Archive

October 17, 2018

A former financial advisor turned online sportswear retailer has been convicted of numerous counts of fraud for running a $20 million Ponzi scheme. Between 2014 and 2017, Dawn Bennett allegedly convinced investors to invest in her company, DJB Holdings, by misrepresenting its financial health and the investment risks. With the money she obtained from 46 investors, many of them elderly, Bennett paid legal expenses and repaid earlier investors. After the fraud was discovered, Bennett allegedly arranged to have priests in India perform protective spells on her behalf. Unfortunately for her, the spells did not work as intended, and she now faces a lifetime in prison. USAO MD

October 17, 2018

An investment advisor who owned and operated an investment firm called CM Capital Management LLC has plead guilty to running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 53 investors of $6.1 million over the course of 13 years. In at least 13 of those cases, the investors with Edward Lee Moody, Jr.'s firm were elderly people who had entrusted him with their life savings. Instead of investing the funds on his clients' behalf, Moody used them to buy securities for himself, as well as buy a home, make car payments, and travel. To cover his tracks, he paid earlier investors using funds obtained from newer investors and created falsified statements that showed earned returns. Yet the reality was that in most of those cases, Moody hadn't even opened brokerage accounts for his clients, let alone buy securities on their behalf. He now faces a sentence of decades in prison at his sentencing in February. USAO EDVA

October 16, 2018

Nomura Holding America Inc. and its affiliates have agreed to pay a civil penalty of $480 million to settle claims that it knowingly misled investors of its residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) in the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008. From 2006 to 2007, Nomura allegedly marketed falsely to investors that its due diligence process was "industry leading," despite knowing that many of the loans it sold did not comply with regulations, or had not even gone through their due diligence process. Among the investors defrauded were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, retirement funds, and university endowments. USAO EDNY

October 16, 2018

Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu, a former manager at Equifax, was sentenced to 8 months of home confinement and fined $50,000 for insider trading related to Equifax's massive data breach in 2017. As a member of a team tasked with quickly developing an online user interface for 100 million possible victims of a data breach at an unnamed company, Bonthu quickly guessed that the company in question was the one he worked for. In violation of company policy as well as federal law, Bonthu then allegedly bought a large quantity of Equifax stock, specifically put options, which allowed him to profit if the value plummeted within a two week period. Six days later, Equifax announced the breach and its stock value plummeted, netting Bonthu more than $75,000 in fraudulently gained profits. USAO NDGA

October 11, 2018

A Washington couple will serve time in federal prison for defrauding investors of $12.7 million over the course of 7 years. Delving into their ties to various religious organization, Laurence Hong and Grace Hong convinced more than 55 clients to invest their life savings in a hedge fund that they called Pishon Holdings, by claiming that Laurence had experience investing vast sums of money on behalf of wealthy families and Grace had experience working for an investment firm. In fact, Laurence, also known as Sung Hong, had just completed a nearly 3 year sentence for investment fraud when he began the new scheme. With the funds they stole from investors, the couple paid for rent on a house, bought a yacht and multiple luxury vehicles (including an Aston Martin, BMW, Lamborghini, and Maserati), and went on extravagant family vacations to the Bahamas and Beverly Hills. Laurence will now serve another 15 years in prison, and Grace, also known as Hyun Joo Hong, will serve 6 years. They have also been ordered to pay restitution of more than $12.7 million. USAO WDWA

October 9, 2018

Darrell Smith, who had worked as an investment advisor in Northern Iowa, was sentenced to nearly 15 years in prison following a guilty plea for charges arising from his fraudulent  diversion of funds from his clients to bio-energy and ethanol companies that he owned and/or controlled.  Smith stole over $2.4 million from client accounts, and has been ordered to pay restitution of over $ 1 million.   DOJ

October 5, 2018

Ameriprise Financial Services agreed to pay $375,000 to New Jersey to resolve an investigation that Ameriprise sold unsuitable non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) and non-traded business development companies (BDCs) to customers, did not reasonably supervise the sale of these alternative investments, and did not keep required books and records.  Most of the alternative investment offerings sold by Ameriprise during the relevant time period were registered with the New Jersey Bureau of Securities as conditioned upon heightened suitability standards for sales to New Jersey residents, but Ameriprise had failed to meet the New Jersey Prospectus Suitability Standards.  NJ

October 3, 2018

The SEC froze the assets of U.K. citizen Roger Knox and the Swiss-based company Wintercap SA based on their role in a scheme that generated more than $165 million of illegal sales of stock in at least 50 microcap companies.  The parties are alleged to have helped securities holders conceal their stock ownership and to have provided anonymous access to brokerage accounts to sell the shares in the U.S. market. Knox allegedly helped facilitate pump-and-dump and other market manipulation schemes by selling massive quantities of microcap securities on behalf of the concealed shareholders, and simultaneously orchestrating promotional campaigns and other efforts to artificially inflate the price and trading volume of those shares.  DOJ announced parallel civil and criminal proceedings.  SEC; DOJ

September 29, 2018

Elon Musk and Tesla will pay a total of $40 Million in penalties to settle charges of securities fraud which were brought by the SEC against Musk one week ago and the charges made today against Tesla for failing to have the necessary disclosure controls and procedures in relation to the tweets of Elon Musk. One requirement of the settlement is Musk stepping down as Tesla’s Chairman. It will be three years before Musk can be re-elected as Chairman. Furthermore, there will be two new independent directors assigned to Tesla’s board and a new committee of independent directors who will put in place added controls and procedures to better manage Musk’s communications.  The payment of the $40 million will be made individually by Musk and Tesla – $20 million each. Finally, the investors who were affected will receive a distribution of the $40 million in penalties. SEC    

September 28, 2018

Credit Suisse Securities LLC has agreed to pay $5 million to the SEC and $5 million to New York to settle charges of violating the Securities Act by making material misrepresentations about retail customer orders. Between 2011 to 2015, the company allegedly failed to disclose to retail customers that their electronic system gave preferential treatment to orders that had a public reporting component over orders that did not. Additionally, the routing tactic used by the system gave customers of these non-reported orders less favorable execution prices. NY AG; SEC