Securities Industry Commentator by Bill Singer Esq

[I]m December 2012, Falcone established 3G'S, based in Bethpage and Farmingdale, New York, which among other products, distributed a single-serving, wine in a sealed glass that was featured on the television program "Shark Tank."  Between September 2014 and November 2015, Falcone solicited investments and promised potential investors that he would use their money to fund 3G'S, such as by purchasing the single-serving wine product.  Relying on those promises, investors wired funds from bank accounts in New York to bank accounts in Florida controlled by Falcone.  Rather than invest the money as promised, Falcone used about $527,064 of the investors' money to purchase a residence in Florida and to support his online securities trading. 

The victims, who believed that they had purchased technology support, were led to believe that money had been erroneously refunded to their bank accounts by the tech support company.  The victims were asked to return the erroneous refund and directed to send the money to the defendant and others. Some of the victims were told to send the money overseas.

The scheme was interrupted by Newport Police on November 20, 2018, when, as part of the investigation, detectives executed a court-authorized search of the residence of Jha and the other members of the conspiracy.

During the court-authorized search, Newport Police seized numerous items related to the operation of the telemarketing scheme. A subsequent investigation by members of the Newport Police Department and HSI agents determined that after the co-conspirators operating in Newport shared some of the proceeds of the scheme, large sums of money garnered from the scheme were transferred to a bank account in California. From there, the majority of funds were transferred internationally to India, China, and Singapore.

[B]etween approximately August 2016 through August 2017 he defrauded an individual ("Victim 1") out of a total of $141,000 after fraudulently convincing Victim 1 that he (Geiss) was a private equity investor seeking to make investments in Central New York. In doing so, Geiss used the alias, "Dom." In June 2017, Geiss defrauded another individual ("Victim 2") out of approximately $6,500 after fraudulently convincing Victim 2 to enter into a sales contract for heavy equipment belonging to Victim 1's company that Geiss purported to have the authority to sell (without Victim 1's knowledge). In August and September 2017, Geiss defrauded a third individual (Victim 3) out of $3,000 by convincing Victim 3 that he (Geiss) was in the final stages of negotiating the sale of a computer algorithm to a well-known multinational finance and insurance corporation in New York (the "Insurance Company"). As part of this fraud on Victim 3, Geiss forged e-mail messages and text messages from individuals (Victims 4 and 5) who actually worked for the Insurance Company but who had no knowledge of Geiss or his actions. These forged electronic communications formed the basis of the aggravated identity theft charges. Based on Geiss's assurances, including the forged electronic communications purportedly from Victims 4 and 5, Victim 3 sent $3,000 by wire to Victim 2 and $5,000 by wire to Victim 1, believing that paying them would facilitate the supposed transaction with the Insurance Company. In reality, Geiss had no pending deal with the Insurance Company and had Victim 3 make the payments in an attempt to keep Victim 1 and Victim 2 from realizing they had been defrauded.

Separate and apart from the schemes described above, Geiss also pled guilty today to defrauding people he met through the internet. As part of this guilty plea, Geiss admitted that he used the online alias, "Dominic LaRossa," to convince people that he was an airline pilot. Geiss, acting as the supposed "LaRossa," collected more than $5,000 from victims he met online in exchange for fake and fraudulent "discount" airline tickets, which did not exist. Geiss also defrauded several victims out of money in relation to an online video game platform, including convincing one individual (Victim 6) to purchase several online video game profiles from other people. Relying on Geiss's fraudulent assertions, Victim 6 paid a total of approximately $13,300 to purchase online video game profiles created by others, and Geiss never reimbursed, and never intended to reimburse, Victim 6.

[S]yed Arham Arbab, 22, conducted the fraud from a fraternity house near the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Georgia. Arbab allegedly offered investments in a purported hedge fund called "Artis Proficio Capital," which he claimed had generated returns of as much as 56% in the prior year and for which investor funds were guaranteed up to $15,000. Arbab also allegedly sold "bond agreements" which promised investors the return of their money along with a fixed rate of return. The SEC's complaint alleges that at least eight college students, recent graduates, or their family members invested more than $269,000 in these investments.

According to the SEC's complaint, no hedge fund existed, Arbab's claimed performance returns were fictitious, and he never invested the funds as represented. Instead, as money was raised, Arbab allegedly placed substantial portions of investor funds in his personal bank and brokerage accounts, which he used for his own benefit, including trips to Las Vegas, shopping, travel, and entertainment. Arbab also allegedly used portions of new investor money to pay earlier investors who had asked for their money back, the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. Arbab even instructed some new investors to send their money - unwittingly - to existing investors through payment applications such as Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App, and misleadingly told them that the existing investors were either a "partner" or "manager" in the fund.

[I]n his role as a vice president at the Investment Bank, JUNG had access to, among other materials, electronic files maintained on the Investment Bank's computer server, including files containing material nonpublic information ("MNPI") relating to various clients.

JUNG used his position at the Investment Bank to obtain MNPI about a number of the Investment Bank's clients and then, in multiple instances, JUNG used that MNPI to execute profitable securities trades.  In an effort to conceal this illicit trading, JUNG conducted these illegal trades through a brokerage account held in the name of another person (the "Brokerage Account").  In contravention of his employer's rules about outside investment accounts, including that such accounts be disclosed to the Investment Bank, JUNG secretly accessed, used, and traded in the Brokerage Account repeatedly between in or about 2015 and in or about 2017, including on hundreds of occasions when the account was accessed through IP addresses subscribed in JUNG's name.

From 2015 to 2016, MOORE and others partnered with Renwick Haddow, who is also a British citizen, in soliciting investments into workspace leases in a co-working business called Bar Works through material misrepresentations concerning, among other things, the identity of Bar Works' management.  Previously, Haddow had been disqualified as a director of any United Kingdom company for eight years, and was sued by the Financial Conduct Authority, a British regulator, for operating investment schemes that lost investors substantially all of their money.  These sanctions and lawsuit were publicized extensively online.

In order to conceal his role at Bar Works because of the negative publicity on the internet related to past investment schemes and government sanctions in the U.K., Haddow adopted the alias "Jonathan Black."  Notwithstanding Haddow's control over Bar Works, MOORE and others knowingly distributed the Bar Works offering materials listing Black as the Chief Executive Officer of Bar Works and claiming that Black had an extensive background in finance and past success with start-up companies.  As MOORE well knew, "Jonathan Black," was an entirely fictitious person, created to mask Haddow's control of Bar Works.  Among other things, MOORE helped devise pitch materials that contained the misrepresentation, coordinated a substantial sales force to recruit investors knowing that the materials contained the falsehood, advised Haddow as to how to continue to conceal the truth concerning the identity of "Jonathan Black," and affirmatively represented to agents for investors that he was communicating with CEO "Jonathan Black."  MOORE also received in excess of $1.6 million in commissions for his participation in the scheme.

Last month, U.S. Attorney Berman announced the unsealing of a guilty plea, on May 8, 2019, by Haddow in which he admitted to his own involvement in the fraudulent scheme related to Bar Works, as well as to making material misrepresentations and misappropriating investment funds in another company created by Haddow called Bitcoin Store Inc. ("Bitcoin Store"), and agreed to cooperate with the Government. . . 

Metatron, Inc. appeals from FINRA's denial of its request that FINRA process and announce a reverse stock split on FINRA's website.  FINRA found that Metatron's request was "deficient" under FINRA Rule 6490(d)(3)(2) because, in FINRA's view, Metatron was "not current in its reporting requirements, if applicable, to the [Commission]." To this point, the parties' briefs have focused on whether Metatron had, at the time of FINRA's action, reporting requirements as a result of filing a Form 10-SB in 2002 to register a class of its common stock notwithstanding its subsequent filing of a Form 15 to terminate that registration. However, it appears that Metatron may have had reporting requirements as a result of filing a Form S-8 registration statement in 2004 to register 3,000,000 shares of its common stock. We therefore request that the parties provide additional briefing to address this latter issue.

• Securities Industry Commentator
• Bill Singer