Archive

April 29, 2016

Michigan announced that a judge has ordered Shawn Dicken, of Bay City, to pay $663, 531.48 in restitution for her role in an extensive multi-county Ponzi scheme. Dicken was convicted in 2014 after an Attorney General investigation and sentenced to 140 months to 20 years in prison. Beginning in 2011, Dicken was employed as the lead salesperson for The Diversified Group Advisory Firm LLC, an investment company. During her tenure with Diversified, Dicken misrepresented the investments she marketed to investors, saying investments offered by Diversified were without risk, completely liquid, featuring a guaranteed rate of return of between 9.5% and 10.44%. Dicken failed to disclose the risks associated with the actual investment in question – a highly leveraged real estate investment that could result in the loss of all of the investors’ money. Many investors, including senior citizens, risked their life savings. Dicken swindled investors out of more than two million dollars and investigation revealed she took an eight percent commission, pocketing approximately $160,000 for herself. MI

March 15, 2016

The SEC charged former Boston resident Mark A. Jones with operating a $10 million Ponzi scheme that claimed to generate profits from “bridge loans” to businesses in Jamaica.  Jones was arrested by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts has filed related criminal charges against him.  SEC

March 10, 2016

The SEC charged Oregon-based investment group Aequitas Management LLC and four affiliates, along with three top executives, with raising more than $350 million from investors while hiding the group’s rapidly deteriorating financial condition.  Aequitas allegedly defrauded more than 1,500 investors nationwide into believing they were making health care, education, and transportation-related investments when their money was really being used in a last-ditch effort to save the firm, including using some new money to pay earlier investors.  SEC

February 8, 2016

4X Solutions, Inc. and its principal, Whileon Chay, both of New York City, were ordered to pay over $10 million in penalties and disgorgement in connection with a foreign currency Ponzi scheme.  CFTC

December 1, 2015

The SEC charged “Bitcoin mining” companies GAW Miners andZenMiner, and their founder, Homero Joshua Garza, with conducting a Ponzi scheme to defraud investors.  Bitcoin “mining” means to apply computer power to complex equations that verify a group of transactions in a virtual currency.  The first computer to solve an equation is awarded new units of the virtual currency.  The SEC’s complaint alleges that Garza, through GAW Miners and Zen Miners, purported to offer shares of a digital Bitcoin mining operation.  In reality, the companies did not own enough computer power for the mining it promised to conduct.  Therefore, most investors paid for a share of computing power that never existed.  Returns paid to some investors came from proceeds generated from sales to other investors.  SEC

August 3, 2015

Houston businessman, Frederick Alan Voight, settled charges by the SEC that he operated a $114 million Ponzi scheme.  The SEC’s case charged Voight with defrauding more than 300 investors in multiple offerings of promissory notes issued by two partnerships he owns.  Voight has agreed to an asset freeze and to pay civil penalties and return allegedly ill-gotten gains in an amount to be set later by the court.  SEC

July 6, 2015

The SEC charged Bay Area oil and gas company, Luca International Group, and its CEO, Bingqing Yang, with running a $68 million Ponzi-like scheme and affinity fraud that targeted the Chinese-American community in California and investors in Asia, including some solicited as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.  SEC

June 1, 2015

The SEC charged Miami investment adviser Phil Donnahue Williamson with running a Ponzi scheme under which he siphoned money from his Sterling Investment Fund and defrauded investors, including several local teachers and law enforcement officers.  SEC

April 7, 2015

The SEC announced fraud charges against former professional football player William D. Allen and his business partner Susan C. Daub and others, alleging they operated a Ponzi scheme that raised more than $31 million from investors who were promised profits from loans to professional athletes.  SEC

February 27, 2015

The SEC charged purported venture capital fund manager Gregory W. Gray Jr. and his firms Archipel Capital LLC and BIM Management LP with fraudulently using money from three investment funds to pay fictitious returns to investors in a different fund.  SEC