Popular RE Investor Pokes A Bear...And Gets Eaten

Matt Onofrio is indicted on a $35M banking fraud scheme. An investigation led by the FBI, IRS, and FDIC...

Author

Conner Burton
December 04, 2022

What's up Calculated Investors.

All of us are still sensitive from the effects of the FTX/crypto scandal that left investors hanging out to dry.

Well what happens when you try and commit fraud against federally-insured banks?

Matt Onofrio has been indicted for a $35M bank fraud scheme. Whoops.

The allegations?

  • Devised and executed a scheme to defraud multiple federally-insured banks

  • Caused false information to be submitted to lenders

  • Altering purchase agreements to support higher appraisals

  • Temporarily wire funds to investors’ accounts to create the appearance they had more assets on the books

This news sent shockwaves through the commercial real estate investor community.

Why?

Social presence.

Matt has 125K instagram followers, has been featured on several podcasts, and is an active member of the community.

One of BiggerPocket's most popular episodes features Matt Onofrio as a guest. Several investors reached out to voice their displeasure on BP's ability to conduct due diligence on people brought onto the podcast.

It caused so much of a stir, that the CEO of BiggerPockets ended up taking action.

It was a real bummer to hear about the indictment earlier this week, and I know that a lot of folks really enjoyed Matt Onofrio's episode as a particular favorite. The allegations are terrible, and I hope that they are not true.

We have had over 1,000 guests on the BiggerPockets podcast. Over the course of the past decade, there have been a handful of instances where we have decided to remove an episode from our library, and unfortunately, in light of the recent allegations, this is one of those times.

We robustly screen our podcast guests. On very, very rare occasions we've made the decision to remove content - I believe we are in the ballpark of 3-5 instances of removed content out of 1,000+ episodes across our network over the past 10 years. Earning your trust as community members and listeners is incredibly important to us, and we try to learn from each of the instances where we've had to make this decision and continue to improve.

Scott Trench - BiggerPockets CEO

Matt's episode aired almost 2 year ago. I think it's a little much for a podcasting company to be taking too much heat here. There is only so much that can be done.

Bad actors are in every industry. Real Estate is no different.

While this didn't directly result in investors getting ripped off, it serves as a reminder that due dilligence is as important as ever.

Let's get into it. 💲🏠💲

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