An Alabama man has been charged with defrauding investors through a series of lies including that Amazon was buying his business or that he had hundreds of preorders for products that didn’t exist.

The Pell City man was charged with a scheme to defraud investors in his various companies, announced U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples.

An information filed in United States District Court charges John Michael Golden, 48, with one count of wire fraud.

According to the information, Golden was the founder and owner of Wolf-Tek, LLC; MountainTop Timber, LLC; and DroneTek, Inc. The information alleges that between January 2018 and July 2022, Golden devised a scheme to persuade individuals to invest in his companies.

He made various misrepresentations to the investors, including his businesses were about to be sold for millions of dollars to companies such as Amazon, he had timber leases and an ability to harvest timber for profit, and he had hundreds of pre-orders for drones that he simply needed capital to fulfill.

Golden also gave some investors Promissory Notes in which he misrepresented his ability to repay. Golden defrauded investors in his companies of more than $3.5 million dollars. He used the funds to pay back prior investors and for personal expenses.

The maximum penalty for wire fraud is twenty years in prison.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Ryan Rummage is prosecuting the case.