I’m writing this because back in June 2024, you expressed interest in a company we featured called AGRI Developments.
We pride ourselves on researching trustworthy alternative investment opportunities from vetted companies. Most of the time, the companies we deal with are honest.
However, from time to time we encounter firms that break our trust, and we feel an obligation to let you know.
We take our published warnings very seriously.
We only publish warnings when we or a trusted Alts community member has had a direct, significantly negative experience with a firm.
We are issuing a warning: Do not invest or do business with AGRI Developments.
We are here to help anyone who has invested with AGRI.
IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY THE AGRI SITUATION, REACH OUT TO [email protected]
Our history with AGRI
In June 2024, we did a paid Deep Dive issue on AGRI.
AGRI is an agriculture company which lets you invest in Hass Avocado plantations in the Philippines.
To assist with our due diligence, we reached out to Alts community member (and seasoned farmland investor) Dr. Tigran Kalaydzhyan PhD, who analyzed the firm, and even came up with a pro forma cash flow analysis.
We created an EOI form which garnered significant interest, and for a few weeks considered creating an Altea SPV for this deal. (We ultimately decided against bringing this deal to Altea, partially based on Dr. Tigran’s findings).
In the weeks and months that followed, we started to notice some red flags with the company. The team stopped responding to new queries, and became very difficult to reach via email.
Scam details
Unfortunately, after investing a small amount with AGRI, Dr. Tigran has just reported that AGRI indeed appears to be a scam after all.
He writes:
It looks like AGRI Developments is a scam after all. I was writing and calling to the company to figure out if they are going to pay promised distributions in December, but nobody ever replied.
Daniel Shaw left the company in August and did not reply to my messages since then – I tried Whatsapp (texting and calling), email and LinkedIn. I also contacted their director through LinkedIn, and, again, no response. I am not even sure he is a real person (as well as other people on the team).
Earlier this year, I also noticed another company that is a copycat of AGRI called Plantations International – similar offerings, identical brochures, almost identical posts in social media (even using the same fonts!), and I did not trust the salesperson. It makes me think there are several scammers operating within the same niche.
While we did invest in this opportunity through an Altea SPV, it’s very upsetting knowing that this company is a scam — and that Alts community members learned this the hard way.
We are issuing a warning: Do not invest or do business with AGRI Developments.
Further action
If you did business with AGRI (or would just like to chat) you can reach Dr. Tigran through the Alts community, where we have a dedicated space for this issue.
If you have any other questions or comments you’d like to leave in private, just respond to this email. We read everything.
Sincerely,
Stefan
