Amanda Knorr and Troy Wragg have been charged in a $30M Ponzi scheme involving “carbon-negative” housing.
Environmental pair of Madoffs?
Mantria’s outlets
Hohenwald Eco-Industrial Park: The Web site describes it as a “mega facility [that] will be capable of converting 250,000 tons of biomass waste annually into BioChar, BioFuel and BioEnergy” in Lewis County, Tenn.
Mortgage lending: Mantria Financial is “state of Tennessee-approved industrial loan and thrift mortgage lender.”
Mantria Records: Yes, there is also a record label, but prospective musicians need not apply, because “currently, Mantria Records is not looking for any new artists, we are focused solely on building out our flagship artist — ICE BLOC.”
MONTGOMERY COUNTY. Two former Temple University students were charged in a $30 million Ponzi scheme along with two “wealth-building” consultants for allegedly luring people to invest their retirement savings in supposed “carbon-negative” housing and other green measures.
Troy Wragg, 28, and Amanda Knorr, 26, of Philadelphia, and two Denver residents, allegedly used Wragg’s Bala Cynwyd-based Mantria Corp. to promise enormous annual returns of 17 percent to “hundreds of percent” on overhyped green investments.
Mantria Corp. boasted of plans to build the world’s first “carbon-negative” housing community, but the project in Tennessee has gone nowhere, officials there said. Money taken in from investors for the housing projects and for other eco-projects was used to repay earlier investors, the SEC said.
“These promoters fraudulently exaggerated Mantria’s green initiatives ...,” said Don Hoerl of the SEC’s Denver office. “In reality, the only green these promoters seemed interested in was investors’ money.”
Wragg and Knorr, Mantria’s COO, could not be reached for comment at their Bala Cynwyd office and their lawyer didn’t return a call for comment.
On his Web site, Wragg says that he was homeless as a child, while Knorr says she worked under her disabled older sister’s name starting at age 11 to take care of her and her “disabled mother.”
Official: Not based on fact
When Troy Wragg first visited Tennessee to scope out cheap land a couple years ago, he asked if he could join the local economic advisory board.
Despite getting denied, Van Buren County Executive Kelly Dishman found out that Mantria’s Web site touted Wragg’s seat on the board.
“If you look at his sites, they struck me as ... very self promoting,” County Executive Kelly Dishman said. “These Web sites were very misleading.”
Dishman and a local official from the next county on what is known as the Cumberland Plateau said two communities advertised online have not gotten off the ground yet.
“It’s certainly not based on fact,” Dishman said of Wragg’s company site.
