Ponzi Scheme Beef Company Ordered to Pay $103 Million

By Jeff Beach

A court has ordered the cattle and beef marketing company Agridime to pay $103 million in restitution after operating as a Ponzi scheme that cost North Dakota investors an estimated $40 million.

Meanwhile, a North Dakota-led group seeking to buy the company has missed a court-imposed deadline, making the future of the company unclear. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the federal court order against Texas-based Agridime and its co-founders Joshua Link and Jed Wood on June 16.

Link was ordered to pay more than $815,000 and Wood to pay nearly $1.5 million. 

The agency says Link and Wood received more than $161 million from over 2,000 customers from 2021 to December 2023 in at least 14 states.

Investors were promised high rates of return by investing in cattle that Agridime would later process and sell as beef products to consumers. 

The company used money from new investors to pay previous investors, with a court ruling determining Agridime operated as a Ponzi scheme. 

North Dakota officials last year estimated 149 people in the state, many of them ranchers, were owed about $40 million by Agridime. Some ranchers also were owed money for cattle they delivered to Agridime but were not paid for. 

The order does not name Taylor Bang, a Killdeer, North Dakota, man who earned more than $6 million in commissions as a sales agent for Agridime, according to the North Dakota Securities Department. 

The Securities Department issued a cease and desist order against Bang in December 2023. That is the same month that the Securities and Exchange Commission took control of Agridime as it investigated its operations. 

The company has continued to operate under the control of a court-appointed receiver as American Grazed Beef, taking online orders for frozen meat products.

A group of investors led by Wylie Bice of Killdeer had a plan to purchase the company and use profits to help repay investors. 

But the investor group failed to close the deal by May 14, a date selected by the judge who approved the sale, according to an update from the receiver on the Agridime website. 

The update said there was “an issue with obtaining funding from the closing of another transaction.”

Bice, who lost money in the Ponzi scheme, did not return phone calls seeking comment. 

A court document shows that the investment group in March had provided $150,000 in earnest money to help keep the company going. The investment group provided more money after missing the sale deadline. 

The May 21 status report concludes that the receiver anticipates seeking approval from the court in the coming weeks to pursue claims against the purchaser. The receiver also will seek “authority to winddown the operations of American Grazed Beef and sell the remaining assets of Agridime.” 

Tom Murphy, a rancher from Killdeer who also lost money investing in Agridime, said Friday he still doesn’t know how much of his losses might be covered by court-ordered repayments. 

“It sounds like we might get like 15¢ on the dollar,” Murphy said. 

Link, one of the Agridime cofounders, in a June 1 Facebook post, disputed that the company operated as a Ponzi scheme and accused the federal government of not allowing the company due process.

He maintained the company was still viable when federal authorities stepped in. 

Murphy said he and many neighbors had stopped receiving payments from Agridime by that time. 

He called Link’s comments “grasping as straws.” 

North Dakota Monitor is an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, supported by grants and donations. The Monitor’s editorial decisions are made locally by our team of North Dakota journalists. The Monitor retains full editorial independence.