Fat Joe Warns Artists To Watch Their Money After Being Scammed By Accountants
Fat Joe has opened up about a complex Ponzi scheme run by his former accountants that robbed him and his wife of well over six figures.
Joey Crack joined The Breakfast Club on Tuesday (October 4) where he warned fellow rappers and athletes to keep track of their money and not trust anyone handling their accounts.
“Us as creatives, we spend so much time… We trying to take our creativity to another level and we think we supposed to trust these people,” he explained. “Every athlete, every artist, don’t trust ’em. Don’t trust the business manager, don’t trust the accountants.
“The saddest thing is when you turn around and, ‘Yo, these people stealing from me.’ Ponzi scheme — like this is not a game, these people really stealing my money… Taking out fake credit cards under my wife’s name.”
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The best way to protect yourself, according to Fat Joe, from accountant scams is to go the “Oprah 101” route and “watch all your money.”
“Since I caught this, I’ve been signing my own checks, confirming my own wires and doing everything,” he continued.
The Terror Squad leader said he and his wife have since filed a lawsuit against Andre N. Chammas and his firm BDO where they showed 10 to 15 examples that he was getting robbed.
“We was paying with my credit card hundreds of thousands [of dollars] to baseball players,” Joe said. “It’s a Ponzi scheme. We was paying other people’s credit cards. $100,000, $80,000 for baseball players I never met in my life. Then we got payments on my credit card that baseball players were paying. Nah, it was incredible.
“I’ve never been robbed by a man with a gun… I’ve been robbed by men and ladies with suits on that smile at me all the time.”
According to TMZ, Fat Joe first noticed that several AMEX accounts had been opened under his wife Lorena Cartagena’s name, without the couple’s knowledge.
The credit cards were used to make multiple large purchases, including tuition payments for Rodriguez’ daughter and $40,000 in combined Uber and Uber Eats charges. Upon further investigation, Joe claims to have noticed several of his business entities were missing large deposits.
One of his companies, Sneaker Addict Touring, was shorted out of more than $300,000. He further claims the company attempted to cover its mismanagement of funds by running a Ponzi scheme, involving players from the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox.