Drive Planning REAL Program Ponzi Scheme Case: The Bridge Loans That Never Happened

Drive Planning raised more than $300 million for its REAL program Ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged, using investor money to pay earlier investors instead of funding the promised real estate investments. For someone handling the accounts, the crucial question was where those payments came from. The sales pitch credited real estate development, while the agency said new investors supplied the money.

This page follows Drive Planning’s promised loans, false collateral and actual transfers, including the separate CORE Fund. Our comparison of real estate Ponzi schemes follows the same gap between property promises and investor payments across other businesses.

REAL Promised Property-Backed Bridge Loans

Drive Planning, a Georgia-based financial advisory business, marketed REAL as the Real Estate Acceleration Loan opportunity. The Justice Department’s account of the founder’s criminal guilty plea describes a promised 10% return every three months. The company said short-term bridge loans would give real estate developers immediate cash to finish existing projects or fund new ones. It told prospective investors they could participate without being accredited investors and encouraged them to use retirement accounts, savings and lines of credit.

The same criminal-case account describes how the founder directed the preparation of false collateral sheets. Some properties did not exist, and the valuations were fictitious. Those sheets supported the claim that real estate fully secured the investments. For an employee preparing the sheets or answering questions about them, the property descriptions were part of the sales promise.

The developer relationship was a specific claim too. According to the criminal-case account, Drive Planning’s promissory notes falsely described investments as secured by properties in a well-known Atlanta developer’s portfolio. We see a business borrowing a developer’s reputation. The developer sued to get its name back.

REAL’s First Investment Paid an Earlier Investor

The first REAL investment already supplied money for an earlier investor’s payment. The Justice Department’s account of information presented in the criminal case says Drive Planning received its first $50,000 REAL investment in September 2020 and the founder used at least $21,000 to repay an earlier Drive Planning investor. The account describes what happened to the advertised lending business:

Within the first couple of months of marketing REAL, according to that account, at least $80,000 in investor money paid legal expenses for the founder’s former spouse and expenses related to recreational vehicles. Investor funds also paid agent commissions and personal spending throughout the scheme. The spending included a yacht, a luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas and private-jet travel.

For someone working in investor accounts, subscriptions and distributions show different ends of the transaction. Subscription records show the money coming in, while bank records can identify the source of the payment going back out. Comparing that source with the explanation given to investors is how we connect the investment story to the accounts.

CORE Promised Tax-Lien Income

The CORE Fund was Drive Planning’s Cash Out Real Estate Fund, a separate offering sold as passive income from tax liens. The Justice Department’s criminal-case account describes promised returns of 10% every six months or 22% per year for up to three years. Drive Planning claimed the contributions would be pooled, protected by the government and fully secured by collateral.

According to that account, Drive Planning did not invest any funds in CORE after approximately December 9, 2022, and people at the company failed to disclose that fact. The company received at least $4.1 million from people seeking to invest in CORE.

The distinction matters to someone who handled both programs. A CORE subscription carried a tax-lien income promise, while a REAL subscription carried a developer-loan promise. The account destination and the explanation sent to the investor belong beside the particular offering that brought the money in.

The Sales Teams Sold the Collateral Story

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement describes allegations against Drive Planning’s former chief operating officer and a former managing partner who headed its Indiana branch. The agency alleged that both told investors they held an interest in underlying collateral and that profit-sharing partnerships with developers funded the promised returns. That put the representations inside the sales organization, beyond the founder’s own pitch.

The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that the former chief operating officer personally raised more than $35 million and his sales team raised more than $100 million. It separately alleged that the former managing partner personally raised more than $13 million and his team raised more than $30 million. Both received millions of dollars in compensation connected with the sales, according to the agency.

For an employee or agent, the important connection is between what management said about the collateral and what the business knew about it. A note promising an interest in property, the collateral sheet used to support it and the developer’s actual relationship with Drive Planning address the same representation from different directions. Compensation records add who was paid to bring that investment in.

Drive Planning Kept Soliciting During the SEC Investigation

According to the Justice Department’s guilty-plea account, Drive Planning kept soliciting investments after the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating. The founder and others continued seeking tens of millions of dollars for REAL and CORE. It describes the founder as having defrauded more than 2,000 investors out of approximately $380 million over the course of the scheme.

For a sales employee, the continued solicitation puts management’s instructions in focus. What agents were told about the investigation belongs beside what they were told to keep selling.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s original civil action brought an asset freeze, an order stopping the alleged conduct and appointment of a receiver. The Justice Department’s plea announcement records the founder’s guilty plea to wire fraud. Its later criminal-case account also records the former chief operating officer’s guilty plea for his role in CORE and the former chief administrative officer’s guilty plea to laundering scheme proceeds. The FBI investigated the criminal case with substantial assistance from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Court Ordered Property Turned Over

A July 2, 2025 Northern District of Georgia order directed turnover of real property traceable to Drive Planning. The court required the property holder to sign the property over to the receiver and move out. The decision shows why a transfer out of the company’s accounts can matter beyond the name on the receiving account.

The Justice Department described the receiver’s job as trying to recover funds and sell assets to repay investors. That makes the trail from investor money to an asset useful to the recovery effort. Someone who knows the reason for a payment or the property it purchased may help connect the books to what the receiver can pursue.

What an Insider Can Explain About REAL and CORE

The useful evidence connects the promise, the transfer and the people who knew the difference. In Drive Planning’s case, that means the collateral sheets, developer representations, promissory notes, investment receipts, commissions and payments to earlier investors. An account employee may know what funded a payment; a sales employee may know how management explained it. We work with the person who can make those records intelligible.

The same lending-story problem appears in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Woodbridge allegations. Woodbridge Group of Companies presented investor returns as income from independent borrowers, but the agency alleged that most borrowers were controlled by the operator and lacked the income to pay. New investor money funded earlier investors. A borrower list and a paid distribution could support the sales story while leaving out who controlled the borrowers and who supplied the cash.

A study of occupational fraud gives a broader reason to take that inside knowledge seriously. The Significance of Whistleblowing as an Anti-Fraud Measure, published in the Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting in 2018, found that whistleblowers detected 35.9% of the 4,943 frauds with complete data, compared with 21.4% detected through internal controls. Here, the practical value is the person who can explain why a payment credited to real estate income came from another investor.

The SEC whistleblower program can pay eligible whistleblowers 10% to 30% of the sanctions collected in a qualifying action with more than $1 million in sanctions. We assess the award opportunity alongside what your information can establish about the offering and its accounts.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. For evidence about securities offerings such as REAL and CORE, our work focuses on the SEC whistleblower route and the investment conduct you can explain.

You Know What Was Behind the Payment

If you handled REAL or CORE sales, collateral records or investor payments, speak to one of our Whistleblower Experts about what really funded those payments. We bring in securities fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand private offerings and Ponzi schemes, and stay alongside you to build your strongest securities fraud whistleblower case.