Investigations

Eric McNeel told Randy Couture the Onyx fund returned 101%

The UFC Hall of Famer recorded pitch calls after wealth managers flagged an athlete-focused fund.

UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture recorded Eric McNeel pitching the Onyx opportunities fund while posing as a prospective investor. McNeel told him the fund was up more than 101% for the year and had cleared 100% returns for four straight years.

McNeel is an influencer who pitched professional athletes on a private fund he said made 5% to 10% a month. Couture entered the picture about two years ago when McNeel contacted him online about fighter Danny Ingay, who wanted a place to invest fight earnings. Couture's wealth managers did not recognize McNeel and warned that Ingay could be targeted.

Couture took a follow-up call and let McNeel send fund materials. On the recordings McNeel described 15 years as a financial adviser before moving into alternative fund management. He said the portfolio used only about 5% leverage per Bitcoin trade and claimed that vehicle was less risky than the S&P 500 because the fund tracked a single asset.

Couture's team shared the tapes with Hindenburg Research, the short seller that investigated Nikola and other fraud cases before winding down more than a year ago. Hindenburg never published the McNeel work. Its site indicated the file went to regulators, but more than a year passed without public action.

YouTuber Coffeezilla picked up Hindenburg's data room after reporting on Goliath Ventures, a Ponzi scheme whose CEO was arrested. Matt Burks, who helped Goliath reach retiree money in that case, also appeared on Onyx team materials as operations staff. Onyx listed Black Block for compliance, the same group that vouched for Goliath as backed 115%, a name many investors confused with BlackRock. Alston and Bird, which Onyx cited as legal counsel, faced a class action accusing the firm of structuring and endorsing the Goliath joint venture and of legal malpractice and constructive fraud.

McNeel offered Couture audited trade history pulled from Binance, roughly 850 transactions over four years. The reviewer of record was David Rosenbal, a CPA. Hindenburg reached Rosenbal by phone; he said he had no idea how his name appeared and did not know the fund operators. In the trade log, multiple entries showed the same open and close timestamp while booking profits as large as $40,000, which would imply zero-second holds.

McNeel also pitched a referral program paying 5% annually on capital Couture brought in, plus onboarding paperwork he said was drafted by an SEC attorney and battle tested by a public company. On the call he joked that he did not look good in orange and preferred black.

When Coffeezilla asked McNeel to respond, McNeel blocked him on Instagram. McNeel later denied that Onyx was a Ponzi scheme, said investors received their money back, and claimed the fund no longer traded crypto. He said that at the time of the Couture call Onyx ran a strategy but was not the underlying trader and that performance figures came from partners. On the same recordings he had described proprietary algorithmic software, a Harvard-trained coder, and direct Bitcoin trades on Binance.

Source video: UFC Fighter Accidentally Exposes a Huge Scam