Mother Turned In For Tri Energy Inc Ponzi Scam

Kim Flanigan had the courage to do something few people would do — turn in her mother for a Ponzi scheme. She became aware of her mother’s participation in a classic attempt to get rich through a Tri Energy Inc. scam, which already cost at least 100 people and possibly even more hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When Kim got word of her mother trying to take money from a widow with nine children, which would be used as an investment in the scheme, she knew she had to take action quickly.

That had been her “breaking point,” she quotes to “Today Show” anchor Ann Curry on Friday. She couldn’t bear to watch a widow lose money she needed to raise her nine children. It just wasn’t right.

Kim contacted federal and state law enforcement, which put three people in a federal prison. The Ponzi scheme was a $50 million dollar act in the making, and one that could have went much farther had she found out about it later rather than sooner.

Flanigan’s mother and aunt were investigated, but authorities decided that since they appeared to be victims themselves, no charges were filed against them.

The scam worked as well as it did because the main target was people who attended church. One of the three people involved in the Ponzi scheme was also an associate pastor of a California church. The scammers used between 50 and 300 percent of the profits that were supposed to go towards donations for charity for their own monetary wants and needs.

Flanigan states, “You have just normal people who want to do good — and make money at the same time.”

Since the end of the trial in 2007, Kim and her mother were estranged for a year, but have slowly made amends and are currently working out their mother-daughter relationship. Her mother now realizes she was duped into the scam and is sorry for all the hurt she caused the people she was taking money from.