[V]accarelli was a registered representative of The Investment Center ("TIC"), a brokerage company, and was an investment adviser associated with IC Advisory Services, Inc. ("IC Advisory").  He also was the owner and only member of LWLVACC, LLC, and conducted business through an entity named Lux Financial Services ("Lux Financial").  Using these various entities, Vaccarelli operated a financial advisory and brokerage service through which he offered investment advice and sold investments and securities to individuals and families in the Waterbury area.

Between approximately 2011 and 2017, Vaccarelli defrauded approximately 15 victim investors of approximately $1.5 million by falsely representing that he would invest his clients' money in IRA rollover accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit ("CDs"), or other types of interest-earning investments.  However, instead of investing customers' funds as he had represented, Vaccarelli deposited customer funds into his own personal account and business bank accounts, commingled those funds with his own money, and used the funds to pay both business and personal expenses, including tuition and mortgage payments.  In some instances, he also used customer funds to make bogus "interest payments" to other victim-investors.

Vaccarelli's victims include an elderly woman who Vaccarelli coerced into transferring approximately $300,000 in funds from a safe investment portfolio into a bank account that Vaccarelli controlled.  Vaccarelli subsequently spent the money on personal expenses and to pay off another investor who threatened to sue him.  Vaccarelli also stole nearly $500,000 from a trust, which was established in 1991 to care for a woman with diminished capacity.  Other victims include a retired schoolteacher, a retired construction worker, and medical professionals. 

well-known insurers and state governments had expressed interest in Fallcatcher's technology. Ford allegedly told investors that this technology tracked patients receiving opioid addiction treatment to prevent medical billing fraud. The SEC further alleges that Ford showed investors a fabricated letter of interest from a prominent insurance company expressing an interest in starting a pilot program using Fallcatcher's technology. In reality, however, the SEC's complaint alleges that no insurers or state governments had ever expressed any interest in either Fallcatcher or its technology.

[S]lowinski and Rebuilding America allegedly told investors that Rebuilding America would pool investor proceeds to acquire, refurbish, and sell for profit residential real estate primarily located in the South Side of Chicago. Slowinski and Rebuilding America allegedly lured investors by touting Rebuilding America as a successful real estate program, and falsely promising to pay investors 38% returns in only two years. They allegedly raised more than $20 million from over 600 investors with assistance from London-based Project Kudos Group Limited and Singapore-based Infinity Treasures Private Limited.

According to the complaint, while Slowinski touted Rebuilding America's profitability, he hid from investors that between 34% and 42% of every investment dollar would be diverted, upfront, to Slowinski and other Rebuilding America principals in the form of undisclosed fees and commissions. Slowinski allegedly quickly realized that Rebuilding America's business model was untenable, and would not be able to repay investors as promised. Yet, Slowinski allegedly continued to solicit investors and accept the hidden fees. The SEC further alleges that Slowinski diverted more than $2.8 million of investor funds, which had been earmarked for construction on specific Rebuilding America projects, to improperly pay for his companies' payroll, overhead, and cost overruns on other projects.

[K]ucharski assisted her son, Brian Kucharski, in obtaining from publicly available websites personal identifying information of unsuspecting individuals, including their names and birthdates, and using that information to create fake eBay selling accounts. Brian Kucharski then used those accounts to negotiate the fraudulent sale of products, predominantly gift cards, through eBay, Inc. Unsuspecting eBay customers paid for ordered items through fraudulent PayPal accounts that Jolanta and Brian Kucharski had created. Brian Kucharski used the fraudulently obtained proceeds of the illegal activities to purchase precious metals, which were delivered to the Kucharskis through the U.S. mail.

Meanwhile, instead of mailing the purchased items to the eBay customers, Jolanta and Brian Kucharski also used the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to disguise their fraudulent activities, by mailing random items to other individuals and using the USPS tracking numbers for those items to represent to eBay customers, and eBay, that they had mailed the purchased eBay items. The customers never received their items, and their demands for refunds were routinely denied.

The scheme was uncovered when postal customers all over the United States received priority mail packages containing random items of no value and contacted their local police departments and post offices. U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigators then identified Brian and Jolanta Kucharski as the perpetrators of the eBay scheme.