Securities Fraud

Over 14,000 Massachusetts Investors Receive Checks for Losses in $1B TelexFree Ponzi Scam

Published on: August 18, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The first checks for compensation in the $1 billion global Ponzi scam involving TelexFree Inc. have gone out to over 14,000 investors in Massachusetts. Victims received $2.9 million in total as part of a settlement with Fidelity Cooperative Bank. This is only a small portion of the alleged losses.

About 1.9 million investors are still waiting to get any financial relief in the case, which affected not just people in the US as the scam spread globally and virally online and by word of mouth. The alleged Ponzi scam involved fraudsters selling inexpensive Internet phone service for long distance calls. They were recruited as members for $1,400 increments. Big financial returns were promised to investors for bringing in other investors and using Internet ads to market the business. While early investors made money, many others suffered substantial losses.

Telex-Free was shut down in Brazil in 2013, but the Ponzi operation continued in Massachusetts where it was headed up by James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler. Both deny the criminal and civil charges.
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Senate Bill Would Double Statute of Limitations for The SEC to Pursue Securities Violations

Published on: August 7, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. has introduced a bill that would give the Securities and Exchange Commission a longer period of time to uncover and impose penalties for financial fraud. Under his proposal the statute of limitations for pursuing civil penalties would be extended from five years to ten years.

The bill comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Gabelli v. SEC, in which the Court held that the current five-year statute to take action against wrongdoers begins when the fraud happened and not upon discovery. According to an announcement about the new legislation, which was published on the Senator’s website, the ruling in Gabelli has made it even harder for the Commission to take action against offenders by shortening how much time the regulator has to investigate and pursue violations of securities laws.

The Gabelli case involved allegations of fraud by Marc J. Gabelli, an investment adviser who managed the Gabelli Global Growth Fund, which is a mutual fund. The SEC said that the alleged fraud took place from 1999 and 2002.

$30M Fraud that Bilked NHL Players Leads to Guilty Convictions

Published on: July 14, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A federal jury has found two men accused of running a financial scam that bilked investors, including several National Hockey League players, of $30 million guilty of money laundering, conspiracy, and wire fraud. The trial against Phillip Kenner, an Arizona financial adviser, and Tommy Constantine, a former professional race car driver, lasted ten weeks.

According to prosecutors, from 2002 to 2013, Kenner convinced at least 13 NHL players to invest $100,000 in a Hawaii real estate development. He met the players through a college friend who was drafted by the league.

He and Constantine stole the players’ money, causing $13M in losses. They used the funds to pay for their lavish lifestyles.

The two men, in a second scam, convinced many of the same hockey players to invest $1.4M in Eufora, a prepaid debit card business owned by Constantine. This money went into bank accounts controlled by the two men.

Massachusetts Regulator Charges Securities America Over Bait and Switch Ads By Broker Accused of Targeting Senior Investors

Published on: July 11, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is charging Securities America with inadequate supervision of a broker who is accused of using a “grossly deceptive” radio ad campaign to target older investors. The state regulator said that the financial firm shouldn’t have approved the spots that Barry Armstrong ran on his AM radio show. His show, which airs on WRKO-AM, is syndicated on different stations.

The broker purportedly ran ads asking listeners to call for information related to Alzheimer’s Disease when what Armstrong really was doing was collecting their contact information so he could offer to sell them financial advice. Galvin’s office said that the broker engaged in ‘bait and switch’ by falsely advertising one service when he was really selling another type of service.

The regulator contends that Securities America failed to identify or prevent Armstrong’s unethical conduct by neglecting to ask even one question about the content of the ads or attendant mailing materials. Now, the state wants a censure, a cease-and-desist order, and a fine imposed against the firm.
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Two Former-Bank of Oswego Executives are Indicted for Fraud

Published on: July 3, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A federal grand jury has indicted ex-Bank of Oswego president and CEO Dan Heine and former CFO Diana Yates with running a widespread, five-year conspiracy to hide the Oregon-based bank’s troubled financial state from regulators. According to the indictments, the two of them authorized secret deals to conceal bad loans in the bank’s portfolio from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and its own board of directors.

According to the indictment, from September 2009 through last year, Yates and Hein conspired to defraud the bank. The reason for the allege conspiracy was to deceive its shareholders, board of directors, the public, and regulators by making the bank seem more financially robust.

Among their alleged acts:

• Using a bank employee to act as a straw man in a bogus real estate transaction.

• Having the bank make loans to a middleman. The latter would allegedly send loan proceeds to other beleaguered bank borrowers so that they could make their loan payments.

• Having the bank make loans and withdrawals from customer accounts without customer approval or knowledge.

• Mischaracterizing assets in reports to the Board and the FDIC, as well as making false entries in the report about the status of different loans and transactions.

• Hiding information about loans from bank insiders

KKR & Co. Will Pay Nearly $30M to Settle SEC Charges of Misallocating Broken Deal Expenses

Published on: June 30, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) would pay close to $30 million, including a $10 million penalty, to settle charges that it misallocated over $17 million in “broken deal” expenses to its flagship private equity funds. According to the regulator, over a six-year period ending in 2011, KKR incurred $338 million in diligence expenses, also known as broken deal costs, related to buyout opportunities that were unsuccessful, as well as other similar expenses.

This is the first time the SEC has charged a private equity adviser over the misallocation of broken deal costs. During the period in question, KKR was overseeing two money pools—the private equity funds and its co-investment vehicles. As the private equity funds invested $30.2 billion, KKR co-investors put in $4.6 billion alongside the funds. Yet even though the firm raised billions of dollars of deal capital from co-investors, it was the flagship funds funds that ended up bearing all the costs of these broken deals.

The SEC said that as a result of the firm’s allocation practices, firm insiders and certain major clients who had invested via the co-investment vehicles benefited as none of the broken deal costs were allocated them for years even as they also availed of deal sourcing activities. The regulator said that not notifying investors of its allocation practices was a breach of fiduciary duty by KKR.

SEC Charges Unregistered Brokers for Handling Over $79M of Investments in Immigrant Investor Program

Published on: June 24, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The SEC is charging Ireeco LLC and Ireeco Limited with serving as unregistered brokers for over 150 foreign investors. The two firms are accused of illegally brokering over $79M of investments by those who wanted to become U.S. residents under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.

The program offers a way for foreigners to invest money in a U.S. enterprise or a designated, private regional center in exchange for legal residency in this country. The SEC contends that the two brokerage firms went online to solicit foreign investors, promising to help them select a regional center. Instead, the firms allegedly directed most of them to the centers that paid commissions of approximately $35,000/investor once the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved a green card petition. The SEC said that participants invested $79 million in the regional centers.

The SEC said that Ireeco LLC and Ireeco Ltd. raised money for immigrant investment projects without being registered to legally operate as securities brokers. The two firms agreed to settle without denying or admitting to the findings.
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San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan Addresses $20M-Plus Texas Securities Case Against His Former Financial Adviser

Published on: June 18, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Earlier this year, our securities law firm published a blog post reporting that San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan had filed a Texas securities case against financial representative Charles Banks. Duncan contends that due to unsuitable recommendations made to him by Banks, he allegedly lost some $25 million.

Banks, a private-equity investor, was Duncan’s adviser for nearly two decades, since the beginning of his professional sports career. The NBA All-Star says that Banks persuaded him to get involved in investments that were bad for Duncan but good for the financial adviser. He also claims that Banks forged his signature and withheld his return on a loan. The San Antonio Spurs star says that over the years, he’s invested millions of dollars in products and businesses that Banks either owned or had a financial stake in.

Meantime, Banks claims that Duncan’s losses are because of the player’s own impatience or due to misunderstandings. He argued that Duncan is using the Texas securities case to exit certain limited partnership investments.
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Investors Targeted by Advanced-Fee Scams Using Bogus Regulator Websites and Fake Broker Identities

Published on: June 10, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued an alert warning non-U.S. and U.S. investors about scammers who use fake regulator websites and identities to steal money. Some scammers have even used FINRA’s name or pretended to be employed by the self-regulatory organization.

These fraudsters will typically ask for an advance payment of a service fee and then disappear upon receipt of the money. The fee is supposedly for services that involve buying non-performing stock that already belongs to the person they are targeting with the offer to pay a high price. The fraudster may even pretend to be a securities regulator or industry professional.

According to FINRA, there are investors in the UK who have received phone calls from individuals claiming to be with securities firm that were subject to disciplinary actions by regulators. These callers will typically try to procure advance payment for the return of money that was lost while the investor was associated with the firm.

U.S. investors have also been targeted. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation even issued its own warning against scammers pretending to be the SIPC or another organization with similar powers. SIPC has the authority to keep up a reserve fund for customers of brokerage firms that become insolvent. However firm liquidations that go through SIPC do not require investors to pay a fee so they can recover their monies.
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Former Stockbroker Pleads Guilty to Fraud Involving $6M Ponzi Scam

Published on: June 8, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Sunil Sharma, a former stockbroker who hasn’t been part of the securities industry for over 10 years, has pleaded guilty to fraud charges. The 68-year-old is facing 20 years behind bars for starting what prosecutors claim was a $6 million Ponzi scam that ran from 2008 to 2014.

He allegedly raised $8.36 million from over 30 investors, paying old investors with new investors’ money. According to officials, Sharma misappropriated some $2.5 million of investor funds for his own spending, including a cruise trip, leases for expensive cars, and a down payment on a house.

Investors received statements showing gains even as Sharma continued to lose their funds. He falsely claimed that investors were putting their money in safe investments when really the day trading strategy he employed was high risk.