Tai Lopez charged in $122M fraud: SEC alleges Ponzi scheme behind distressed retailer revival pitch
Feb 11, 2026
Key Points
- The SEC alleges Tai Lopez ran a Ponzi scheme at Retail eCommerce Ventures, raising over $230 million from retail investors by promising 20% returns on distressed brand acquisitions while funneling new capital to pay earlier investors.
- Lopez leveraged his YouTube advertising mastery and podcast platform to solicit hundreds of small investors, including retirees and construction workers, who received token payouts or gift cards rather than actual business returns.
- The company's acquisition spree of RadioShack, Pier One, Dress Barn and other retailers collapsed in late 2022 when creditors seized assets, halting investor payments and triggering an FBI criminal investigation alongside the SEC civil suit.
Summary
The SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Tai Lopez, the 48-year-old internet personality and CEO of Retail eCommerce Ventures, alleging he ran a Ponzi scheme that raised over $230 million from hundreds of mostly small retail investors. Lopez and his partners misappropriated $16.1 million, according to the complaint. The FBI is conducting a parallel criminal investigation, though no charges have been filed yet.
Lopez built his initial fame through YouTube ads in the early 2010s, becoming one of the first to master the platform's economics by optimizing his lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio so precisely that he could spend millions scaling campaigns. He leveraged this audience to pitch Retail eCommerce Ventures, a Miami-based company he co-founded with Alex Mehr, a mechanical engineer and former founder of a dating app that sold for $255 million.
The pitch was to acquire distressed retail brands—RadioShack, Pier One Imports, Dress Barn, Model Sporting Goods, Linens and Things, and Stein Mart—and revive them as e-commerce businesses. Lopez pitched 20% annual returns to investors on his podcast and social media. One investor, Sean Murphy, an Illinois grandfather, put in $175,000 and received a $10,000 Pier One gift card plus roughly $1,000 monthly checks for two years. His payouts were largely funded by new investor capital rather than actual business returns, the defining mechanism of a Ponzi scheme.
REV used multiple channels to solicit small investors. During weekly Zoom calls, Lopez and Mehr pitched new deals by touting earlier successes. At his self-help conferences, Lopez directly told audiences they could invest in REV brands. Joseph Bertow, a 44-year-old construction salesman, attended a Los Angeles hotel meeting where he was told "give us as much money as you can. These deals are popping off, and we can't get them fast enough." Bertow invested $350,000. Nelson Rowe, an 82-year-old retired real estate broker, invested $300,000, drawn in by the brand names and the promised returns.
REV's acquisition spree began in 2019 with Dress Barn for $5 million. After the pandemic, it accelerated: Pier One Imports for roughly $31 million in July 2020, Model Sporting Goods for $3.6 million, Stein Mart for $6 million, and RadioShack for an undisclosed amount. The retailers were highly leveraged. When the businesses struggled, creditors eventually took control of the assets, and investor payments stopped abruptly in late 2022.
The SEC complaint alleges that Lopez's cousin, the company's chief operating officer, had previously worked only as a substitute preschool teacher, radio station promoter, and assistant at one of Lopez's educational companies. Mehr's attorney stated he believed in the business model, invested over $5 million of his own money, and suffered substantial losses due to severe post-pandemic macroeconomic headwinds.
Court filings indicate that lawyers for Lopez and other defendants are in settlement talks. Lopez has not publicly addressed the collapse on his podcast or social media. On X the day the SEC filed suit, he posted: "Never doom. No matter how horrible the situation, don't ever think you're doomed unless you are dead. All defeat is psychological."