minutes because financial strain led to poor decisions.
The worst part is that, in many cases, if people had known what was happening, they would have helped before it became a crisis.

▪️ "I've never lost investor funds." → When your own risk management and compliance structure makes losses a matter of time.
Losses don't just come from bad investments.
They come from bad partners, bad vendors, bad paperwork, and weak compliance structures.

Financial risk.
Reputational risk.
Legal risk.
Vendor risk.
Counterparty risk.

The most dangerous risks are rarely the ones you've already survived.

They're the hits you never see coming.

08/05/2026

One of the biggest red flags isn't a bad answer.
It's an answer that comes too quickly and too confidently.

🦉 Wednesday Wisdom: The Easy Yes
People who've actually done something complicated usually answer with nuance. People making up their response often answer with certainty.

That’s why most lawyers have a favorite phrase “It depends”.

In many situations, context matters.
Something has to be looked up.
A professional has to be consulted.
That way the answer you are given is the correct one.

A quick answer isn't automatically a red flag.
Sometimes it's experience.
Sometimes it's good sales training.
But experienced professionals also know when they don't know.

They're comfortable saying:
"Let me verify that."

🧠 The Wisdom: Confidence makes it easy to say yes but that doesn’t mean you should.

One of the most common traits shared by fraudsters is confidence.
They make it easy to trust them, and they are good at it.

That’s why good due diligence takes that out of the equation completely.

You can’t talk your way out of verification.

It is either there or it isn’t.

Good due diligence changes the conversation.

The easy "yes" becomes:

• pointed questions
• required documentation
• independent verification
• and sometimes...
• the opportunity quietly disappears.

💡 This week’s challenge: Think about a response you received recently.

Ask yourself: 👉 Did I verify the answer, or did I just accept it because it was delivered with confidence?

The easiest "yes" is often the one that deserves the most scrutiny.

If you'd like to see how investigative due diligence helps turn easy answers into verified ones, don't be a stranger.

That's where we spend our time.

08/04/2026

Nearly $50 million raised from investors.
While the sponsor was already serving a federal prison sentence.

🚨 Fraud Alert: Prison Didn't Stop the Scheme.
Jean "Jon" Joseph was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud. His wife, Janalie Bingham, was sentenced to 48 months for her role in the scheme.

According to prosecutors, Joseph continued directing Wells Real Estate Investment from prison while Bingham served as the company's public face.

Investors were told their money would be used to acquire and improve residential and commercial real estate, with promissory notes backed by valuable real estate holdings.

According to prosecutors, that wasn't the reality.

Instead:
• Approximately $28 million was diverted into speculative equities trading.
• Approximately $8 million was paid in commissions to sales personnel.
• More than $8 million was used for Ponzi-style payments to earlier investors.
• More than $2 million funded personal expenses, including the down payment on a $1.95 million home.

🔎 AEGIS Insight
Proper due diligence doesn't start with the investment.
It starts with the people.

Public records can reveal business relationships.
Court records can reveal prior litigation and criminal history.
Property records can reveal ownership changes.
Corporate records can identify affiliated entities and hidden relationships.

In this case, prosecutors allege the business concealed Joseph's involvement after he became a convicted felon, while Bingham served as the public face of the company.

Due diligence isn't about trust. It's about verification.

Most of the time the goal isn't to prove someone is committing fraud.

It's to understand the actual risk, price it correctly, and determine whether the opportunity matches the story being presented.

The red flags that lead to fraud are usually uncovered during that process.

Verify the people.
Verify the assets.
Verify the information.

Because fraud doesn't disappear when someone goes to prison.
It disappears when the money stops flowing.

07/31/2026

People often ask me, “Why doesn’t the government do a better job of protecting us from fraud with stricter regulatory requirements?”

Well, despite my personal reservations about the government doing anything ever for any reason, there is a great reason: Unforeseen consequences.

📜Lessons From the Past: The Bubble Act — When The Solution Outlive The Problem

We’ve talked about the South Sea Bubble before on Lessons from the Past.

Massive economic disaster, one of the first well-recorded Ponzi schemes, speculation, and a disastrous example of what happens when people don’t do their due diligence.

But what happened afterwards?

Introducing the Bubble Act of 1720, or the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Corporation Act of 1719.

It was an Act of Parliament that forbade the formation of other joint-stock companies unless approved by a royal charter.

This Act lasted more than a century and had consequences far beyond what it was intended to fix.

The Act declared illegal and void businesses that raised money or offered shares without a royal charter.

The reasons for its formation are up for debate. Everything from actually protecting people, to preventing competitors of the South Sea Company and specific insurance firms from forming.

This forced people to engage in increasingly complex arrangements to form large partnerships.

And it stagnated business growth in the Empire for close to 105 years.

But here is the big kicker.

It might have actually helped trigger the American Revolution when it was extended to the colonies in 1741, where it blocked local currency and investment corporations, helping trigger the anger that ignited the Revolution.

💡So here is the lesson: Controls designed around one problem can cause far-reaching consequences that are incredibly difficult to predict.

Regulations don’t always come from a good place. They can be put in place by special interest groups or be a form of oppression against a certain type of people.

But even when they do come from a good place, the consequences can be unpredictable.

▪️ Rent controls can actually raise rent.
▪️ Regulation to control fraud can actually just push it further into the dark and make it more complex or harder to detect.

We’ve talked about this very concept before: the Cobra Effect.

When an attempt to solve a problem actually makes it worse.

Named after the time the British Raj in India tried to solve a cobra overpopulation problem by offering bounties on the snakes, only for it to come back to bite them (pun intended) when people started breeding cobras to turn in.

Regulation can be helpful at times, but it should always be done with a light touch.

Because the consequences can be far-reaching, and once regulation is unleashed, it can be difficult to control.

07/30/2026

More than $100 million allegedly obtained from investors. Seven federal wire fraud charges. And this is one of those rare Fraud Alerts where I don't have to tell you what we would have found.

🚨 Fraud Alert: The Red Flags Came First.
Federal prosecutors have charged film producer Jason Cloth with seven counts of wire fraud in connection with an alleged scheme involving more than $100 million in investor funds.

According to the indictment, Cloth operated Creative Wealth Media Finance Corp. and solicited investors to fund film and entertainment projects and a gaming entertainment investment platform.

Prosecutors allege investor money was instead used for other purposes, including a Canadian real estate development, and that some investor funds were used to repay earlier investors in Ponzi-like fashion.

But this case is a little different for us.

AEGIS RSI had already conducted due diligence on another film-financing entity associated with Jason Cloth.

Actually we did it twice, in the past two years.

And long before this indictment, the risk profile was already hard to ignore.

Due diligence identified:
• A $19.6 million civil fraud judgment against Cloth.
• Dozens of civil matters in Ontario.
• An $80 million class action alleging Ponzi-style conduct.
• Bankruptcy and receivership involving Creative Wealth Media Finance Corp.
• Multiple creditor judgments.
• Regulatory fraud allegations involving the alleged diversion of investor funds.
• A broader network of affiliated film-financing entities connected back to Cloth.

And here's the important part.

We didn't know Jason Cloth would be federally indicted.

That's not what due diligence does.

We didn't have to predict what would happen next.

We had to look at the information that already existed and ask whether the risk made sense.

In this case, the civil litigation mattered.
The bankruptcies mattered.
The creditor issues mattered.
The affiliated companies mattered.
The allegations surrounding how investor capital was being handled mattered.

Individually, you can explain away almost anything.

Put them together and you start seeing a very different picture.

🔎 AEGIS Insight
This is why I push back so hard on the idea that due diligence is a background check.

A background check asks whether someone has a criminal record.

Investigative due diligence is about asking:

What does the entire history of this person and the businesses around them tell us about the risk we're taking?

I've done background investigations. I've been a PI. And now I conduct investigative due diligence. They are three completely different jobs.

If you are using a background check or a PI to conduct due diligence, you are doing it wrong, full stop.

During due diligence, there was no federal criminal case we could verify.

It didn't matter.

You don't need an indictment to identify risk.

And you definitely shouldn't need one before you start asking questions.

The headline came later.
The red flags came first.

07/29/2026

I used to give clients the wrong answer to one of the questions I get asked most. “When should we actually use you?”

🦉 Wednesday Wisdom: The Right Work at the Right Time

My answer used to be: “As soon as an opportunity passes through your initial process.”

That made sense to me.
It was also wrong.

Because I started watching clients spend days, sometimes weeks, evaluating an opportunity before investigative due diligence ever entered the process.

They'd underwrite it.
Review documents.
Have calls.
Build models.
Get their team involved.

Then we'd come in and identify something they weren't comfortable with.

And all that work stopped mattering.

The investigative report cost less than $600 in many cases. But by the time we got involved, the client had already spent far more than that in time and resources evaluating something they ultimately walked away from.

That's when I realized something: The question wasn't when they should use us. It was where investigative due diligence belonged in their system.

We've spent the last two years building our process around exactly that problem.

AI-powered workflows.
Investigative systems.
Entity mapping.
Document retrieval.
Financial and risk analysis.
Quality control.

Years of investigative experience built into a process that, in many cases, allows the actual investigative work to be completed in hours rather than days.

Our clients have built sophisticated systems too.
We don't need to replace those systems.

And we definitely don't need to pretend we're better at what they're experts at.

We need to plug into them.

Let the investment team underwrite.
Let counsel handle the legal work.
Let accountants analyze the financials.
Let inspectors inspect.

And let investigative due diligence identify issues early enough that everyone else knows what they're actually working with.

That's what good systems do.
They don't ask one person to do everything.
They put the right expertise in the right place at the right time.

🧠 The Wisdom: Don't build a process where expertise is the final check. Build it where expertise creates the most leverage.

💡 This week's challenge: Look at one process inside your organization and ask: 👉 Where are we spending significant time before the cheapest or fastest reason to stop has been evaluated?

Then ask: 👉 Could a specialist answer that question earlier?

Because efficiency isn't doing everything faster.
It's doing things in the right order.

If you're trying to figure out where investigative due diligence belongs in your process, don't be a stranger.

That's something we can help build with you.

07/28/2026

Over $50 million raised. Hundreds of investors.
Three private equity funds. And more than 21,000 LinkedIn followers.

🚨 Fraud Alert: The False-Bottom Fund
Jay Lucas looked like someone investors could trust.

He was the founder and managing partner of private equity firm Lucas Brand Equity, a political hopeful from New Hampshire, had impressive credentials in both employment and education.

And he pleaded guilty to securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in connection with a scheme involving more than $50 million in investor capital.

Investors were told their money would be used to invest in emerging health and wellness companies.

Instead, Lucas admitted wrongdoing in a scheme where investor money was diverted to personal expenses, unrelated ventures, and Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors.

According to federal prosecutors, investor funds were used for:
• Alimony and rent.
• Political consultants.
• An unrelated newspaper venture.
• Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors.
• A luxury skincare company operated by Lucas's wife.

But the last bit is especially interesting.

Prosecutors say Lucas funneled investor money into Immunocologie, a luxury skincare company run by his wife, without disclosing the conflict of interest.

That’s fine if you disclose it properly, but definitely not fine if you don’t disclose it, And then despite the funds providing the capital, prosecutors say Lucas arranged for LBE, not the funds, to take the majority ownership interest in the company.

The investors provided the money, and the fund manager played the old switcheroo on even the actual investments made on their behalf.

🔎 AEGIS Insight
Credibility is not due diligence.
A successful career isn't due diligence.
A private equity firm isn't due diligence.

And 21,000 people following someone on LinkedIn doesn't tell you where one investor dollar went.

Social proof can tell us a lot about someone's reputation.
It tells us very little about their risk.

That's why investigative due diligence looks beyond the person investors think they know.

Who owns the portfolio companies?
Where is investor capital actually going?
Are portfolio companies affiliated with the fund manager or their family?
Who receives the economic benefit when fund capital is deployed?
Are there conflicts of interest that haven't been disclosed?
And does the ownership structure match the story being presented to investors?

Because there's another lesson buried in this case.

The fund took the risk.
The sponsor took the equity.

That relationship matters far more than how credible someone looks from the outside.

Reputation can create trust. Due diligence verifies whether that was built on a good foundation to begin with.

If you'd like to understand how investigative due diligence can help identify issues like these before they become headlines, feel free to reach out. We're always happy to help.

07/24/2026

Between 1221 and 1223, two Mongol generals rode nearly 5,500 miles across Asia and Eastern Europe. Most of the peoples they encountered never saw it coming, because they assumed it couldn't be done.

That assumption cost them dearly.

📜 Lessons from the Past: The Impossible Campaign
The campaign began as a pursuit.

Generals Jebe and Subutai were ordered to hunt the fleeing Shah of the Khwarazmian Empire after Genghis Khan's invasion shattered the empire.

Instead of simply returning home, they requested permission to continue.

What followed became one of history's greatest cavalry expeditions.

Over the next three years they crossed deserts, mountain ranges, and the Caucasus in the middle of winter.

They defeated armies in Persia.
Raided Georgia.
Destroyed a coalition of Caucasian tribes.
Defeated the Cumans.

Then continued into the lands of the Kievan Rus'.

By the time the Rus princes learned where the Mongols were, they almost couldn't believe it.

Their initial assessment, after being warned by the Cumans, was that they had simply been the victims of another steppe raid and wrote the threat off.

By the time the Rus assembled a coalition army the Mongols were already on their doorstep.

Some historical estimated the coalition army at up to 80,000 men to the Mongol's 25,000.

But surprisingly, the Mongols didn't immediately fight.
Instead, they retreated.
For nine days.

The Rus believed the Mongols were fleeing a superior force.

So they pursued.
Day after day, their coalition stretched farther apart.

Then, at the Battle of the Kalka River, the Mongols turned.

The retreat had been a trap.

Within hours, the coalition army collapsed in a spectacular fashion as confusion and fear took over.

One of the greatest defeats in the history of Kievan-Rus was brought on by assumptions, stacked on top of assumptions.

💡 Lesson: Assumptions define blind spots.
One of the most dangerous things in due diligence and risk management isn't what you don't know. It's what you assume you already know.

Assumptions like:

▪️ "I've known them forever. They're a good guy." without ever checking their actual risk profile.

▪️ "Interest rates will come back down." despite having no control over what happens next.

▪️ "A friend recommended them." without doing any meaningful due diligence of your own.

Sometimes those assumptions are right.

Sometimes they're exactly what creates the blind spot.

The Rus weren't defeated because they lacked information. They were defeated because they filtered new information through old expectations.

They assumed the Mongols couldn't invade their lands, then as they got closer, they assumed it was a minor threat, then they assumed the Mongols were retreating right until they turned on them.

Subutai didn't just outmaneuver armies. He outmaneuvered what they believed was possible.

Because once you've decided something can't happen, you usually stop looking for it.

07/23/2026

Nearly 13 years. That's how long prosecutors say this investment scheme continued after regulators first ordered the company to stop raising outside investor funds.

🚨 Fraud Alert: Lending Slow Burn
According to federal prosecutors, Barbara Hirshfield operated a $10.9 million Ponzi scheme through her companies Ideal Financial Services, Inc and Ideal Financial Holdings.

Ideal claimed to offer motor vehicle and small business loans. The firm raised money from investors by selling promissory notes that guaranteed investors high rates of returned backed by “real assets”.

That lasted nearly 13 years after regulators first ordered her company to stop raising outside investment funds.

Instead of generating legitimate lending revenue, new investor money was used to pay earlier investors until the scheme collapsed in 2025.

According to prosecutors:
• $10.9 million in investor losses. 204 victims.

• In 2012, regulators ordered the company to stop raising outside investment funds. Fundraising continued anyway.

• In 2014, regulators revoked the company's lending licenses. Lending continued anyway.

• By at least 2019, the business generated little to no lending revenue and instead relied almost entirely on new investor money.

• The scheme allegedly continued until 2025, when interest and principal payments could no longer be made.

🔎 AEGIS Insight
One of the biggest misconceptions about Ponzi schemes is that they fail quickly.

Most don't. They often appear successful for years.

Returns can keep coming long after the business has stopped working.

As long as new money continues to enter the system, earlier investors may continue receiving payments.

That creates confidence.

Confidence attracts more investors.
More investors provide more money.
And the cycle continues.

The timer doesn't start when payments stop.

It starts the moment a business becomes dependent on raising new money instead of generating legitimate revenue.

According to prosecutors, that transition allegedly occurred years before the scheme ultimately collapsed.

The warning signs were there as early as 2012, if you knew where to look.

That's why investigative due diligence isn't just about identifying fraud.

It's about understanding how a business actually generates the cash needed to meet its obligations.

If investor money is paying investors instead of an underlying business producing cash flow, the question isn't if the system breaks.

It's when.

07/21/2026

More than $2.1 million allegedly raised. At least 24 investors. And according to federal prosecutors, some of the businesses used to attract investors allegedly had no idea they were part of the deal.

🚨 Fraud Alert: Reputation Can Be Borrowed. Authorization Can't.
Federal prosecutors allege Missouri resident Trevor Uhls operated an investment scheme that raised more than $2.1 million through short-term promissory notes promising returns of 10–15% in as little as 30, 60, or 90 days.

According to the government's complaint, investors were told their money would fund short-term loans for real estate development projects and local businesses.

Prosecutors have alleged that wasn't true. More than $2.1 million was allegedly obtained from at least 24 investors.

Investors were promised guaranteed returns through promissory notes tied to real estate and construction projects.

Investor funds were allegedly spent on sports betting, cryptocurrency transactions, jewelry, chartered flights, and credit card payments instead of legitimate investments.

But one issue really stands out from the crowd.

According to the complaint, many of the promissory notes identified a legitimate Kansas City contracting company as the borrower.

Prosecutors say the company never borrowed money, never received investor funds, and never authorized Trevor Uhls to execute promissory notes on its behalf.

Investigators also said that when the story evolved, different entities were introduced, including "Trevor Uhls LLC" and "Midwest Homes." According to the complaint, investigators found no matching business registration for Midwest Homes.

🔎 AEGIS Insight
One of the easiest ways to build credibility is to borrow someone else's.

A real company.
A recognizable business.
A familiar name.

The question isn't simply: "Does this company exist?"
It's: "Does this company actually know it's part of this transaction?"

Those are two very different questions with two very different answers.

Investigative due diligence doesn't stop at confirming a business is real.
It verifies the relationship, the structure and their track record.
Even an initial due diligence check would have revealed some glaring errors in the loans, the claimed track record and even the defendant themselves.
Way before money ever changed hands.

Before sending capital, investors should be asking:

Has the company actually authorized this investment?
Is the person raising funds affiliated with the business in the way they claim?
Do the promissory notes, corporate records, and business registrations all tell the same story?
Has the company itself acknowledged receiving the funds or participating in the transaction?

A legitimate business can lend credibility to almost any story.
That doesn't mean it approved the story being told. And in this case the story was a lie.

If you'd like to understand how investigative due diligence can help identify issues like these before they become headlines, feel free to reach out. We're always happy to help.

Aegis RSI

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