Since failing to revolutionize the convenience store industry, Joseph Blake Smith has turned his gaze toward new endeavors, such as saving America’s infrastructure.
While litigation continues to stack up against Smith as founder of the now-insolvent SQRL c-store chain, his latest entrepreneurial ventures include Becq Energy, pronounced “Beck” and named in recognition of Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel, 19th century pioneer of solar power.
For now, Smith describes the company’s bread-and-butter business as the conventional installation of solar panels and developing solar farms, though he has no actual projects to point out.
As he did with SQRL, Smith proclaims big aspirations for Becq Energy, and he has taken to social media platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, to share his grand vision for the venture.
“It’s a solar company, and we’re going to be a utility company,” Smith said in a TikTok video.
Smith claims that a potentially proprietary process to distribute solar-generated power to a “Becq Box” will allow residential and commercial electricity users to bypass the grid to access green, cheaper energy.
“We have a patent-pending way that myself and a couple of engineers came up with on how to distribute the solar power, and we’re going to create solar power plants,” he said in a YouTube video.
Smith went on to add: “I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you this: We’re going to create pretty large scale. We’ll have small and some medium and some large solar power plants that are powered by large, large, large solar arrays across the United States, mainly in rural America.
@iamblakejoseph From solar panels to homes, we’re connecting the dots. BecQ Energy is building a sustainable future for everyone.? #SolarEnergy #Sustainability #BecqEnergy #solarindustry #renewableenergy #utilitycompany #infrastructuredevelopment #energyinnovation #ZCapital #BecqBox ♬ original sound – Blake Joseph
“We’re going to start there, and then come into the cities. And we’re going to take the power from the solar arrays and get it stored at our power plant. We have a patent-pending way to distribute that power that has nothing to do with the current grid. We won’t need the utility companies.”
Beyond Becq Energy, Smith said he sees future business opportunities to pursue through his Z Capital, including ventures in water and wastewater, the payments and credit industries, and in banking.
Offices
Becq Energy operates out of leased quarters at 8100 Col. Glenn Road in Little Rock.
The property served as a storage site for containers of SQRL-related equipment during that company’s brief existence.
A $239,000 above-ground tank fueling station, owned by Gas POS of Birmingham, Alabama, also sits among the containers. Gas POS also owns a portable fueling station at a SQRL convenience store that never opened in Saline County’s Paron community.
The Paron property is the subject of a bankruptcy claim by Gas POS as well as a foreclosure action by Today’s Bank of Huntsville.
Smith could not be reached for comment on this article, but several SQRL alumni dot the Becq team roster.
James Irvine, former SQRL chief financial officer, is the CFO at Becq. Carrie Draper, former transaction coordinator at SQRL, is chief of staff at Becq. Desiree Tompkins, SQRL’s due diligence coordinator, is an operations support specialist at BECQ.
Sonya LaGros, who worked with accounts payable at SQRL, is an operations support specialist at Becq, as is Norris Weintz.
He worked at Smith’s Golden Bear Capital venture before taking on-again, off-again employment at SQRL.
More Fraud Allegations
Draper and Smith are named as defendants in several SQRL-related lawsuits. Those actions involve allegations of fraudulent transactions and forged real estate documents.
The latest accusations against Smith have surfaced in Texas, where Jamal Abdul Hizam guided SQRL Service Stations into bankruptcy court on Aug. 16 after two beleaguered attempts in Arkansas.
Hizam, through his Gas Hub Investment LLC, bought control of SQRL Service Stations from Smith in a controversial $17.4 million transaction on April 5.
In a Sept. 17 affidavit, Hizam said he was unaware when his company bought SQRL Service Stations that SQRL was in default to its landlords and vendors.
“In fact, just the opposite had been represented to me,” Hizam said in the court filing. “I would not have done this transaction knowing what I know now. I believe I was defrauded in connection with this equity sale.”
The SQRL Service Stations Chapter 11 petition, filed Aug. 16 in bankruptcy court in Dallas, lists liabilities of more than $1.2 billion and apparently nothing worth reporting in the way of assets.
In a Sept. 11 affidavit filed in the bankruptcy case, Mallik Panda also leveled accusations of fraud against Smith and Cameron Property Co. of Charlotte, North Carolina, a disputed owner of several of the stores.
“The fraudulent conduct of Cameron and Joseph Blake Smith extended to the creation and backdating of leases,” said Panda, described as a corporate representative of SQRL Service Stations.
He noted that some leases were created months before Cameron had any legal involvement or ownership interest in the properties.
“Some leases were dated Dec. 31, 2023, but metadata analysis shows they were actually created in February 2024,” Panda said. “This discrepancy indicates an attempt to retroactively fabricate agreements to strengthen Cameron’s claims of ownership and deceive other parties, including Gas Hub.”
Several Arkansas convenience stores are associated with those allegations against Cameron and Smith, including a SQRL project at 7209 E. Grand Ave. in Lonsdale (Garland County) and a former SQRL project at 709 E. Fordyce St. in England (Lonoke County).
Cameron-SQRL Lonsdale LLC allegedly bought the Lonsdale project for $5.6 million in February. However, that curious transaction somehow avoided paying off or assuming an underlying mortgage held by Stone Bank of Mountain View.
That loan is in default, and Stone Bank filed a $2.8 million foreclosure suit on Sept. 16 against the Joseph Blake Smith Irrevocable Trust and Smith’s Standard Development Co. LLC.
Stone Bank also holds a $3.1 million mortgage secured by the England store owned by Files Development Co. LLC, led by Tim and Drew Files.
However, Cameron-SQRL England LLC claims to have purchased the project for $4.6 million in February, again without paying off or assuming the Stone Bank mortgage.
Files Development claims the sale of the England property is fraudulent, one among a growing list of controversial SQRL-related transactions.
The disputes are part of a long string of lawsuits across multiple states encompassing the insolvent SQRL chain launched by Joseph Blake Smith, who sometimes transposes his name to Blake Joseph and drops the Smith.
“I’m going to start going by the moniker Blake Joseph,” he said in a YouTube video. “It’s still me. I’ve got the same tattoos, whatever, same personality.”
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