“Follow the money — because that’s where the truth stops hiding.”

What I’m about to show you isn’t theory, speculation, or interpretation. It’s a court-filed document in the ongoing bankruptcy of Goliath Ventures Inc., and like many of these filings, it strips away the marketing narrative and replaces it with something far more uncomfortable: hard financial reality.

By the time a case reaches this stage, the language changes. The hype disappears. The promises are gone. What’s left is a forensic process — identifying where money went, who holds it, and whether it can be recovered. And in this case, that process has now led directly to a third party: Wealth MD, LLC.

This matters because it reinforces a pattern I’ve been documenting from the very beginning — that funds didn’t just sit neatly inside one entity. They moved. They were distributed. And now, piece by piece, those movements are being dragged back into the light.

The court filing that changes the narrative

PDFThe document filed on April 14, 2026 — Agreed Motion for Turnover of Estate Property — is one of those moments where the legal process stops being procedural and starts becoming revealing.

According to the filing, the court-appointed receiver identified a relationship between Goliath Ventures and Wealth MD, LLC shortly after taking control of the estate.

That’s not unusual on its own. What matters is what came next.

After a formal demand was issued, Wealth MD acknowledged that it was holding $141,412 in funds that “should be properly turned over to the Debtors.”

Let’s pause on that.

This isn’t an allegation. This isn’t a theory. This is an admission within a court process that a third party is holding funds tied to the Goliath estate.

And the court didn’t need to litigate the issue. The motion is agreed — meaning Wealth MD did not contest the turnover.

That detail is important, because it removes ambiguity. This wasn’t a disputed claim that needed to be proven — it was acknowledged and accepted within the legal framework.

Following the money beyond the front-facing brand

One of the biggest misconceptions people have when they get involved in these types of schemes is that the company they see is the company holding the money.

That’s rarely the case.

What this filing shows is something far more typical: money moving across entities, accounts, and relationships that aren’t visible to investors at the time they’re depositing funds.

In this instance:

  • The funds were held in a TD Bank commercial checking account
  • The account was in the name of Wealth MD, LLC
  • Not Goliath Ventures itself

That distinction matters.

Because it highlights a key structural reality: control of funds and branding of an opportunity are often separated. Investors believe they are sending money into one system, when in reality, those funds can be routed, held, or managed elsewhere.

And once that happens, tracing accountability becomes significantly harder — at least until a receiver steps in and starts reconstructing the flow of funds from the outside in.

The role of the receiver: unwinding the illusion

The appointment of Michael S. Budwick as receiver marks the point where control shifts from operators to investigators.

From that moment, the job is no longer to run a business — it’s to reconstruct what actually happened.

That process is methodical. It involves identifying relationships, tracing accounts, issuing demands, and forcing disclosure where it wasn’t previously given. It’s not fast, and it’s not perfect, but it is one of the only mechanisms that exists to cut through the noise once a scheme collapses.

Within days of being appointed, the receiver had already:

  • Identified Wealth MD as connected to the operation
  • Issued a demand letter
  • Secured cooperation for the return of funds

That speed tells you something important — the relationships between these entities weren’t hidden particularly well. They were there, embedded within the structure, waiting to be uncovered once someone with legal authority started pulling on the threads.

The Wealth MD connection — names, structure, and credibility

As this investigation has progressed, one of the more important threads to emerge is the role of Wealth MD (Wealth Management Doctors) — not just as a name appearing in court filings, but as a structured business with identifiable leadership.

The company wasn’t anonymous. It had founders, credentials, and a public-facing identity designed to inspire confidence.

At the centre of that were:

  • John “Travis” Lillie — founding partner
  • Matthew “Matt” Burks — founding partner

Both men came from traditional financial services backgrounds, with ties to firms like Northwestern Mutual and Mass Mutual. That kind of résumé isn’t accidental — it’s the kind of professional history that lowers skepticism and builds trust quickly, especially among investors who are used to dealing with regulated financial advisors.

But that’s exactly why their involvement matters.

Because when you place that credibility alongside the structure of what was being offered, the contrast becomes difficult to ignore.

This wasn’t a conventional wealth management service. It was something very different, packaged in familiar language.

How the Wealth MD model was positioned

The Wealth MD offer was framed as a “joint venture” rather than an investment product. That distinction is critical, because it attempts to redefine the relationship between the company and the investor.

Instead of being clients, participants were positioned as partners.

Instead of making an investment, they were contributing capital to a shared opportunity.

On paper, that sounds like a subtle shift.

In practice, it’s significant.

Because it allows the structure to promote outcomes that look like investment returns, while attempting to avoid the regulatory obligations that normally come with offering financial products.

Investors were encouraged to deposit substantial sums — often $250,000 or more — into liquidity pool strategies involving crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC.

In return, they were told to expect:

  • Up to 2% monthly returns on the first $1 million
  • Up to 4% monthly returns on amounts above that

Those returns were framed as being generated from trading fees within liquidity pools.

At first glance, the explanation sounds technical.

But when you examine it closely, several issues emerge:

  • No independently verified trading data
  • No audited performance records
  • No external confirmation of revenue generation

At the same time, the agreement repeatedly emphasised that this was not an investment product and not financial advice.

That contradiction is not incidental.

It’s a structural red flag.

You don’t promote consistent, predictable monthly profits while disclaiming responsibility for delivering them — unless the goal is to shift risk entirely onto the investor while retaining control of the funds.

The connections and the wider ecosystem

The individuals linked to these operations extend beyond just the founders.

Names that repeatedly appear within this ecosystem include:

  • John T. Lillie
  • Matthew “Matt” Burks
  • Matthew Malkemes
  • Aaron Thornton
  • Piers Curry

These names surface across multiple platforms, presentations, and promotional materials connected to Goliath Ventures, Wealth MD, and BlackBlock.

Alongside Wealth MD, another related website emerged during this investigation: myblackblock.com.

This site should not be confused with the legitimate financial institution BlackRock. Just as mywealthmd.com should not be confused with the legitimate wealth management firm wealthmd.com.

Both websites appeared to mirror the branding and tone of legitimate financial services companies, while promoting opportunities tied to the same network of individuals.

That overlap is not coincidence.

It’s a deliberate strategy designed to borrow legitimacy from established institutions without actually operating under their regulatory frameworks.

The disappearing evidence

There’s another detail that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The digital footprint is disappearing.

The website mywealthmd.com is now offline. Promotional materials that once explained the opportunity have been removed. Videos that previously featured endorsements, walkthroughs, and investor-facing narratives are no longer publicly accessible.

This isn’t unusual in cases like this.

When scrutiny increases, visibility decreases.

But in this case, some of that material was preserved before it disappeared — copies of presentations, archived pages, and recorded videos that captured how the opportunity was originally being positioned to investors. That matters, because it prevents the narrative from being quietly rewritten without challenge.

What we are seeing now is the aftermath of a collapse — content being scrubbed, associations being quietly removed, and public narratives being reshaped after the fact. The polished marketing disappears first, followed by the people who once stood behind it.

That behaviour doesn’t prove wrongdoing on its own.

But it does follow a pattern that I’ve seen repeatedly in similar investigations — when the money stops, the marketing disappears, and the individuals involved begin creating distance between themselves and the very opportunity they were once promoting.

The court-confirmed money trail

What elevates this beyond speculation is the legal confirmation.

We now know that Wealth MD was holding $141,412 in a TD Bank account that has been formally identified as property of the Goliath estate and is being returned through the bankruptcy process.

This wasn’t uncovered through marketing claims or whistleblower leaks.

It was identified by a court-appointed receiver, documented in a formal filing, and agreed to by the parties involved. There was no dispute, no prolonged argument — just a clear acknowledgment that the funds existed and needed to be handed back.

That matters.

Because it moves the discussion out of the realm of opinion and into the realm of verifiable, court-backed fact. It replaces assumptions with documentation and forces the conversation away from narratives and into evidence that can be tested and examined.

But more importantly, it shifts the focus.

Because once you establish that funds were sitting in a third-party account, the question is no longer whether there was a connection.

The real question becomes:

What role did Wealth MD play in the movement, control, and handling of investor funds — and how many other accounts like this are still out there waiting to be identified?

Right of reply and unanswered questions

“If there’s nothing to hide, then there should be nothing to avoid.”

As part of my original investigation into Goliath Ventures in September 2025, I contacted Matthew Burks directly and demanded a response.

This wasn’t a casual outreach. It was a clear opportunity to address the evidence, explain the structure, and provide transparency around what was being promoted to investors at the time.

To be accurate, there was an initial reply. On 6 September 2025, Matt Burks responded offering to provide “extremely relevant information” and requested a Zoom call before publication, signing off as Head of Compliance at Goliath Ventures, Inc.. However, despite that offer, no substantive written response addressing the core questions was ever provided, and those same issues remain unresolved today.

The questions themselves are not complicated — but they go directly to the core of how this operation functioned:

  • Why promote an opportunity with no verifiable external revenue source?
  • How can a structure claim independence while operating within the same ecosystem as Goliath Ventures and BlackBlock?
  • Why rely on branding, narrative, and technical language instead of audited financial proof?

These aren’t theoretical concerns. They are the same questions regulators, investigators, and now a court-appointed receiver would be asking when trying to understand where investor money went and how it was managed.

I have also raised questions about broader associations, including connections that have been publicly referenced in relation to Redemption Church, because when financial promotions intersect with community or institutional trust, the responsibility to be transparent becomes even greater. Since then, references to Matt Burks appear to have been removed from the Redemption Church website and associated social media, which only adds further context to the situation.

At the time of writing, no further response has been provided.

That silence doesn’t answer the questions — but it does become part of the record.

And if that changes, I will update this blog to reflect it.

Why this matters for victims

If you’ve lost money in Goliath Ventures, this type of filing is both encouraging and sobering.

Encouraging — because it shows that funds are being located, identified, and pulled back into the estate. That process is real, and it’s one of the few mechanisms victims have once a scheme collapses. It means the investigation isn’t just theoretical — it’s actively tracing where money went.

Sobering — because of the scale.

We’re talking about $141,412 identified in this instance, in a case involving claims that are significantly larger.

That gap isn’t a rounding error.

It’s a reminder of how these structures operate — money is distributed, fragmented, and moved across multiple accounts and entities long before anyone steps in to unwind it. By the time recovery begins, what’s left is often only a fraction of what went in.

That’s the reality of these situations.

Recovery rarely happens in full. It happens in pieces, over time, and often unevenly.

And that raises a critical question that sits at the centre of this entire process:

How many other entities were holding investor funds that have not yet been identified?

Because if one third-party account has already surfaced this early in the investigation, it suggests something much broader — a network of accounts, relationships, and financial pathways that may still be sitting just outside immediate visibility.

And until those are fully uncovered, the true scale of both the operation — and the potential recovery — remains incomplete.

The legal framework: what the court is actually doing

It’s important to understand what this filing does — and just as importantly, what it doesn’t do.

It does not assign blame.

It does not determine liability.

It does not establish wrongdoing.

At this stage, the court isn’t trying to answer the bigger questions about intent or responsibility. It’s focused on something far more immediate and practical — identifying assets and bringing them back under control of the estate so the process can move forward.

Instead, it enforces a simple legal principle under U.S. bankruptcy law:

If an entity is holding property that belongs to the estate, that property must be returned.

That principle sits at the core of the process. It doesn’t require proving fraud. It doesn’t require untangling every relationship. It simply requires establishing that the funds are connected to the estate — and once that threshold is met, the obligation to return them follows.

That’s it.

No narrative. No positioning. No marketing.

Just a legal obligation enforced through the court system, backed by statutory authority and executed through a process designed to prioritise recovery over debate.

And while it may seem narrow in scope, this step is critical — because every dollar recovered here is one step closer to understanding how the system actually functioned and where the money ultimately flowed.

The pattern becomes clear

When you step back and look at this alongside everything else we’ve uncovered, a consistent pattern begins to emerge — not just in isolated incidents, but across the structure as a whole.

  • Multiple entities operating within the same ecosystem
  • Funds not held where investors believed they were deposited
  • Money moving through third-party accounts
  • Recovery only beginning once external control is imposed

These aren’t random observations. They are structural indicators of how this type of operation is designed to function — layered, fragmented, and deliberately difficult to trace from the outside.

When investors are interacting with a single brand, they assume a single point of control. But what this case shows is something very different: a network of entities, each playing a role, each handling different parts of the flow of money. That separation creates both operational flexibility and a level of opacity that makes early detection far more difficult.

This isn’t unique to Goliath Ventures.

It’s a structure that repeats itself across many high-yield and crypto-linked schemes — complex enough to appear legitimate, but disconnected enough to obscure accountability. The same language, the same positioning, and often the same promises, just repackaged under different names and entities.

What makes this case different is that we now have court-backed confirmation of those mechanics in action.

Not assumptions. Not marketing claims. Not second-hand accounts.

Documented evidence showing that funds were sitting outside the core entity and had to be formally recovered through legal intervention — and that changes the conversation entirely.

Final thoughts: the illusion versus the paper trail

At the height of any scheme, everything feels controlled.

There are dashboards, updates, explanations, and a carefully managed narrative that gives investors confidence the system is working exactly as described. Numbers move, balances grow, and the experience is designed to feel predictable, structured, and real.

But that confidence is built on presentation — not verification.

Because once the collapse begins, that illusion fades quickly.

What replaces it isn’t reassurance. It’s documentation.

And documentation doesn’t rely on belief.

It relies on evidence.

It strips everything back to the fundamentals and asks the questions that were never properly answered at the time:

  • Where is the money?
  • Who controls it?
  • Can it be recovered?

This filing is one step in answering those questions.

It’s not the full picture — but it’s a verified piece of the puzzle, grounded in a legal process that doesn’t care about branding, narratives, or promises. It cares about tracing funds and establishing control.

And what it confirms is something many investors were never told — or were never given the opportunity to properly question:

The money didn’t stay where it was supposed to.

It moved. It was held elsewhere. It sat in accounts outside the structure investors believed they were participating in.

Now, through the legal process, that movement is being reconstructed, documented, and — where possible — reversed.

Not through speculation. Not through marketing.

But through a system that forces transparency, one step at a time.

One account at a time.

Disclaimer: How This Investigation Was Conducted

This investigation relies entirely on OSINT — Open Source Intelligence — meaning every claim made here is based on publicly available records, archived web pages, corporate filings, domain data, social media activity, and open blockchain transactions. No private data, hacking, or unlawful access methods were used. OSINT is a powerful and ethical tool for exposing scams without violating privacy laws or overstepping legal boundaries.

About the Author

I’m DANNY DE HEK, a New Zealand–based YouTuber, investigative journalist, and OSINT researcher. I name and shame individuals promoting or marketing fraudulent schemes through my YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Every video I produce exposes the people behind scams, Ponzi schemes, and MLM frauds — holding them accountable in public.

My PODCAST is an extension of that work. It’s distributed across 18 major platforms — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and iHeartRadio — so when scammers try to hide, my content follows them everywhere. If you prefer listening to my investigations instead of watching, you’ll find them on every major podcast service.

You can BOOK ME for private consultations or SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, where I share first-hand experience from years of exposing large-scale fraud and helping victims recover.

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